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Agenda item 3 is the Scottish Executive's strategy for an aging population. The minister has stayed with us for this item—I invite her to make opening remarks before we ask questions.
Scotland's changing demography is an undeniable fact. It is projected that, by 2031, the number of people aged over 50 will have risen by 28 per cent and that the number of people aged over 75 will have increased by 75 per cent.
Thank you, minister. I welcome Fiona Hird from the Scottish Executive's equality unit. Yvonne Strachan remains with us.
We took a number of steps to ensure meaningful engagement. We wanted to ensure that the consultation was clear and accessible. We asked a small number of open questions and we commissioned work to target people over 50 in the black and ethnic minority communities. All those steps combined to give a genuinely impressive total of more than 1,300 responses, many of which came from individuals and small organisations.
In a sense, you have answered the question that I was going to ask next, about harder-to-reach people, but I am not sure that you answered my first question. How confident are you that the views of all the people from whom you took evidence are reflected in the strategy?
I am confident that their views are reflected in the strategy. Later, I will give some detail on the forthcoming national forum on aging, which we will set up to assist with implementation of the strategy. Clearly, the composition of that group will reflect the breadth of the issues that we need to take forward.
The themes that arose from the consultation include the importance of links between the generations, the strongly expressed feeling that people should not be written off because of their age, and the importance of services that listen to older people and respond to their needs. Those themes fed through clearly to the six priority themes of the strategy.
Does the minister think that it was remiss to have a consultation on elderly people without approaching the only elected member in the UK who represents older people, or his party, for a contribution? I add that the consultation was before Rhona Brankin's time as Minister for Communities.
I think that the question was asked of the previous Minister for Communities, but the minister can answer it if she feels able to do so.
I cannot answer for previous ministers, but a member of the Scottish Pensioners Forum was involved in the advisory group. I am sure that Mr Swinburne made an effective contribution to the consultation.
The Scottish Pensioners Forum receives funding from the Government on the condition that the forum is not political. That is a one-sided approach if the Executive then seeks opinions on political action that it may carry out.
I do not agree with that.
It is clear that the Scottish Pensioners Forum was legitimately represented.
Do you agree that all elected members represent older people?
My answer to that is—
John, I am convening the meeting—
The member asked a question.
I asked the minister.
I agree with Marilyn Livingstone's view. I hope that John Swinburne contributed to the consultation, just as any MSP was able to do.
What is the strategy's added value, given the other policy initiatives that aim to improve older people's lives?
It is true to say that our document reflects the consensus view on our changing demography. A lot has been written about what is happening to our population and the changes that are occurring. The strategy echoes the findings of the committee's taking stock exercise and the Scotland's Futures Forum report "Growing older and wiser together". It offers us an opportunity to rethink our attitudes and to enhance the role of older people in society, but the key difference is that the strategy puts them in the context of current and future Scottish Executive policy. It is the role of Government to do that.
The strategy sets out six priorities for strategic action. Why were they chosen?
They were, in effect, chosen because they emerged quickly from our consultation. They were reinforced by the additional evidence-gathering process and were endorsed by our external advisory group. I was not involved at that time, so Fiona Hird may want to say a bit more.
The priorities emerged as clear themes throughout and there was consensus about their importance.
Under point 1 of the action plan, you say:
I cannot give you a huge amount of detail on them, but I can get specific information from Scottish Enterprise. The personal enterprise shows are intended to support older people who wish to set up in business. In looking at the work, I came across a surprising statistic, which is that quite a lot of over 50s are setting up in business. In fact, more over 50s than those aged 20 to 25 are setting up in business. We think that that older age group is potentially a fertile area for skills, expertise and knowledge. Scottish Enterprise has committed to working with the older age group to encourage people to set up businesses.
The strategy contains a 47 point action plan to support the six strategic priorities. Over what timescale will the action plan be implemented?
Where possible, we have made a commitment on timing. For example, we said that we will hold a national stakeholder event at the end of 2007 and will make regular reports to Parliament, starting in 2008. Once the national forum on aging is in place, I expect it to set the pace. It is important that the national forum be involved in such thinking.
The strategy and action plan is detailed and announces several new initiatives. What funding has the Scottish Executive put in place to implement the strategy and action plan?
As you will know, there is on-going funding. Between 2003-04 and 2007-08, Scottish Executive funding for the 60-plus age group increased by 5 per cent per annum in real terms and now stands at £5.2 billion. We have committed funding to support the "All Our Futures" strategy and we will deliver on the commitments. Obviously, the future funding commitment of £27 million for 2007-08 will be spent in that financial year. Further spending will need to be agreed through the spending review process.
