Regulation and policy update: 23 August 2006

Our monthly update, supplied by the Construction Products Association and Construction Confederation, provides your business with the latest information on new regulations.

Retirement dismissals: Transitional arrangements

The Age Discrimination Regulations, due to come into force on 1 October 2006, introduce a number of new requirements with regard to retirement.

Firstly the government has set a default retirement age of 65 - to be reviewed in 2011. In the meantime employers will still be able to insist on employees retiring at age 65 but will need to follow a new and formal procedure. This procedure requires that the employer writes to the employee not more than 12, but not less than six months before the planned retirement date.

Because of the long period of pre-notification, it has been necessary to introduce "transitional" arrangements for retirements that occur on or after 1 October 2006 but before 1 April 2007. Retirements on or after 1 April 2007 will be subject to the full new procedure requiring at least six months written notice.

It is possible for employers to set a retirement age above 65 but a compulsory retirement age below age 65 can only be set if it has been "objectively justified". In practice this will be quite difficult and therefore the vast majority of retirements will occur at age 65 or above.

It should be noted that from 1 October 2006 the 65-year age cap on making a complaint to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal or a redundancy payment will be removed and therefore employers will become vulnerable to such complaints from employees irrespective of age.

A fundamental entitlement of the new regulations is the right for an employee to request not to be retired. Faced with such a request the employer is required to conduct a meeting with the employee and give the request serious consideration. However, the employer does have to give a reason if he decides to refuse the request but must give the employee the right of appeal. Appeals can be heard after retirement has taken place.

The "transitional" arrangements are designed to ensure that employees retiring between 1 October 2006 and 31 March 2007 are advised of the right to request not be retired and have the opportunity of exercising this right.

Energy Efficiency Commitment

The Energy Efficiency Commitment (EEC) imposes a statutory obligation upon electricity and gas suppliers to meet a target for the promotion of improvements in energy efficiency among household consumers by promoting measures such as cavity wall and loft insulation, energy efficiency light bulbs, boilers and appliances.

The first EEC period ran from 2002-2005 and delivered 0.37MtC per annum in 2010, the second period is running from 2005-2008 and is required to double the level of activity, and the third period from 2008-2011is expected to deliver between 0.9 – 1.2 MtC per year by 2010.

The government is requesting views from stakeholders in advance of its consultation in 2007, for targets for the third Energy Efficiency Commitment period. This is particularly in light of recent changes brought in by the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006, which requires carbon reduction targets to be set instead of the current energy efficiency targets.

One of the other options being considered by the government is whether the EEC obligation on energy suppliers could change after 2011, from the current measures-based approach to one with tradable targets defined in terms of absolute carbon or energy demand. The deadline for comments is Monday 23 October 2006. This initial consultation document is available from http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/eec3/consultation.pdf

By-Products Definition

Following the launch of the EU Thematic Strategy on Waste Prevention and Recycling, there have been a number of recent activities that relate to waste and its definitions. One of these relates to the publication of guidelines "addressing the issues of by-products in relevant industry sectors, on when by-products should or should not be considered as waste in order to clarify the legal situation for economic operators and competent authorities".

The Commission is now inviting case studies, by 2 October, from stakeholders to help develop definitions to distinguish between ‘waste’ and ‘by-products’. Full details are available from http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/strategy.htm.

The Construction Products Association is working closely with the Commission and Defra to ensure a definition emerges that is consistent with the objective of reducing the environmental impact of the construction industry. There are cases where the lack of a clear unambiguous definition has led to inconsistent enforcement of the waste legislation.

More recently we have seen examples of where companies, as part of their PPC application, are being faced with the Environment Agency classifying ‘by-products’ as ‘waste’ in advance of this debate.

This is an important issue for the industry with long-term implications and the construction industry is being encouraged to submit its examples of where enforcement of waste policy in areas where these should be deemed ‘by-products’ has had an adverse environmental impact.

Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment

After months of consultation with industry, government and education providers, the content of the new Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment has been published.

The ‘Construction Diploma’ is one of five scheduled to come on line in 2008, and will offer 14-19 year olds a greater choice in the courses, subjects and qualifications they can take.

Considerable emphasis in the mandate is on the role employers will play in delivering the qualification. For full details of information contained in the diploma content mandate document visit: http://www.cbediploma.co.uk .

The development of diploma qualifications will continue until May 2007.

Construction Products Association comment: Building Regulations – Review of Part G, Hygiene

Availability of water is becoming a major issue particularly in the south-east of England where significant future development is planned in the Thames Gateway and the other growth areas. The government had intended to release the consultation document on its proposed amendments to Part G of the Building Regulations aimed at tightening up on water use before the Summer Recess, but just before Parliament rose, Ministers announced the consultation document was being delayed until later in the summer.

The consultation document will have significant implications for the manufacturers of bathroom and related equipment, and the biggest challenge will be reducing the amount of water used without consumers being disappointed by the performance of their fittings. An approach which is prescriptive about the type of taps or shower heads to be used is not considered by manufacturers to be the right solution. Significant reductions in flow rates could lead to such a level of consumer dissatisfaction that they replace the supplied appliances with ones more to their liking – hardly a sustainable solution. Further tightening of the flush volumes of WCs is also a difficult challenge as these regulations have already been tightened by more than a third in the last 15 years, and we currently have the toughest test requirements of any of the European member states.

What the construction products industry would like to see is a ‘whole building’ approach. This would allow designers/specifiers to decide the priorities for particular properties when, say, the use of showers can be offset by savings elsewhere. Above all, what manufacturers and suppliers want to see is a sensible transition to any new regime so that the products that are needed are readily available.

[Contract Journal, 23 August 2006, p 21]