Equal Opportunities Committee, 11 Mar 2008

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Official Report 288KB pdf

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Age

Our main business this morning is a round-table discussion on age. First, I invite members and participants to introduce themselves. I will start: I am Margaret Mitchell and I am convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee.

I am a member for Central Scotland.

I am the director of research, policy and practice development at Children in Scotland.

I am an MSP for North East Scotland.

I am the research manager at LGBT Youth Scotland.

I am an MSP for the West of Scotland.

Good morning. I am from the older LGBT forum.

I am a Scottish National Party MSP for Glasgow.

I am from the Scottish Pensioners Forum executive and the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations.

I am an MSP for Glasgow.

I am deputy convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee and MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston.

Thank you all for that.

Our purpose in holding a round-table discussion on age is to consider in a less formal manner two broad areas: how older and younger people access public services, and how they are affected by bullying. Depending on the issues that are raised, the committee might decide to undertake further work. We are therefore keen to ensure that the discussion focuses on practical issues and ideas that the Scottish Parliament has the power to deal with.

Although the round-table format is less formal and participants can respond to and seek clarification from one another, I remind everyone that they should indicate to the convener when they wish to speak. That will help to achieve a good flow of discussion and ensure that everyone gets their fair share.

I see that we have been joined by our final participant. Would you like to introduce yourself, John?

Hi. I am chairman of the Scottish Youth Parliament.

We are pleased to have you here.

Our first topic is to examine how older and younger people access public services. To what extent does everyone consider public services to be responding to the needs of older and younger people?

Good morning everyone. Public services are falling down on the care of older people. A great many unfair charges are being levied. Although people are assessed to determine whether they can afford their care, £11 per hour is being charged for care in the home, £7 is being charged for a weekly shop and £1 per week is being charged for alarm systems. Under the previous Government, those were all free of charge, or the charge was small—it was only £4 for a week's care services, and the other services were free. Elderly people are now being discriminated against. If someone does not have any money, their care is free, but a lot of people have savings that go just over the limit, so they have to pay.

Does that apply across the board, or are you talking about a particular local authority? Does the situation vary between local authorities?

I am talking about Fife, but other places are following its example. I have heard that in Edinburgh, care costs £22 per hour.

So there is a bit of a postcode lottery; it depends where people live.

Yes, it does.

I suppose that I will speak mainly about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people, because I work for an LGBT organisation, but LGBT young people primarily are young people, so the issues that I bring up will probably apply to a wider group.

On general service use, we have found a gap between the demand for certain services and the number of LGBT young people who access them. One barrier to young people using services is confidentiality. That is extremely relevant for all young people when using services, but it is particularly relevant for LGBT young people, who may not be out as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to their parents and peers. Another issue is the experience—or just the perception—of being judged by staff and feeling that they are not receptive to needs. Even just a perception that that will be the case might mean that some young people, especially LGBT young people, will not access a service. Services might not always be aware of those fears.

Is there an issue about how information on services is made available, how services are advertised and how people tap into that information in the first instance? It would be helpful if you gave examples of something that is not working.

My information comes from research that we conducted recently under the social inclusion division of the multiple and complex needs initiative. We explored LGBT young people's use of mainstream, non LGBT-specific services and specialist LGBT-specific services. With sexual health services, we found that young people feel unable to come out, even though that information is hugely relevant to the support or resources that people receive in those services. With other services, the links between sexual orientation or gender identity and need are perhaps not explicit. For example, housing is a big issue for LGBT young people, as they may be thrown out of their houses by parents and then need to access housing services.

Where would people get information if they needed to find out about housing services? Is there an issue about people getting information confidentially?

I think so. There may be a feeling in some services that LGBT identity does not necessarily matter, because it is a private issue that does not influence someone's service use.

That is helpful.

I will qualify what Sara O'Loan said by pointing out that the situation is the same for older people. Confidentiality is important. Speaking as an older LGBT person, I start from the basis that we suffer from the onset of homophobia at an early stage. My anxiety as an older LGBT person is about how I would access any service. I would feel rather nervous about that and would need to overcome that feeling. Age Concern Scotland has stepped in and has become more inclusive with regard to putting people in the direction of services. However, as I have no experience of accessing services, I cannot say any more than that—I am going on what people have told me.

Is the approach to signposting services in the voluntary sector different from that in the public sector?

Yes. It would probably help if local authorities could say that they were much more inclusive.

As there are two guests here from youth organisations, I will limit my remarks primarily to services involving children. It is clear that, in Scotland, there is no single answer to the question of children's access to public services: the picture is complex. Scotland does some things exceedingly well in relation to public services for children, and we should be proud of them, but there are gaps. Some of those gaps are not specifically about age; they are about the postcode lottery in providing services in rural and remote communities.