The committee notes that the Scottish Executive will establish a national forum on aging. What will the organisation's remit be and how will its membership be appointed?
It is intended that the organisation will be broadly based and that it will act as a champion for the "All Our Futures" strategy. It will raise awareness and provide advice and assistance to all sectors in developing responses to the strategy. I expect the forum to be challenging and proactive—its role and remit will, in liaison with stakeholders, be decided with that in mind. We have allocated £100,000 for the forum's first year of work. However, I would welcome the committee's views on the proposal to set up a national forum on aging.
Thank you for that answer. I am sure that our successor committee will be happy to work with the Executive on the forum.
I am not entirely clear about how people would be appointed to the forum. Would the Executive decide who to appoint? Would you call for applications? How, exactly, would the process work?
We are still relatively open on the matter and we have not made any final decisions, but we are clear that membership should be broadly based and that the body should act as a champion for the strategy that we have developed in "All Our Futures".
I think that it would work better if it did not look like the membership had simply been decided on and appointed by the Executive.
That point is well made.
The strategy mentions regular reports to Parliament from 2008. What are those reports likely to include and how regular will they be?
I see much value in the minister who has responsibility for communities reporting to Parliament every year or every second year. I would be happy to hear the committee's views on that.
The committee notes that the Scottish Executive will work with others to establish the Scottish centre for intergenerational practice. What further information can you provide to the committee on how that body will be established and the functions that it will carry out?
In the evidence-gathering process, people consistently called for progress to be made on intergenerational work. The centre for intergenerational practice will be set up with £200,000, in the first year, to help to develop intergenerational work across Scotland. Specifically, it will promote best practice and offer support to individuals, organisations, businesses and others who want to get involved in intergenerational work. It will work with partners across Scotland and, importantly, with the national forum on aging and it will draw on the expertise of the United Kingdom centre for intergenerational practice to develop measures of success for intergenerational work. Government will work with the new centre to support further mentoring schemes for young adults and older people in order to facilitate sharing of experiences and learning of skills.
One of the criticisms of the strategy could be that it is overly dependent on the role of older people as volunteers. The committee worries that such a strong emphasis on volunteering might not be appropriate. How will you ensure that, even though the strategy will rely on older people volunteering, it will not rely totally on older people as volunteers?
The strategy recognises that people need to have flexibility about the choices that they make. For example, people who want to do part-time work should be offered a range of choices. We will be working with businesses to examine how that agenda can be taken forward.
The strategy outlines a new campaign to combat ageism and to promote more positive images of old people. Can you give us an insight into how that will be developed?
That relates to something that came through strongly when we were developing the strategy. There was a strong feeling that ageism is an unacceptable form of intolerance.
I appreciate your sincerity on ageism and everything that you have said, which you did so lucidly. As an older person, can I give you a bit of advice? Could you get your own house in order? Parliament is agist—MSPs who are 75 or over do not enjoy the same pension facilities as younger MSPs.
That is not really an issue for the minister.
But it is ageism. I am sorry, convener—we are talking about ageism, and that is an agist policy. I am asking the minister to take it up with the relevant minister.
That is not an issue for the minister.
Indeed, it is an issue for the Presiding Officer. However, John Swinburne might be interested in hearing about what we have been doing recently in the Executive.
With effect from October last year, the Scottish Executive has had a no-retirement-age policy for civil servants below senior civil service level. Previously, the retirement age was 60, and people could stay on until 65 on a year-to-year basis with no absolute right. However, that has changed since last October and people can now work for as long as they wish to—the choice is theirs.
The policy is intended to give flexibility to older people.
Can I also point out that the pensions are not carried on after the age of 75? Be warned: after the election, there will be older people than me in here. There are some very good older candidates.
"Be warned"? I do not know about that—there are quite a lot of us already.
Absolutely.
I am delighted to support the strategy, not least because Councillor Charles Gray—one of my constituents—is the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities spokesperson on older people and was on the external advisory committee. We have had discussion about that.
The outcomes were developed through working closely with the external advisory group, and they represent an aspiration for Scotland in the future. If we do not set ourselves challenging targets, it is harder to make meaningful progress, and I certainly expect to be held to account for progress against those outcomes by Parliament and the national forum on aging.
That is right. We all want to see those outcomes, but it is important to have some means of measuring whether progress is being made on them. How and when would you take stock of them?
