§ Linda PerhamTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Code of Practice on age discrimination in the workplace. [156084]
§ Malcolm WicksThe Code of Practice was launched in 1999 and an initial evaluation of its impact was, undertaken in 2001. This showed that the number of companies using age in recruitment had fallen from 27 per cent. to 13 per cent., awareness of the Code had risen from 14 per cent. to 37 per cent. and the number of companies having a policy against employing older workers had dropped from 14 per cent. to 7 per cent. Since then we have continued to promote the business case for recruiting, training and retaining older workers through the Age Positive, campaign and website, www.agepositive.gov[...]uk. We are commissioning more research with employers this year to further assess the impact of the campaign.
In December 2002, we published an updated version of the Code of Practice 'Age Diversity at work: a practical guide for business' which sets out the standards for non-ageist approaches to recruitment, training, promotion, redundancy and retirement. The campaign, which since last year has included enhanced promotion in Wales and Scotland, has been attracting considerable media coverage. This has resulted in a considerable increase in employer interest across the whole of Great Britain, as well as much increased traffic to the website. A sample survey of employers undertaken by Cranfield School of Management in 2003 indicated that a third of employers believe they have non-ageist policies in place and a further third were planning to adopt non-ageist policies within the coming two years. Copies of the survey have been placed in the Library.