Three general points are worth making. First, Scotland does best when universal services for children are topped up with targeted services for children whose needs are not met by the universal services. That seems, in general, to be a much more effective and efficient approach than trying to replace universal services with targeted ones. The combination of universal and top-up services seems to work.

Secondly, although there are issues about direct services for children, it is crucial that there are good public services for their mothers, fathers, carers or whoever looks after them. Scotland is weaker in that area than it is in the area of direct services for children, and support for parents is not as great or as effective as we would like it to be. So, the age issue is complicated by the need for services that support children's primary carers as well as direct services for children.

Thirdly, it is crucial to the maintenance and improvement of good public services for children that their views are taken seriously on whether the services meet their needs. Again, the picture in Scotland is mixed. At times, consultation with children and young people has been conducted very well, but, unfortunately, too many times it has been little more than a superficial, tick-box exercise rather than a genuine exploration of what children and young people perceive to be true about the services that they receive and a serious consideration of their ideas on how to improve them.

It is always good to outline what is working as well as what is not working before moving on. Sandra White is next.

I do not know whether John Loughton wants to come in first.

I will come in after you.

I want to raise the issue of health services for older and younger people. Is there a perception that young people do not get proper public services because they are younger? The perception of younger people is that they go to the doctor only for a certain thing. The perception of older people is that they go to the doctor because they are getting older and sometimes do not get the services that they deserve. What is the panel's view on the health services that younger and older people get? Do they get the same services as the majority of those in the middle age range?

Also, do younger and older people get the proper level of service from the housing services?

On the health side, I will use one illustration to make a general point. Children and adults perceive time differently. We all remember waiting for Christmas. If it was a month away, that seemed close to forever. I raise that illustration because waiting times for health services, in particular mental health services, are simply too long. Waiting times for children are too long, even if in statistical terms the waiting period is exactly the same for a child as it is for an adult, because telling a child who has serious emotional or mental health needs that they will be seen in six months' time is tantamount to telling them that they will not be seen at all. In organising and planning public services it is important to understand the reality from the point of view of the patient or client. Time is critical.

I have a few points. There must be effective information for children and young people. Sometimes a single word can present a barrier. Jargon can turn off a young person who wants to access a service or get involved. Public service providers must think carefully about their target audiences and whether they are providing youth-friendly information. If a universal service is being provided, separate literature could be produced for young people.

Opportunities to capitalise on modern technology are increasing, particularly in public services. There has been success in the private and voluntary sectors. In the voluntary sector, much work is user-focused and based around the target audience. For example, the Young Scot and Scottish Youth Parliament websites are worthy of note for their use of technology to engage young people in the democratic process.

Sandra White asked whether young people feel excluded from universal services. I think that the answer is yes in part, particularly for teenagers, where there might be a trust issue. It can be more difficult to penetrate the barriers when many things are happening in a teenager's life. I do not know whether members read the recent report "Being Young in Scotland 2007", which was commissioned by YouthLink Scotland. When young people were asked how much they trust youth workers, doctors, teachers, politicians and others, youth workers came out quite high, politicians did not come out as high and doctors came out somewhere in the middle. It is interesting that young people would turn to a youth worker before they turned to a doctor. There might be scope for interceptor work so that we can capitalise on that.

Young people can be not only users but designers of public services. Jonathan Sher mentioned the youth voice in shaping services. Ultimately, a young person knows best what a young person needs—there is a lot of truth in that. We should consider how we engage young people and civil society in general in local community planning and in shaping our public services.

You have given us much useful information. When you talked about using new technology, did you have in mind, for example, that a young person would be much more likely to respond to a text message than to a letter?

I think so. Limited steps have been taken—for example, there is limited scope to text the Parliament. Even a three-page document can present a barrier to some young people. A young person will not say, "I'm dyslexic," or explain that there is an issue about their filling in a form; they will say, "I'm not doing that," or they will just rebel. The internet can be a less intimidating environment, because it enables young people to do things in their own time, without face-to-face contact, which can help.

John Loughton and Jonathan Sher talked about the need to hear the voices of young service users. Are you aware of instances in which the Government has done more than a box-ticking exercise when designing policy? For example, to what extent are young people involved in the design of the curriculum for excellence?

There are examples. I will cite two with which I am personally familiar. As you will know, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education recently inspected the implementation of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. That inspection raised some questions and concerns, and one local authority—North Ayrshire Council, which anticipated the HMIE results—decided that it wanted to know more, so it commissioned Children in Scotland to consult children, young people and parents who were eligible to receive additional support for learning services, even if they were not currently receiving them. With the support of that local authority, we undertook an extensive consultation and ended up talking to more than 1,000 children, young people and parents in North Ayrshire to find out what worked, what did not work and their perceptions of what could be improved.

