As promotion to wg cdr is pretty much dependant on passing the ASC
Strange that most of the RAF students on the current ACSC are already wg cdrs and that there are more promotions to wg cdr each year than there are places on AST/HILAC then!
There is legislation emerging within Europe to prevent discrimination on the grounds of age. However, the UK identified this early, lobbied fellow armed forces and managed to get an exemption for the Armed Forces written into the legislation at drafting stage within Europe. It also managed to secure the continued Armed Forces' exemption from the employment provisions of disability discrimination legislation in Europe. Something that the
Maragaret Hodge , aptly the MP for Barking, was trying (unsuccesfully) to get removed from UK legislation. You can see her point, I suppose, I mean the Royal Marines do have wheelchair ramps on the front of some of their boats!
These are real exemptions written into legislation. Therefore, they are not like the ones we thought we had in the 70s/80s when we (on legal advice) belived we were exempt becuase the Military Procurement had an exemption from European competition rules.