Building a society for all ages
As a country we are living through an enormous demographic change. This has now reached a tipping point with pensioners outnumbering children for the first time. A quarter of all children born today are expected to live to reach 100 years old. This is a challenge, but also an opportunity. Building a Society for All Ages is the Government's strategy for how we as a society make the most of this change. It develops the Government's 2005 strategy, Opportunity Age [DWP website] which has now largely been delivered. It builds on a solid foundation of recent reforms to the pensions and health systems for older people.
The strategy is available online in PDF. If you would like a hard copy or you require this document in an alternative format please email allages@hmg.gov.uk
This strategy already draws upon extensive debate and discussion over the last year. It's publication now marks the next stage in the process towards our goal as we start a national debate about how we can make it a reality.
The strategy was developed through debate and discussion with organisations in the private and voluntary sectors and members of the public. We consider it vital to their success that members of the public and other interested bodies should continue to be able to shape their development and implementation. To support this, we included a number of consultation questions in Building a Society for All Ages. We also held discussion events with the UK Advisory Forum on Ageing and over 600 members of the public across England and Wales.
We have now published a consultation response which provides a summary of what we have heard both in written responses to the consultation questions and at consultation events. It also provides an update on how the initiatives set out in the Strategy have developed as a result of this feedback.
