I have an employee in my team who has been with the company 4 years. He was apparently not asked his age at interview stage, company policy is to retire at age 65 (but this has never been invoked) which he discovered only after commencing the job. It has taken 4 years for Revenue & Customs to catch up & realise he should not be paying ees NI as he is in fact now 69 years old. He only ‘came clean’ when R&C letter was received by the company.
Now what do we do?
Do we give him 6 months notice to retirement? He is a disruptive influence in the team so I have no desire to keep him but one of the directors is concerned that by retiring this employee we will absolutely need to retire ALL employees on reaching retirement age.
Also our life assurance policy only covers to age 65 so he has actually never been covered. His contract says life assurance is available – are we going to have to pay through the nose to get him cover if we keep him on? Do we have to provide cover as we were unaware of his age?
Alison Hill