ANN STAMPER, gallery assistant at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, is one of the oldest employees in the public sector. She took the job when she was 68. Now 71, she still has no idea when she will quit because her employer has taken the radical step of abolishing the retirement age.

Could her second career be the shape of public-sector jobs to come as a generation of oldies press on with the work they love or find retiring is no option because they have an inadequate pension? “I will keep going as long as possible because working is of huge benefit to me,” said Stamper, a retired school head teacher. “It stretches me intellectually, I use my memory to give talks to visitors to the gallery, and I have lots of contact with people. I love it.”

Gallery assistants at the museum earn between £10,500 and £15,000 a year for a 37½-hour working week.

Retirement for Stamper and her gallery colleague Maurice Spencer — who is also 71 and has worked full-time at the museum since he was 60 — will come when they wish it or when their performance declines, as measured by annual assessments. Otherwise, the museum will put no pressure on them to go.

Now campaigners want other public bodies to follow the museum’s lead and do away with the retirement age in the public sector altogether, rather than wait for legislation.

The government has to legislate by the end of next year to comply with a new EU employment directive outlawing age discrimination in employment and vocational training.

Ministers are expected to publish draft regulations for consultation this summer — at least a year later than originally intended. They will probably come into effect on October 1, 2006.

Last December the Department of Trade and Industry announced that it aimed to set a default retirement age of 65 and create a right for employees to request to work beyond a compulsory retirement age. At present the average retirement age in the public sector is about 60, three years lower than in the private sector.

“People will no longer be required to retire before 65 unless their employer has proper justification,” said the DTI. “The right to request to work beyond retirement age will help to engender a culture change, taking us towards a world where fixed retirement ages are consigned to the past.”

However, this month a report from the Recruitment Confidence Index said employers were failing to gear up for the coming legislation on ageism.

Its study of nearly 1,500 employers found only 39% had introduced age policies at work, with a further one in four planning to introduce them over the next 12 months. But nearly one in three had no clear plans according to the survey, a quarterly sounding of directors and managers by Cranfield School of Management.

Shaun Tyson, professor of human-resource management at Cranfield, said: “For a sizeable minority of employers, ageism is a non-issue. But they are making a big mistake because attitudes to age are not just about compliance with the law, but about the availability of high-quality people in the workforce. Good people come in every race, gender and age.”

Lobby groups such as the Third Age Employment Network (020 7843 1590), say there is a good case for doing away with the mandatory retirement age unilaterally.

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