A CIVIL SERVANT is taking a government department to court today because he has been told to wear a collar and tie to work. Matthew Thompson is claiming sexual discrimination.

The Department for Work and Pensions dress code states that male employees must wear formal clothes, even though their women colleagues are free to dress as they please. Mr Thompson, who works at a JobCentre Plus office in Stockport, has said that women working with him are allowed to wear T-shirts.

“I seldom come into contact with the public,” he said yesterday. “My duties are post sorting, distributing computer printouts, photocopying and issuing documents internally and through the post to customers.” He added: “Women are not required to wear any specified items of clothing. The dress standard makes no sense. Why should I be threatened with the sack if I do not wear a tie?” He is taking the test case to an employment tribunal in Manchester and is backed by the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which has 39 cases ready to be pursued if his claim succeeds.

Dress codes at JobCentres were more relaxed in the past, but when the Employment Service merged with the Benefits Agency in April last year employees found themselves working under new rules. Some officers who had previously worn ties to work took the view that being obliged to do so was sexist, and took their ties off in protest.

David Burke, a union national officer, said that JobCentre Plus workers faced fines of up to 10 per cent of their salaries as well as dismissal for refusing to conform to the dress code. In some cases, workers had also been told that they could not apply for promotion unless they agreed to comply with the code.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions said that the dress code was part of a drive to provide improved services to the public. Staff were giving advice to jobseekers on how to dress for an interview, so it was appropriate that they should be smartly dressed themselves.

“It puts us on a level with banks and building societies,” she said. “We believe that the introduction of a dress code is a key factor in how our customers view the services we provide.”

Andrew James, the union’s solicitor, said: “The discriminatory application of the JobCentre Plus’s dress code is an important issue for PCS members. The dress code is being applied in a way that discriminates against men because they always have to wear a collar and tie, whereas their female colleagues do not have to wear tops of a similar businesslike appearance.”

Last year a PCS union shop steward, Dennis Fitzpatrick, of Birmingham, who had been banned from wearing jeans to work, defied his benefits office dress code by reporting for duty in a kilt, lumberjack shirt and a loud, multicoloured tie. Mr Fitzpatrick, who claims Scottish ancestry, said at the time: “They seem happy for me to go to work like this, even though I look a pillock.”

Offices in the City of London that had espoused “dressing down” for a more relaxed and informal atmosphere in the workplace have recently been returning to insistence upon suits and ties. Earlier this month J.P. Morgan told its London equity sales staff that they had to be smarter, complaining that dressing down had become a dressing collapse.

However, according to Richard Tomkins, a commentator on business dress, “the underlying trend in business wear is still towards the more comfortable and informal”.

DEBATE

Does the collar-and-tie rule amount to sexual discrimination?

E-mail your views to debate@thetimes.co.uk

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