North Ayrshire Council should be commended for taking the initiative and putting up the resources to find out in a serious, systematic way the perceptions of the people who are supposed to benefit from the service, rather than just having a few anecdotes that those people trotted out at meetings. Systematically investigating what is true rather than relying on anecdotal evidence makes all the difference in the world.

North Ayrshire Council is one local authority that did well; another is Scottish Borders Council. For the past three years, it has been working with Children in Scotland on how to implement the law that says that school buildings should be accessible to all children. There has been a classroom-by-classroom consultation at the primary and secondary levels, which—to make a long story short—has resulted in significant changes in what schools do. Also, the children themselves have been involved in working with the architects and the local authority on the new school builds in the Borders to ensure that new schools are designed and built in ways that reflect their perception of what works and what does not.

That is serious engagement, as opposed to a tick-box exercise, and those are commendable examples from two different authorities.

They had concrete results, too.

The responsibility for delivering education belongs to local government, but is there a case for saying that, on service design, national Government should engage in a process like that in the two examples that you cited?

Oh, absolutely. The fundamental principle is that it is not enough to proclaim a right. Under article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have a right to be heard and heeded. It is one thing to proclaim that, but it is another thing to take it seriously and implement it well. We have examples of what it means to do it right, but they are the happy illustrations, not the norm. By working with the Government and, particularly, the inspection agencies, Parliament can establish an inspection standard that says that doing something to consult children and young people is not sufficient in itself—the consultation must be meaningful enough, systematic enough and serious enough for the public authority to get a good score when it is inspected. That is one example of how to translate good intentions into good legislation and good practice.

Thanks for that.

Elaine Smith will come in briefly. Margaret Murdoch is waiting patiently, but I promise that she will be next.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has been mentioned. Away back in time, my first members' business debate was about the rights of the child, particularly the child's right to play. During that debate, members asked for a children and young people's commissioner to be established, which has now happened. How does the Commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland fit into the discussion that we are having? Is the role being used effectively?

We will park that issue just now; Margaret Murdoch wants to contribute.

My point relates to older people. There is still a postcode lottery when it comes to people getting operations. I have been speaking to a gentleman who has been in great distress because he has waited two years for a hip operation. When he got in touch with the hospital after a year, he discovered that the staff had lost all his records, so he had to go to the end of the queue. After another year he has been reassessed, and it has been discovered that his health is not good enough for him to undergo the hip operation. In effect, he has been shelved.

His mobility is really bad. I often see him struggling along, and I ask him how he is. It is such a shame that he was not moved a bit further up the queue after his records were lost for a year. Had he received more immediate attention, his health would have been better, which would have allowed him to have the operation. Now, unfortunately, he cannot have it. It is very sad that such things are still going on. We might think that something could be done about that in this day and age.

Was there an issue with the gentleman's representation? Did he have relatives who could speak up for him?

He did not seem to have any relatives.

So there might be an issue there.

Yes. I tried to advise him. I told him to get in touch with the hospital straight away and to find out what it could offer him. His mobility is very impaired now.

So there are perhaps issues around putting people in touch with older people who are isolated.

Yes, that is right.

Let us have some feedback in response to Elaine Smith's important question about the Commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland.

To have a society and a Government that does not include a children's commissioner seems unimaginable now. During the relatively short time that the commissioner's office has been in existence here, it has made a real difference and has made its mark. That says something important. There are things that people like more or less about the work that has been undertaken, but the office itself has become a fixture in Scottish life, and it ought to remain one.

Have you had direct contact with the office? Can you give examples of the commissioner helping with your work?

There are numerous examples. We work closely with the commissioner—in fact, she writes a column in our monthly magazine. In the past couple of weeks, the commissioner's office has issued two important reports. One is on the moving and handling of physically disabled children. That important work had not been handled—pardon the pun—as well as it should have been over the years. Secondly, the commissioner brought out a groundbreaking report on the children of prisoners, which helps us to understand that they have particular needs and are often overlooked. Those two examples, just from the past couple of weeks, are concrete illustrations of how having a children's commissioner makes a difference for the better. Sometimes there is a follow-through, but at the very minimum the commissioner's work brings strong awareness and understanding of issues that are too often overlooked.

