More of us are living longer than ever before. This is not a new phenomenon – life expectancy has been growing steadily for over a century, but the UK has just passed a demographic tipping point. In 2007 for the first time in the UK there were more people over State Pension age than children; an ageing society is no longer coming tomorrow – it is here with us today.
More people living longer lives is a cause for celebration. It is a direct result of enormous progress over the past 60 years. However, we recognise that the changes will fundamentally reshape our families and communities so our society must adapt to make the most of this new reality. We need to act now to take advantage of the opportunities that come with the change.
Improving the quality of current older people’s lives has long been a priority for this Government. While there is still more to do, there have been real improvements since 1997. For the first time pensioners are now less likely than others to be in poverty. Older people have more opportunities to keep working if they want to – over 1.3 million people over State Pension age now have a job. They have been the fastest growing group in employment and report high levels of job satisfaction. Beyond the world of work, life expectancy has continued to grow by around 2 years a decade, and improvements in health waiting times and treatments has helped ensure that three quarters of these extra years are spent in good or fairly good health.
We will need to build on this progress so that we can address the challenges and make the most of the opportunities of demographic change. To do this properly, we need a major cultural shift, to build our vision of a society for all ages – where people are not defined by their age, and prejudice does not prevent us from fully harnessing the skills and experience of our older population.
The Government is already putting in place the fundamental foundations for this cultural shift. Two Pension Acts have made saving for retirement fairer and easier than ever before, opening the way for more people to provide for their future. The current Equality Bill will outlaw unjustified discrimination on the basis of age in the provision of goods and services, and the Care and Support Green Paper to be published shortly will address the care needs of an ageing population. However, the change we aspire to will not be achieved by legislation alone. It requires a shift in attitude and behaviour across society so that old age is no longer perceived as a time of dependency and exclusion.
This strategy sets out a programme of action to support the changes for individuals, for families, for the workplace and economy and for public services and communities; a strategy to move us closer to a true society for all ages.
Good planning and preparation can have a huge impact on the quality of later life, making sure that people have the financial security and social support networks they need to make the most of their time, yet many people find it difficult to look ahead. Our new interactive ‘one stop shop’ for helping people planning ahead will make it easier for people in mid-life to make decisions they need to on a range of issues such as their financial affairs and health concerns.
There is a wide variety of activities that people can take advantage of as they get older - sporting, educational or social, and the benefits range from helping people make new friends, maintaining or improving their health and fitness to taking the chance to develop new skills. However, as people do not always know what is available or perhaps lack the confidence to explore new horizons, the new Active at 60 package will provide people approaching their 60th birthdays with information about their entitlements and opportunities, such as the free swimming initiative launched this year. To help increase participation, we will work with local authorities to use smartcard technology to provide all-in-one cards. This will give access to a range of local activities, and we will commission the national governing bodies of sport to create a world leading community sport system and organise a high level conference to encourage participation by people over 50. We will also bring in targeted proposals to help people make the most of learning opportunities in their later years, including a £20 million learning transformation fund to test new ideas to give everyone access to informal learning, such as opening up empty shops to host learning events on high streets.
We recognise that getting older is not just going to affect the individual. As we age, our family structures are going to change too. More active grandparents will have the chance to play a greater role in their families’ lives, but more people will be caring for their older relatives too.
Because we want to make sure that we can support these changes, we will publish a Families and Relationships Green Paper in the autumn to look at how we can better support family members. Part of the changing relationships will depend on making sure different generations have the opportunity and ability to keep in touch with each other, which is why we will run digital inclusion projects, targeted at giving people in sheltered housing access to new technology.
We believe the care of older people is as important as the care of children, so to support all carers we are enabling them to take up training opportunities through Jobcentre Plus, with £38 million to enable advisors to specifically address their needs. One particular feature of caring that will become ever more significant is the role of grandparents who increasingly will be looking after grandchildren. There are also increasing demands on a ‘sandwich generation’ who look after both children and older relatives. To address these more complex issues and needs a grandparents summit in the autumn will look at the changing role of grandparents and what extra help they may need.
