FAS CE: Employer refuses to hire on grounds that employee does not live local.

Can an employer give the fact that one does not live local as a reason for not employing someone under a fas ce scheme? Is that in breach of equality legislation 'your cv is excellent but we need someone local who can be a keyholder in case of alarm emergency'

Re: FAS CE question

My first reaction would be to suspect that this is a contrived excuse -- or, at best, an unreasonable requirement. Is it a reasonable expectation that somebody employed on the terms of a CE scheme be expected to act as a keyholder?

Re: FAS CE question

Thanks for your reply

Padraigb said:

My first reaction would be to suspect that this is a contrived excuse -- or, at best, an unreasonable requirement.

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i would think so but wheter it would be illegal under employment law

Is it a reasonable expectation that somebody employed on the terms of a CE scheme be expected to act as a keyholder?

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I honestly don't know, I do know there was only one CE person employed there so maybe it is reasonable

Re: FAS CE question

I can't say (because I am not an expert) if it is contrary to law. Unreasonableness in recruitment generally is.

I would start with the job advertisement. Is acting as a keyholder a specified (or clearly implied) duty? If not, then to use availability for such a function is unfair.

If such a duty is in the advertisement, I suspect that FAS might rule that it is beyond the reasonable scope of the scheme, and they might not approve an appointment decided on such a basis.

Re: FAS CE question

Equality legislation has 9 categories under which one cannot discriminate:

Race
membership of the travelling community
gender
sexual orientation
family status
marital status
religion
disability
age


It is perfectly acceptable under the equality legislation to discriminate under other grounds e.g. competence, commuting distance, living in a rough neighbourhood, colour of a person's hair etc.

Re: FAS CE question

I would suggest that you contact FAS. Sometimes CE workers take on more duties than are covered in their terms of employment and then these extra duties are accepted as the norm by the employer. There is the question of insurance for the keyholder. Who is held liable if there is a break-in at the premises?(apart from the intruders!!) Are keyholders expected to be "on call"?. How is this resolved if FAS CE staff are employed for a set number of hours per week/fortnight. Perhaps the job specification may have to be amended if the employer is acting outside of his remit regarding CE duties, even if he/she is taking the advice of the security company regarding place of residence of keyholder/s. I have googled a few security sites and the security companies do suggest that the keyholder/s live within 20/30 minutes of the premises of the secured premises.

Bet you'd like to find out what is the true situation.

Best of luck Jane.

Re: FAS CE question

Moved from askaboutlaw to Work, Careers etc.

Re: FAS CE question

Brendan said:

It is perfectly acceptable under the equality legislation to discriminate under other grounds e.g. competence, commuting distance, living in a rough neighbourhood, colour of a person's hair etc.

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I have already made it clear that I am not an expert in matters like this, but I am fairly confident that the requirements for filling posts funded by the exchequer amount to a bit more than complying with the Equality Act.

Funding through FAS for CE schemes is subject to conditions. It is some years since I was involved, but I think it is worth ascertaining what the current rules are.

Brendan is right of course, on the grounds on which one cannot discriminate. Discrimination on other grounds for a valid reason may be reasonable.

I applied for a local authority job a few year ago - and the ad stipulated that ideally the prospective employee would live within that local authority boundary - or not very far from it.

I thought at the time they were goal was a workforce with an even work/life balance - in other words that the commute time wouldn't be too much.

So, like Padraig said, what did the ad/job spec. say?