The UK Supreme Court has recently ruled that as long as an organisation can prove a specific public interest justification (such as making it easier to recruit younger employees, being able to promote middle managers and being able to end a worker’s career with dignity), rather than just the commercial interest of the business, it is still legal to force workers to retire at the age of 65. This is despite the Government’s scrapping of the default retirement age. More on this story is available from the Daily Telegraph.
£1 billion funding gap for social investment
Civil Society Finance reports that there is a £1 billion gap in funding for social investment. UK organisations have met and discussed the barriers to social investment and will publish a report for Cabinet Office minister Nick Hurd in June 2012.
Council jobs cuts raise concerns over social care
CommunityCare.co.uk reports that councils in England and Wales have so far sliced £1.4 billion from the their annual pay bill, mainly by reducing staff numbers. The reductions have been achieved through voluntary redundancy and not replacing workers who leave. The main concern is that the volume of work is increasing (as more people live longer and thus need more care) at the same time that the number of workers are decreasing.