Under the DRA provisions, employers must give a minimum of six months’ notice of retirement but no more than twelve months’ notice.
Retirements notified on or before 5 April 2011 can continue to the end of the given notice period (12 months), provided certain conditions are met. These are:

• the statutory procedures set out in the 2006 Regulations must be followed. These include notifying the employee that he or she has the right to request to continue working beyond either the default retirement age – or the normal retirement age where your business has in place a higher normal retirement age. Employers have a duty to give serious consideration to such a request; and

• the employee must turn 65 or reach the higher normal retirement age before 30 September 2011.

The draft 2011 Regulations also repeal the provision allowing short (two weeks’) notice of retirement. Short notifications will therefore no longer be permitted on or after 6 April 2011.

The previous anomaly in the wording of the draft 2011 Regulations, whereby an employer could only retire an employee who turns 65 between 6 April and 30 September and which seemed to exclude the possibility of retiring employees who are already over 65 before 5 April 2011, has now been corrected.

Please note also that the ability to agree a 6 month extension without having to serve notice of a new intended retirement date has also been preserved.

Practical example:

Employer A has a normal retirement age of 65. John is 65 in July 2011. A can on 5th April 2011 serve John with a 12 month notice of an intended retirement date of 5th April 2012. John can issue a notice requesting to work beyond his intended retirement date, no later than 3 months prior to this, so by 4th January 2012. A would need to consider the request. A could agree a 5 month extension to 5th September 2012 without having to serve a new notice. If A agreed an extension of 7 months, to 5th November 2012, A would need to serve a new notice, and would not therefore be able to insist on John's retirement on that date, because the ability to serve a new notice under the DRA procedure will have been abolished.