Meet the Age UK staff: Katherine Hill

What does your role as a Policy Adviser involve?

At the moment, a large part of my role is to focus on the implementation of the Equality Act. We have campaigned long and hard for a ban on age discrimination, so it’s now really important that the new legislation is fully implemented and older people’s access to services such as insurance and healthcare is improved.

I’m also responsible for promoting a human-rights approach to older people’s issues both inside and outside the organisation. One exciting piece of work that I am currently engaged in is supporting the Equality and Human Rights Commission to launch an inquiry into the human rights of older people using care services at home.

What interests you about equalities and human rights work?

Equality and Human Rights can often be dismissed in the wider world as politically-correct nonsense, but to me they are simply common-sense principles that are very much at the heart of Age UK’s objectives.

Making sure that older people are treated fairly as individuals, and not stereotyped because of their age, gender, race, sexuality or any other characteristics, are aims that I’m sure are familiar to people working across the whole organisation.

How does your work affect Age UK as a whole?

The great thing about my role is that it cuts across lots of different issues, so I get to work closely with a large number of colleagues from different divisions. There is a lot of enthusiasm for building equality and human rights into a wide range of the organisation’s activities, so I’m certainly going to be kept busy.

What is the most satisfying part of your job?

The best moments are when you can see that your work has led to a concrete change of direction in policy.

Being so new to the organisation I can’t claim any credit, but the recent announcement of the Government’s decision to scrap the Default Retirement Age (DRA) was the result of a sustained Age UK campaign which involved input from staff in many different departments.

I’m hoping for more of those moments in the future and until then I’m very happy to bask in my colleagues’ reflected glory!

What is the most challenging part of your job?

Keeping up with all the different things that the organisation is doing and making sure that I make the connection to my own work.

Policy work can be very heavily centred on Westminster and Whitehall and it’s really important that I find time to get out of London to see what others are doing around the country. 

Since joining Age UK, what are you most proud of?

Mastering the complexities of the Equality Act, so that I’m now in a good position to go out and spread the word about it and how older people can use it to campaign for equal treatment.