§ Mr. HancockTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many Inland Revenue staff were required to retire before their contractual retirement age in each of the last three years. [62495]
§ Dawn PrimaroloThe Inland Revenue has a contractual retirement age of 60, regardless of gender or grade, and this has been in place for many years. There are a number of retirement schemes, the majority of which are voluntary. If a member of staff was required to retire, it would be under the compulsory retirement or severance schemes, or if medical grounds were involved, under the ill health retirement scheme.
There have been no compulsory redundancies or severances in the last three financial years, nor any to date in the current year. The number of ill health retirements are detailed in the table.
Number of ill health retirements of Inland Revenue staff Year Number 1995–96 396 1996–97 373 1997–98 376 1998–99 149 As is the case for all Civil Service ill health retirements, these must be approved by BMI Health Services. It is not possible to distinguish between people who requested to retire on ill health grounds and those who were required to do so. It is probable that those who requested to retire would be in the majority.