Age considerations affect hiring decisions in 85 per cent of workplaces, according to a poll from Monster, the recruitment agency.

Monster surveyed 977 employees to find out whether they thought that ageism existed in their workplaces.

There are laws in place in the UK to protect against sex, race, religious and disability discrimination, but there is currently no legislation that outlaws ageism, only a voluntary Code of Practice introduced in 1999.

Over 60 per cent of respondents said that age was a factor when considering candidates for a post. The figure last year was 87 per cent, so some improvement has been made. Just over 20 per cent said that ageism occurred ‘a bit’ and 15 per cent said that people of all ages were given equal consideration for positions.

Over six million people aged between 50 and state pension age are in employment in the UK, and the figure is set to rise as longevity increases and pensions pressure forces people to stay in employment for longer.

Age discrimination legislation is set to come into force on October 2006, making it illegal to unfairly discriminate on the grounds of age.

Sajda Khan, equality and diversity manager at Monster, said: “Our latest poll indicates that ageism is still an issue that needs to be addressed in UK firms – the new legislation coming into force next year will emphasise that.

“There are already some excellent examples of organisations which have been very proactive in this area.

“For example, Asda is one retailer that has aimed to recruit people of all ages as it realised its shoppers come from a broad range of categories, young and old.”

Royal Mail claims that it has saved some £3.2 million by cutting sickness absence through the introduction of an anti-bullying and harassment scheme.

The figures have been calculated on the assumption that 80 per cent of sickness absence is directly related to how people are treated at work.

Since the scheme was introduced 18 months ago, the number of reported incidents of bullying in the company has fallen by two per cent.

Managers and senior managers were given ‘awareness training’, including a day at a diversity development centre. All other employees received four hours training in how to challenge and report unacceptable behaviour.

Following the introduction of the scheme, complaints of bullying initially increased.

Satya Kartara, director of diversity and inclusion at Royal Mail, said: “When you start to raise awareness and make it easy for people to complain, and support them when they do, people will come out of the woodwork. But over the next two years we expect to see these figures decrease.”

The Royal Mail’s induction programme now includes diversity training and a harassment investigation team with 21 members has been established to investigate more complex cases.

The popularity of flexible working arrangements has been underlined in a survey from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas).

The survey revealed that the number of employers offering flexible working has almost doubled in the last six years. The proportion of firms offering homeworking was up from 16 per cent to 28 per cent whilst the proportion offering term-time only working leapt from 14 to 28 per cent.

Employees were also much more likely to be able to take leave to help with their work life balance, with the proportion of employers offering paid parental leave up from 48 to 92 per cent and the proportion offering special paid leave in emergencies up from 24 to 31 per cent.

Acas Chair Rita Donaghy, said: “I believe that good employment relations are the key to business success so this is good news for employers and employees. Flexible working helps employees to handle responsibilities such as childcare and caring for others while still carrying out their job effectively and employers benefit from keeping the service of good employees that they might otherwise lose.”

Employers are being urged to develop strong absence monitoring procedures to deal with the increasing problem of workers taking unnecessary days off work, pretending to be ill.

Research by law firm Peninsula found that 94 per cent of the 900 employees surveyed had taken at least one sick day when they were not sick.

Employers are also finding it increasingly difficult to identify genuine absence. 91 per cent said that they struggled to do this.

Ben Wilmott, employee relations adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, commented: “It is not surprising that many employees have had a day off for non-genuine sickness at some point in their careers, but I don’t think it shows a real culture of sickness absence in the UK.

“What is clear is that time taken off through illness is costly to employers – our research shows it costs £588 per employee per year.”

Mr Wilmott advised firms to have a solid structure in place to monitor absence. “Employers need to put systems in place to ensure frequent short-term absences are picked up. They also need policies stating that employees are expected to call in by a certain time if they can’t work and ‘return-to-work’ interviews are also a good idea.

“These allow the employer and employee to discuss any underlying problems, such as work-life balance, stress or workload, for example.”

Judges in England will find complaints against them being investigated by an ombudsman from April 2006.

The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) has announced the creation of the ombudsman role, together with that of an Office for Judicial Complaints (OJC) with responsibility for disciplinary proceedings relating to judicial conduct. The ombudsman will review OJC procedure and decisions as part of Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer of Thoroton’s plans to safeguard judicial transparency. The launch of the new posts are timed to coincide with that of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) following the passing of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

It is hoped that the new system will be an improvement on the current one in terms of performance. Despite receiving 250 allegations of judicial misconduct in 2004, the Judicial Correspondence Unit only referred 11 for judicial investigation. The selection process for the 15-strong JAC members has already commenced, while the DCA is advertising for applicants for the ombudsman post, which will be independent from the law and judiciary and attract a £50,000 salary for two days’ work per week.

Employers must be given more legal and financial support in dealing with pregnant staff to prevent them breaching discrimination rules and losing £100 million each year in lost staff, according to the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).

The EOC claims that almost 50 per cent of the 440,000 women who work during pregnancy each year experience some form of discrimination by their employer. Around 30,000 women lose their jobs as a result of their pregnancy.

In a report, the EOC said: “We were stunned at the number of women who said they had been dismissed, demoted, denied training or promotion, or bullied into quitting, just because of their pregnancy.”

Business ignorance is largely to blame for discrimination according to the EOC. In its survey of over 1,000 employers, ‘virtually all’ claimed to support female staff during and after their pregnancy, but over 25 per cent were unable to name a single maternity entitlement.

Businesses reacted sceptically to the alleged extent of the discrimination.

Susan Anderson, director of human resources policy at the CBI, argued that many employers were “trying their level best to accommodate the needs of pregnant employees”.