Increasing numbers of people are going to want to take advantage of their longer active lives and keep working. Whether they want to boost their income or keep enjoying the autonomy and sense of worth that comes with work, it will be important to allow those who want to, to keep working for longer. There is also the significant benefit to business of tapping in to the experience and commitment that older people can bring. We will bring forward the review of the Default Retirement Age to 2010, to reflect the change in economic circumstances since it was introduced. In addition to providing advice to businesses on employing older workers, and information to people who wish to continue working on the options available to them, we will also promote flexible opportunities in teaching, tutoring and for 50+ self-employment, and test ways of preventing people having to leave work because of ill-health. The Age Positive initiative will continue to raise awareness of training opportunities and help to improve employer attitudes to older workers.
Demographic change also presents opportunities for businesses to respond to emerging markets and identify how products and services can be better designed to be appropriate for everyone, regardless of age. An Innovation and Growth Team, of experts from academia, business and the age sector, alongside an Age Design Programme, will help to identify and promote these business opportunities to companies and Government and promote age-inclusive design and services.
One of the most significant potential barriers to people living a happy and fulfilled later life is uncertainty about the financial future. The Government’s state pension reforms, which came into effect from 2020 will ensure that people have a solid foundation on which to save for their retirement by tackling the historic inequalities in the system and reintroducing the link between the basic State Pension and earnings in 2012 or by the end of the next Parliament at the latest.
Reforms to the private pension system coming into effect in 2012 will produce a sea of change in the way that millions of people approach saving and planning for their retirement. The reforms will introduce easily accessible pensions which people will automatically enter on taking a job with their own money being boosted by contributions from the government and their employer. But we also recognise the need to continue to protect poorer pensioners whose financial future is not so secure. We are taking powers in the Welfare reform Bill to explore if there are ways in which we can use the information we have to improve take up of pension credit.
Even with a full and fulfilling social life, better community and family networks and a more secure financial future, a society for all ages will need to recognise older people’s needs in the way it provides public services. Part of this is to be smarter with interventions, offering help to solve problems before they begin, which is why a new health prevention package later this year will raise the focus on preventative services for conditions that often affect people in later life, including footcare, falls prevention, continence care, depression and arthritis. The Government’s Care and Support Green Paper, to be published shortly, will also set out a new vision for the future of social care and support, explain how services will change to deliver the vision, and suggest options for a fairer and more sustainable funding system.
It is more than just health services; there will be a range of different services that need to be appropriate for everyone, regardless of age. We will develop a Good Place to Grow Old Programme with a national agreement to promote the importance of ageing issues at a local level, and provide funding to test new and innovative approaches to delivering services for older people. At a national level the new UK Advisory Forum on Ageing will be responsible for providing advice to ministers across Government on additional steps that Government and partners need to take to improve well-being and independence in later life.
People in later life often provide the lifeblood of communities, through volunteering, caring and by playing an active role in neighbourhood life. This is particularly true in rural areas, where demographic change is more advanced. We want to make the most of this strength so our £5.5 million Generations Together programme will fund 12 intergenerational projects across the country to break down barriers and challenge negative stereotypes. We will also explore how we can enable retired people and older workers to mix more with younger people and learn new skills while passing on their own career knowledge and experience. Being able to stay active also depends on staying mobile so we will help people continue driving by providing refresher driving training in our driving for life programme and for those who are unable to stay behind the wheel there will be help for people to make the most of the public transport network.
Everyone has a role to play in this journey towards a new society, because everyone is getting older. Every individual will ultimately be at the centre of preparing better for their own later life, living well in later life, and finding the right support if required. But we in Government must help them, their families and communities along the way.
The opportunities presented by an ageing society are UK-wide. We will continue to work closely with the devolved administrations so we can all learn from each other and ensure the measures in Building a society for all ages that relate to devolved matters continue to complement strategies already in place in the devolved nations.
This strategy already draws on extensive debate and discussion over the last year. Its 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. We in Government will work with all sectors of society so that we can all look forward to taking advantage of the opportunities presented by our longer, healthier and happier lives.
