By David Williams
06 August 2009
Policy makers must stop viewing pensioners as a single group and make better use of public services to overcome inequalities between older people, a leading lobby group has said.
Andrew Harrop, head of policy at Age Concern & Help the Aged, made the remarks at a seminar held by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on July 30.
The event was part of Just Ageing, a series of seminars and studies on age equality being conducted jointly by the commission and the charity.
Harrop urged public servants to ‘be much better at engaging and involving older people in all their diversity.
‘When we talk to different groups of older people about the sorts of services they want, we must make sure… we’re not just talking to a relatively narrow group of relatively advantaged older people.’
He said the government’s Ageing Strategy, published earlier in July, was ‘in many ways excellent – but extremely weak on narrowing inequality and exclusion among older people’.
He added: ‘It tends too much to look at older people as a homogenous group, rather than really focusing in on the vast inequalities between different groups.’
Harrop argued that public services were typically oblivious to factors such as social class, even though differences in background could lead to significant variations in services.
‘Traditional services are one-size-fits-all and treat people as units to put through a system. That’s where we’ve come unstuck. It will exacerbate inequalities because some people are better at getting engaged in these services than others.’
Harrop described the Equality Bill, currently before Parliament, as a ‘really important step forward’ because it includes a duty for public service bodies to reduce socioeconomic inequalities between service users.
But more research was needed, he said. Little analysis had been done on how the ‘inverse care law’ – the principle that public services are often least effective for those who need them most – affects older people.
06 August 2009
Policy makers must stop viewing pensioners as a single group and make better use of public services to overcome inequalities between older people, a leading lobby group has said.
Andrew Harrop, head of policy at Age Concern & Help the Aged, made the remarks at a seminar held by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on July 30.
The event was part of Just Ageing, a series of seminars and studies on age equality being conducted jointly by the commission and the charity.
Harrop urged public servants to ‘be much better at engaging and involving older people in all their diversity.
‘When we talk to different groups of older people about the sorts of services they want, we must make sure… we’re not just talking to a relatively narrow group of relatively advantaged older people.’
He said the government’s Ageing Strategy, published earlier in July, was ‘in many ways excellent – but extremely weak on narrowing inequality and exclusion among older people’.
He added: ‘It tends too much to look at older people as a homogenous group, rather than really focusing in on the vast inequalities between different groups.’
Harrop argued that public services were typically oblivious to factors such as social class, even though differences in background could lead to significant variations in services.
‘Traditional services are one-size-fits-all and treat people as units to put through a system. That’s where we’ve come unstuck. It will exacerbate inequalities because some people are better at getting engaged in these services than others.’
Harrop described the Equality Bill, currently before Parliament, as a ‘really important step forward’ because it includes a duty for public service bodies to reduce socioeconomic inequalities between service users.
But more research was needed, he said. Little analysis had been done on how the ‘inverse care law’ – the principle that public services are often least effective for those who need them most – affects older people.