My point fits in neatly with that. The Commissioner for Children and Young People does an excellent job—Kathleen Marshall is wonderful. I live for the day when we have an older people's commissioner, too. I was talking about it to Margaret Murdoch, who raised the issue. You, too, convener, spoke about people who are not able to get operations having relatives. Call me cynical, but I sometimes think that things are done deliberately because the people concerned are of a certain age. I am not pointing the finger at anyone, but we must be open to the fact that there are discriminatory practices against older and younger people. There are examples involving policing, concessionary fares for students and so on. Do people have any examples of, or thoughts on, age discrimination?

Does anyone have any specific examples?

I keep butting in—I am sorry. The Scottish Pensioners Forum has done a great deal of work on travel and the state of the buses. As members know, pensioners have bus passes now, but the state of the buses leaves much to be desired. FirstBus seems to be much more sympathetic towards us. It expects that, by 2010, all the buses on its routes will be low-liner buses. However, Stagecoach is a different kettle of fish. At the moment, it has a few buses that have only one disabled access place. The steps on long-distance Stagecoach buses are so high and steep that it is difficult even for a person who is quite able to get up them.

We have worked hard to get improvements. I have been with Transport Scotland in Glasgow, which deals with all the bus companies. It is trying to get better buses on the Stagecoach routes in addition to those on the FirstBus routes. It is to be hoped that that will happen, but the costs of low-liner buses are high.

Apparently, we will have to pay to go on the trams in Edinburgh when they are up and running—our free bus passes will be no use. That is discrimination if anything is.

That is a good point to raise today of all days. After this session, we will take evidence in our disability inquiry from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, on progress on public transport, including buses. We will ensure that we ask him about the point that you have raised.

Okay. Thanks.

I am interested in what you are saying, as I visited FirstBus recently and spoke to it about accessibility for pensioners and disabled people. It seems to be addressing the matter, although it will take time to do so. It is a well-off company and I pointed out that perhaps it should not take quite as much time to address the matter as it suggested.

Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People was mentioned. That commissioner advocates on behalf of children and young people, and it has been mentioned that she and her staff have been extremely successful in drawing people's attention to circumstances relating to them. Would it be practical or desirable for other groups, such as older people or LGBT people, to have someone similar who would act as an advocate for them? Would having such an advocate not necessarily be desirable, as it may result in people being put in a box rather than being seen as part of society?

That is a general question for people to muse over.

I have a question on transport for Margaret Murdoch that is relevant to the discussion that we will have after this session. Some disabled groups think that information is missing, is not accessible or is accessible only to some groups. Do you have any comments to make on the availability and usefulness of information?

Yes. Until we went to see the Transport Scotland person in Glasgow—the person is head of Scotland's transport planning—there were many things that we did not have access to. We were told that an attempt would be made to get any buses that were more than 10 years old off the road, but that that would not happen until 2015. It is shockingly difficult for elderly people to get on and off some of the older buses. They start jerkily and throw people backwards, causing them to lose their footing, but the drivers just drive on. In England, buses are not allowed to move off until everyone is seated, and people are not allowed to get up until the bus has stopped. There are big notices to that effect in buses down south. I do not see why such notices cannot also be put up in Scottish buses. Drivers will say that they will not be able to keep on time if they wait until everyone is seated before moving off, but I have seen some nasty accidents on buses, which could have had serious consequences. I have seen people flung off their feet, which is dreadful.

It is useful for elderly people with mobility problems to know that buses on certain routes are not accessible because they have steep stairs, for example. Is specific information missing? If such information is available, are there certain groups that cannot access it? For example, it may not be accessible to people with poor sight, because it is in a small font size. If information is not accessible, how can it be made more accessible? What routes of information access that could be used are we not using?

Improvements could definitely be made. If operators do not have sufficient low-liner buses to cater for all routes, they must ensure that such buses are used on particular routes at specific times. If it is made clear on timetables that low-liner buses will be available at particular times, people in wheelchairs, elderly people and needier children, both older and younger, who have difficulty walking will be prepared and will be able to access those buses without difficulties.

Are the present sources of information entirely adequate?

They are not at all adequate. Anything can turn up. When people expect a low-liner bus to be on a route, an old double-decker will come along. When that happens, people in wheelchairs are left at the side of the road. Information could definitely be improved. I use public services at all times.

That makes you well qualified to comment on the issue.

We were asked to give some specific examples of discrimination on the ground of age. In housing services, there is discrimination against young people. An external housing association consulted one of our LGBT youth groups. The person who carried out the consultation was coming from an equalities perspective and wanted to know what the barriers to housing for LGBT young people might be, so she asked questions along those lines. She was interested to hear from the young people in the group that although there were sometimes issues relating to their sexual orientation or gender identity, the basic reason why they could not get houses was that they were 16 or 17. They had to sleep on their friends' sofas.