We recognise that these are high-level outcomes for the long term and that they represent where we ideally want to be. However, we think that it is important for us to be able to measure progress along the way. We believe that all the outcomes are susceptible to the development of appropriate indicators, which we will work on—probably with the national forum—over the next few months so that we can measure progress in terms of what the strategy means for people's lives.
That will be helpful. We can all sign up to these aspirational outcomes, but we will want to know how they will be delivered in practice.
Many different people will be involved in delivering the outcomes, so the process will be quite complex.
The outcomes rely on the involvement of other sectors, such as the voluntary sector and business. Are you confident that they will be able to carry out the work that you expect of them to make the strategy a reality?
Yes. There is no doubt that there is a lot of work to be done with a range of organisations. We have said clearly that we intend to work with employers in both the private and public sectors, as well as with the self-employed and volunteers.
That is important. I presume that the ways in which employers in the voluntary sector and the business sector are helping to deliver the outcomes will be included in the monitoring that Fiona Hird talked about.
How will departments work together on the issues? Earlier, in our disability inquiry, we took evidence on other issues around mainstreaming that we have raised with the Executive, and we have taken evidence on mainstreaming from your department. How will other departments, such as the Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department, fulfil their responsibilities under the strategy?
The strategy has Cabinet agreement, and all ministers are committed to the principles that are involved. We will take steps internally, at official level in the Executive, to ensure that the actions in the strategy are progressed and that mechanisms are set up accordingly.
Individual ministers and officials were involved in drawing up the strategy—clearly, we could not draw it up ourselves. We have worked with different departments to draw together the strategy, so it will have to be implemented across all departments. Individual ministers will be responsible for ensuring that the proposed actions and work are carried out.
You talked about older people starting up in business. One of the main reasons for their doing so is the obvious fact that, in the five years prior to retirement, 40 per cent of men and women find themselves unemployed. The ones with a bit of initiative go and do something about it.
Legislation in that area is reserved to Westminster, but the work that is being done with employers and employers' organisations should help to develop the kind of flexible approach that companies such as B&Q and Marks and Spencer are developing. We think that that work is important.
A major issue for many older people is pensions and benefits. During our evidence session with the previous Minister for Communities, he undertook to send all the comments that were received on reserved matters to the Westminster Government. How has that been achieved?
Yes, I am conscious of that. The UK Government published its strategy document, "Opportunity Age", in 2005. Indeed, we took that publication into account in drawing up our strategy. Where reserved issues have featured in our consultation process, we have passed on the relevant information to the UK Government. The UK Pensions Bill will ensure equality between men and women.
How is the Scottish Executive publicising the strategy to ensure that people of all ages know about it?
We agree that that is important. We have a proactive media strategy, through which we are targeting the national media and the more specialised press. At the moment, we are focusing on publicising the launch of the strategy, but we will seek to engage specific interest groups to gain their commitment to the delivery of key outcomes. Many people will be involved in the delivery of the strategy. For example, we will ensure that pensioners groups get a version of the document and we will produce a short newsletter for issue to older people and their organisations. We have a job to do in disseminating information on the strategy.
In what formats and languages will you make the strategy available and how will you publicise the existence of that provision?
A range of publications is available. In the first instance, they are available at www.scotland.gov.uk/experience, but the key documents are also available in hard copy and in an accessible format. We are happy to provide documents in alternative formats, if requested. As I said, we will provide a newsletter specifically for older people and their organisations.
During the consultation phase, we issued "Age and Experience: Consultation on the Strategy for a Scotland with an Ageing Population" on request in Braille and Gaelic. For our work with black and minority ethnic groups, the document was not issued in individual community languages; instead, host-facilitated discussions took place with members of various groups, who then worked on their responses. We felt that that approach was more profitable. We will take the same open approach to the dissemination of the strategy, which will be done through issuing information in paper forms and through discussion with interested groups.
We are interested in having discussions with the groups that were involved in the consultation about how best to get the information out there.
John Swinburne informed me earlier that he would like to make a short statement and then ask the minister several questions.
Thank you, convener. My statement will be even shorter than I thought it would be.
Do you have any questions, or are you finished?
I am happy at that.
Minister, do you want to respond to any of those comments?
As I said, the UK Government is carrying out an important piece of work on equality in pensions. I am sure that John Swinburne welcomes the UK Government's commitment to tackling that issue.
As there are no more questions, I thank the minister, Yvonne Strachan and Fiona Hird for their evidence.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
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