Stephen Alambritis from the Federation of Small Businesses said that many incidents of discrimination were only perceived to be so, and highlighted the difference between such disputes and the 1,000 annual pregnancy-related employment tribunal cases.

Firms blamed the Government for much of the uncertainty of organisations on how to treat pregnant staff, and welcomed the EOC’s recommendation that the state should provide financial support to employers with less than 10 staff to help them manage maternity leave.

The gap between the number of sick days taken by workers in the public and private sectors is the widest for four years, according to a study from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

The study claimed that public sector workers are under increased stress due to Government targets, which have an impact on workers in the police force, teaching, social services and care, resulting in more sick days being taken.

Average yearly absence levels in the public sector rose to 10.3 days per employee against 6.8 days in the private sector, according to the study.

The Confederation of British Industry calculated that taxpayers would have saved around £1.2 billion if public sector absences fell to the levels in the private sector.

Almost half of public sector bodies said that stress was the primary cause of long-term absence for non-manual workers, and more than 40 per cent said that stress levels had risen in the past year.

Ben Wilmott, employee relations adviser, said: “There is a high proportion of particularly challenging public-facing roles in the public sector which contribute to higher than average levels of absence.”

Overall absences levels fell to their lowest level since the survey started in 2000 to 8.4 days per employee per year.

Employers who wish to forcestaff to retire at 65 will be required to give at least six months notice and brief workers on their right to appeal under new proposals to comply with an EU employment directive.

Under the proposals, which will be put forward for consultation shortly, firms that fail to follow appropriate procedures could be directed to pay compensation by employment tribunals.

If the plans are approved, employers would be obliged to reconsider retirement decisions if requested by workers aged 65 and over, and would have to give sound business reasons for the retirement of the worker.

The rules must be implemented by next autumn to comply with the EU Directive, aimed at preventing age discrimination at work.

Gordon Lischman, Age Concern director, commented: “Forced retirement can come like a bolt out of the blue for many older workers. Age Concern has been calling on the government to ensure that employers give at least one year’s notice before they are out of a job.

“This would make a difference to older workers, giving them a chance to take stock, plan ahead and look for other work if they need to.”

However, the plans were not welcomed by everyone. The Employers Forum on Age (EFA) expressed concern that firms which allow workers to continue after normal retirement age would face significant increases in employment insurance premiums and healthcare and death in service benefits, which rise sharply after the age of 65.

Sam Mercer, EFA director, said: “Employers should be allowed to offer reduced benefits to older workers – otherwise there will be a disincentive to keep valuable staff after the age of 65, which is in nobody’s interest.”

The Government and business must adapt to Britain’s fast-changing workplace, according to Julie Mellor, who is soon to leave her post as chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).

Ms Mellor, in a parting shot to the Government before she takes up a new position with PricewaterhouseCoopers, argues that Britain is going through a ‘quiet revolution’ at work. She says that, with life expectancy increasing and more and more people requiring carers in old-age, Britain’s economy is ‘old-fashioned’ and is not adapting to the changing needs of society.

Ms Mellor says that she is impatient with the slow progress on closing the pay gap, but acknowledges that a ‘huge step forward’ has been made in relation to childcare. However, she compares Britain’s flexible working practice with the Netherlands, which offers such working at every level of the economy and has an average pay difference between women working part-time and working full-time of only 7 per cent; compared to Britain’s 18 per cent. She argues that Britain’s part-time work is not very flexible and is a waste of resources.

To tackle the problem of flexible and part-time working, Ms Mellor says that the government’s ‘challenge’ is to reshape the welfare state to support 21st century, modern families and for business, it is to ‘reshape’ the workplace for the workforce that they are going to need in the future.

She argues the case for social care, fearing that neither the government nor employers are keeping up with demographic changes and the increasing number of people having to care for elderly parents.

A whistleblowing prison officer has been awarded £477,600 in compensation after winning a claim for unfair dismissal.

Carol Lingard reported alleged bullying and abuse of inmates at the prison and was treated as a “grass”. In particular her claims centred on one prison officer who, she claimed, had warned a sex offender that he could be “slashed” by other prisoners if he was found to have images of children. Mrs Lingard then alleged that the officer planted material in the prisoner’s cell. Further allegations were made against the same officer.

An initial investigation found “no evidence” to support the allegations, but this was dismissed by the employment tribunal as “poor” and “not professional”.

Mrs Lingard approached the prison governor and Prison Standards Unit (PSU), but her complaint was not taken further.

Prison Service director, Phil Wheatley, apologised to Ms Lingard and acknowledged that PSU, established under whistleblowing legislation, and his deputy had failed to deal properly with the allegations. The Prison Service has accepted the tribunal’s recommendation to review the PSU.

John Sturzaker, solicitor for Mrs Lingard said: “Her concerns and complaints were mishandled appallingly and she felt she had to resign from her post. Mrs Lingard has now been completely vindicated by this tribunal.”

The award is believed to be the highest for a public sector claim.

Forum of Private Business (FPB), has criticised the Equal Opportunity Commission’s proposal to double paternity leave, saying that small firms should be left to manage the issue themselves.

The Equal Opportunities Commission proposes to increase paternity leave from two weeks with statutory paternity pay of £106 a week, to four weeks at £200 a week.

However, the FPB believes that the proposal would have a negative impact on small firms. A spokesperson said: “Losing a key worker for a long period, who fundamentally understands what makes the firm tick, can seriously undermine business. The Government does not need to legislate on this issue. Employers are prepared to strike deals with their employees to ensure that they are treated fairly. They can manage the issue themselves, legislation is unhelpful and disruptive.”

The Government is proposing an extension of maternity leave to 39 weeks by April 2007, as well as allowing a portion of maternity leave to be transferred to the father.