Different parts of people's identity will be more or less important, depending on the context and their stage of life. The people who have been invited to give evidence at today's meeting work mainly on age issues or LGBT issues, but we work with hugely diverse groups. Age is one equality issue, but there are five or more others, and they all interplay and are more or less important at different times. That is a specific example.

Sara O'Loan mentioned 16 and 17-year-olds and discrimination. I do not know whether you are aware of it, but does that mean that those 16 and 17-year-olds are not deemed eligible for tenancies? I ask because there was a test case in Monklands more than 20 years ago in which a 16-year-old went to court. I thought that that set the precedent that they would be allowed tenancies.

Much of our day-to-day work is focused on housing—although not officially—because it is an important issue for LGBT young people. I am not entirely certain whether, in the specific example that I used, the young people who identified those difficulties had declared themselves homeless or were at that in-between stage of sleeping on a friend's sofa or just looking into finding a house. We tell young people that they have a right to access housing at that age and we support them.

I am trying to get to the bottom of whether you think that we should be considering whether 16 and 17-year-olds should be allowed to apply for tenancies, if indeed they are not allowed to.

I would say so. All that I have to go on are the experiences of the young people who access our services. Their issues with housing are quite important.

Are there any hard data on whether 16 and 17-year-olds are discriminated against? Can anyone here tell us that?

Could everyone talk through the chair, otherwise those who are waiting will not get their fair share? Jonathan Sher has been waiting for quite some time and he will be followed by John Thompson.

I am conscious of the time but I did not want to leave the issue of public services without first commending the committee for raising the issue of age discrimination for younger and older people. One of the things that Children in Scotland has been adamant about is not getting involved in the politics of pitting one age group against the other, and I am glad to see that that is not the point of today's session. We need to live in a society in which discrimination against people at either end of the age spectrum is intolerable, and where co-operation between the generations is the norm rather than the exception.

Since specific examples were asked for, I am happy to let everyone know, if they do not know already, about generations working together, which is being developed right now through a Scottish Government grant. The grant was given to Children in Scotland but the director is the head of the senior studies institute at the University of Strathclyde. The point is to develop a national centre—the Scottish Centre for Intergenerational Practice. Now you know why we call the project generations working together.

One way to get past age discrimination is explicitly to promote intergenerational working through old and young people working, learning and solving community problems together. If the committee and the Parliament can do anything to encourage and advance intergenerational work, it would be a welcome and necessary next step.

I talked to some of our partners, and I have to cite a couple of older people's issues that have not been raised so far. I understand that Age Concern recently published a paper about access to health services and the issues that older people face. Someone who works in the senior volunteer sector told me about an energy challenge project that involves using older volunteers to help older people to deal with energy savings and housing issues. They found that often, people who own their homes tend to be asset rich but cash poor and are not aware that they are eligible for assistance. An example was cited of a disabled elderly woman who had not been able to leave her home for three years because she could not manage to get down the steps at her front door. She was not aware that public assistance was available to solve the problem, which could have been solved easily at low cost and made a real difference.

My colleagues who work with older people pointed out to me that part of the problem might be generational, in that many older people are hesitant about asking for help from public services. Sometimes the issue is not outright discrimination so that older people cannot get help; it is that help is offered in such a way that instead of encouraging older people to feel comfortable about accessing it, it discourages them from doing so.

At the other end of the age spectrum, we have seen repeatedly a similar situation with parents. For example, parent education classes are often seen as a punishment rather than a help. Since I have never met anyone who got parenting just right all the time—I include myself—parent education ought to be a public service that is widely accessed, but it is delivered in such a way that it is not seen as being accessible. For older and younger people, there is theoretical as well as effective access to help. That is an important distinction.

I am glad that you picked up on parenting because you mentioned it earlier as a possible service gap—there are insufficient services for parents and children working together in an intergenerational way. That is hugely important and something that the committee will want to note.

The idea that comes to me is independence. I refer to the comment that Bill Kidd made about advocacy. I would like advocacy to be more integrated with the community rather than its being separate. It is important for LGBT people across the board to be part of that and to be accepted.

It is important that an older person tries to maintain their independence because it keeps them going. I speak from personal experience of my mother, who is fiercely independent and fights for her independence. Talk to her about public services or anything like that and she shrinks in horror. Although she gets disability allowance, she does not spend it, simply because she is scared that they might take it from her. Other people here are saying that too. Pride is involved in people's willingness to access financial aid. That must be taken on board in a sensitive way. People need to understand why they get such financial aid.

