Employment services: paragraph 5
Effect
800.This paragraph makes it lawful for an employment service-provider to restrict a service to people with a particular protected characteristic if the treatment relates either to work for which having that characteristic is an occupational requirement, or to training for such work.
801.The service-provider can rely on the exception by showing that he or she reasonably relied on a statement from a person who could offer the work in question that having the particular characteristic was an occupational requirement. It is, however, a criminal offence for such a person to make a statement of that kind which they know to be false or misleading.
Background
802.This paragraph is designed to replicate the effect of provisions in previous legislation.
Example
The provider of a Catholic theological training course required exclusively for those training to be Catholic priests may limit access to the course to Catholics because the training relates to work the offer of which can be limited to Catholics by virtue of an occupational requirement.