I return to the point about access to housing for young people. Technically, a young person of 16 or 17 can go along to their local housing office and say that they want a house or whatever and that is fine—I did that, for various reasons. However, workers in such offices sometimes make an automatic presumption about what is right for young people. They might say, "You are 16. How can you possibly think that your own independent living space is the best thing for you?" I was told in a patronising way to skip home to mum until I was old enough to think for myself. We have to consider what seems to be an invisible barrier: people's attitudes. Just because you are young does not mean that you cannot be independent or know what is best for you.

Two discriminatory practices that young people express quite a lot of concern about jump out at me. The first, of which I am sure members are aware, is the Mosquito phenomenon. If we are talking about things that discriminate on the basis of age and which infringe human rights, the Mosquito is the epitome of that. As I am sure everyone knows, a Mosquito emits a high-pitched noise and such devices are placed strategically around the country to chase young people away. The Commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland, Kathleen Marshall, has worked hard on that with the Youth Parliament and other UK commissioners. Mosquitos need to be seriously examined. Young people are getting in touch with the Youth Parliament to complain about them. They are disgusting; there is no place for such a device in a modern Scotland. Other measures are being taken as part of the justice agenda and a working group is reviewing the antisocial behaviour system, so things are happening. Shepherding young people does not fit in with that agenda.

Increasingly, young carers—who do the same job as others—tell us that they feel left out of the system financially and that what they do is not recognised. Sometimes, they are a forgotten force. Young carers put in much work and effort. They often sacrifice their education, social time and life chances to help a parent or older sibling in need. We need more special support for young carers. They are supporters themselves, but a wider package of support for them is needed.

You will probably be heartened to know that the committee is to hold a similar round-table discussion to today's session, on carers, when the plight of young and older carers will be examined in depth. Your contribution to that is helpful.

I will try to be brief, because time is moving on. There is lawful and unlawful discrimination—John Loughton picked up on a couple of forms of that. In my mind, dispersal orders are lawful discrimination against young people, because they are geared towards young people. To a lesser degree, Mosquitos are part of that—they are not against the law yet. The Government subscribes to such lawful measures. Lawful discrimination against older people happens in insurance—older people pay higher insurance premiums—and in employment, although that is outwith the Parliament's scope.

Unlawful discrimination is, for example, the perception that older people do not need dental services—it is more difficult for them to obtain such services. If an older person goes along to the doctor, they are given a couple of pills or their condition is said to be Alzheimer's or something like that. Discrimination is practised against older and younger people.

Young people are entitled to housing, but constituents have told me that the types of housing that are geared towards younger people are one-bedroom apartments or studio apartments, which do not even have a bedroom because, under law from Westminster, that is cheaper—less money is paid. It is difficult for young people to access private sector accommodation of a bedroom, living room and bathroom, because the Government does not pay what the private sector asks for. That is a big problem. Many young people are in bedsits for that reason alone.

It would be good at this point for Marlyn Glen to introduce the other aspect that we want to cover.

I will move the discussion on. We have heard some evidence on bullying. Is the bullying that older people suffer similar to that which younger people suffer? Do common solutions exist?

Bullying is an important issue for LGBT Youth Scotland. Young people tell us that their experiences in schools as LGBT young people are important to them. Homophobic and transphobic bullying can happen in schools, which has consequences such as mental health problems, early school leaving and truancy.

There is also evidence to suggest that discrimination against young people on sexual orientation or gender identity grounds happens in a lot of other settings, such as mainstream youth groups. There is a gap in our knowledge of bullying of looked-after and accommodated young people. You might be able to correct me, but I am not aware of a massive amount of research and evidence in that area.

Is bullying a general issue for young people, as well as for LGBT young people?

Absolutely, yes. As I said, I am speaking from the LGBT perspective. LGBT Youth Scotland is a founding partner of respectme, Scotland's anti-bullying service, which deals with bullying in school, outwith school and across the board and supports professionals to enable them to tackle it and support young people. There is a lot of focus on prejudice-based bullying within that, but bullying is an enormous issue for all young people.

Bullying exists throughout society, and it probably needs to be tackled at an early age because people who are bullies when they are young are likely to be much the same as they get older. People think that everybody grows out of such behaviour patterns, but that is not necessarily the case.

Do you think that the intergenerational practice that Jonathan Sher mentioned is a way of bringing in older people's experiences to try to help young people through the problems that they experience when they are being bullied at an early age? The experiences of older people, who have known bullying not only when they were children, but as they grew up, can be used to try to help younger people over the problems that they have experienced. Perhaps older people who have internalised the bullying might gain from mixing with young people, as they see what is happening to them.

Has that been tackled in your intergenerational studies, Jonathan?

It is not a focal point, because there is not much evidence of bullying by the older generation of the younger generation and vice versa. The intergenerational bit is particularly helpful in diminishing the lack of understanding, respect and empathy. To the extent that that contributes to bad behaviour on either side, the intergenerational work has a major role to play in creating empathy, understanding and a sense of commonality. That is good, but bullying is an enormous problem. My understanding is that it is still the case that the number 1 reason for children calling ChildLine is to report bullying behaviour and to ask for help with it.

There is no question about the prevalence of bullying, but the way in which it occurs appears to be different at the two ends of the age spectrum. For children, it tends to be other children at school or elsewhere who are the bullies, rather than family members or carers. With older people, it tends to be their adult children or carers, so it is a different phenomenon. It is no better—bullying at any age is a bad thing and we need to figure out how to end it—but the way in which it plays out appears to be different. There is a website—of course—for an organisation called elderabuse.org.uk.

Age Concern and other older people's organisations have been active in identifying the problem and some of the solutions. Although respectme is new on the scene, it is a good place to go for practical strategies for dealing with bullying.

Older and younger people can be brought together, but that probably has to centre around a particular issue. I can chat about the couple of examples of intergenerational work between older and younger LGBT people that I gave in the written submission. That sort of work is new. It was possible because there was a particular issue on which to focus. There are common roots of prejudice and discrimination towards older and younger LGBT people. It might be experienced differently and have different effects at different points during people's lives, but there are common issues to address.

LGBT Youth Scotland is piloting the SPARX mentoring scheme, which involves safe, supported and goal-focused mentoring of younger LGBT people by older LGBT people. We worked with both groups to find out their needs and their hopes for the project and found that both groups had common experiences of discrimination. The adults said that they wanted to help younger people who were experiencing situations that they had once experienced, or were still experiencing but in a different way. Younger people wanted "normal people" as role models and thought that they could learn from the older people. The scheme is in its early days, but what we have heard has been really refreshing.

With the breakdown of families these days, many parents have to go out to work and their children are looked after by their grandparents or even great-grandparents. Older people have a lot to give younger people. My grandchildren have all been brought up around me and I have tried to encourage them in baking and all sorts of things around the house. Some children grow up without even knowing how to boil an egg. Grandparents or great-grandparents have a great deal to offer their grandchildren by keeping in touch all the time. My grandchildren know that they can always come to me if their parents are late home from work. Grandparents can act as an anchor. So many parents have to work long hours because of financial strain. Parents can be held up for many reasons. My daughter was held up last week and could not collect her son, so I had to go to the school and pick him up. We can help in all sorts of ways. I am sure that lots of people could help if they wanted to.

I was going to draw attention to the website that Jonathan Sher mentioned. We are talking about bullying, but the organisation is called elderabuse.org.uk. Do the witnesses think that we are talking about abuse rather than bullying? Quite often, the elderly experience abuse by their own family, but it does not get reported—there is pressure, which is similar to peer pressure. Abuse happens in care homes, too.

If an incident in a care home is reported, there is always a worry that the perpetrator will do worse. I regard what happens, particularly to older people, as abuse rather than bullying. Young people suffer abuse, but older people suffer a different type of abuse, and we do not know enough about what happens. We should use the term "abuse" more, particularly in relation to care homes, where people are too frightened to report problems, although the sector is covered by legislation. I suppose that there is abuse in children's homes, too, but we do not have evidence.

Perhaps there is an issue to do with dominance, which develops into something more sinister.

It is always thought that people become more like children as they get older, which might or might not be true, but the abuse that is meted out to younger people is not necessarily the same as the abuse that is meted out to older people, although older people can be just as helpless. We do not have evidence of what is happening.

It might be useful to recap and ascertain whether there are matters that we have not covered. I think that Hugh O'Donnell wanted to ask about a different issue. After we have heard from him, I will use the final five minutes of the discussion to invite people to raise issues that they have not had an opportunity to mention.

We talked in general terms about the two ends of the spectrum. Given Scotland's cultural diversity, are there groups of people whose requirements are less likely to be catered for by public services?

I suppose that the question is whether there is a gap in services. Does anything immediately come to mind?

Perhaps I can prompt the witnesses. For example, how easy is it for older members of the Asian community to access services? Such people might have different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and different expectations to do with the extended family. For younger people in the gay community, are there generational or cultural pressures that make it hard to access services?

There might also be language issues.

The question is interesting, and I do not know the answer. I made the point that there are many facets to the identity of a young LGBT person, one of which might be a black and minority ethnic background. Such groups are hugely underrepresented among the people who access our youth services, which suggests that there are barriers to accessing LGBT-specific services. We do not know enough about whether there are issues to do with access to other services.

That was helpful.

It is pretty well known that, for some groups, the problem is not receiving services but providing services. Gay men are prevented from giving blood, even though there is no proof whatever that the blood is contaminated. I have written to the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service about that.

Elaine Smith, do you want to raise an issue that we have not covered?

No, thank you. We have had a wide-ranging discussion.

I want to reiterate the overarching issue. We can tackle many of the problems that we have discussed by empowering young people as designers as well as users of services.

There is not a great difference between young people and older people, in that both are discriminated against in certain ways. You talk about access to services and being able to design services. Community planning partnerships envisage that older people and younger people would be able to have a say in the planning of housing estates and so on. It is important that the whole spectrum of ages has such an opportunity. Older people go back into education as well, so I hope that it can be as accessible for them as it is for younger people. It is all about involving people. I agree with everything that has been said, but we need more evidence of how discrimination is practised.

Yes. Solid examples make a difference.

Dental services, which were touched on briefly, are important for older and younger people. It is becoming impossible for parents to get their children's teeth properly looked after because of all the private practice. I speak as an older person who requires dental services. I once tried to get treatment privately, when it was going to be a few months before I could get an appointment with my national health service dentist. The work that needed done was going to cost £1,000. Older people are in great need of more NHS dentists. I do not see why dentists—because of all the money that has gone into their training—should not do some NHS work at the beginning of their career. It is now almost impossible to get an NHS dentist.

That is well on the record now—thank you.

This has been a tremendous, interesting session that points to the fact that the Equal Opportunities Committee has a real role to play in the Parliament. We are emphasising the requirement for people of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles to be integrated into the same society. We need to mainstream as much as possible so that, rather than our having to point out issues such as this all the time, people have respect for others as a matter of course. That is important.

I thank Bill Kidd for that. There is a very good energy around the table, and there are opportunities for many further discussions. I acknowledge what Sara O'Loan is saying about younger and older people—we need to build bridges around the issue, and to be in touch with one another and learn from one another more.

Sandra White made a point about evidence. It would be useful if there was hard evidence of the discrimination in housing for young people that John Loughton and Sara O'Loan described.

It occurs to me that many elderly people may have difficulty moving home because of the lack of homes with suitable access, such as wheelchair access. We could do with some hard evidence on whether individuals are being discriminated against in access to housing because of their age, at either end of the spectrum.

That is a good point.

It has been useful to talk about these issues together. Other participants are from groups that, to be honest, would not be likely partners, even when we are talking about the same issues. There is not a great deal of contact. I reiterate my hope that there will be a lot of further work and discussion in this area. I highlight a conference that is taking place in Edinburgh on 29 March, called "Equality of Age: The LGBT Way". The conference is organised by Age Concern Scotland, the Equality Network and LGBT Youth Scotland, and it will consider age across the spectrum, from an LGBT perspective.

We will allow you that official plug.

I like the fact that the conference is taking in so many different areas. This has been an interesting and useful session, but I have nothing else to add.

I thank the committee for its invitation. My concluding comment is that so much of what I see in Scotland—you might have noticed that I do not have a Scottish accent—

We did notice.

It is getting there.

Aye, right.

It is clear to me that Scotland has a remarkably good set of laws and policies, with very good intentions. There is, however, a need for focus on implementation so that all the good intentions turn into equally good realities. As we are only human, there will be slips twixt cup and lip. Parliament, like the rest of us, needs to focus on how to improve implementation. The basic framework of values, intentions, laws and policies is really good.

It has been interesting to hear at some length input from people who are probably much more expert in their fields than we are. I note in particular the lack of solid evidence, to which various contributors have referred. Those organisations that feel that there is a gap in the research that is required to allow us to make informed decisions about the development of policy and practice should be knocking at the doors of St Andrews house and Victoria Quay very loudly in seek of support. Any approaches that are made to back up that claim could perhaps be supported by the committee.

I thank all the participants for their contributions, which I and the committee found immensely worth while. I offer you the opportunity to make further submissions to the clerks if you have any concrete examples or wish to tell us about anything else that you did not manage to say today but think of later, or about anything else that you wish to follow up. We will pore over the evidence in the Official Report and discuss the round-table discussion, which is a superb way to discuss a spectrum of issues concerning age. We can take into account any follow-up information and practical examples.

I will finish with a word of reassurance, to encourage Jonathan Sher. The committee takes on board his words about implementation. The disability inquiry is an example of the committee trying to ensure that, as well as there being a good policy, that policy is implemented. We have gone through all the cabinet secretaries and every portfolio, and we have held every minister and cabinet secretary to account in trying to ensure progress with our recommendations. I hope that we can do the same with respect to age. Thank you all very much for your attendance. It is much appreciated.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—