Age needs one voice. Now it has:
Age UK is the new force combining Age Concern England and
Help the Aged in England.
The new force combining &
Influencing services: your experienceRe-linking pension to earningsAge UK summer grants programmeEquality Act becomes lawHousing adaptationsDomestic energy strategiesAudit Commission: Housing good practiceThird sector trends studyPension changes from 6 AprilPostage increaseMaking life better for older peopleBookbiteUsing Compact to safeguard fundingThe Triangle Trust 1949 FundPeople’s Postcode TrustConcertina Charitable TrustNationwide FoundationAge UK at the London Marathon Elderly walker sign given revampHave Your Say events reportDiary dates
Age UK Research
Thank you to everyone who responded to our email request for help to find out about your experience of influencing the development of local public services, plans and strategies and what you think has helped or got in the way of success.
Our researcher had an excellent response and doesn’t need any more case studies. We will share her report with you as soon as it is available.
Age UK Campaign
If the basic state pension had remained linked to earnings since 1980, the average state pension would now be around £140 a week. One of our main election calls to candidates asks them to commit themselves to re-linking the basic state pension to average earnings by 2012.
We have produced small jigsaws which, when made up by the candidates, ask: Will you re-link pensions to earnings? The jigsaws are supplied with small envelopes and are ideal for campaign supporters to send to their parliamentary candidates. People can order as many as they like and they are free.
If you are interested in taking part in this action and would like further details or to order your jigsaws, please contact us or call Age UK free on 0800 169 87 87.
To coincide with the launch of Age UK, we launched our summer grant programme on 19 April 2010.
We have allocated £100,000 for small community organisations, including clubs run by or for older people with a turnover of less than £30,000 a year to enable them to sustain or expand their activities.
We will consider funding applications for costs associated with developing or sustaining activities, eg set-up costs, equipment, and venue hire. Priority in the first instance will be given to organisations that did not receive a winter celebration grant 2009. We will not fund one-off events, outings, parties, picnics etc, for existing service users or members.
The maximum grant is £500. We will aim on this occasion to give larger awards to fewer community organisations and clubs, rather than lots of small contributions as with the winter celebration – we want this grant to really make a longer term difference to the sustainability of the small organisation.
19 April: Application packs available - call Age UK free on 0800 169 87 87.14 May: Deadline for completed applications (hard copies only). Mid-July: All applicants to have been notified of the outcome.
If your community organisation is interested in applying for a summer grant, please contact us or call Age UK free on 0800 169 87 87.
On 9 April, the Equality Act became law, subject to royal assent, now introducing the first anti-age discrimination legislation outside employment in the UK.
The inclusion of measures to prevent age discrimination in the provision of public services, healthcare and on the high street will have a real impact on those in later life. The Act will encourage the public sector and many areas of the private sector to take those in later life seriously.
Both our previous organisations campaigned, as many forums did, for many years to see age discrimination in services recognised in law. We can now celebrate the opportunity that this legislation offers people to challenge ageism.
Although our work to combat unjustified discrimination such as forced retirement continues, equality in later life has just taken a major step forward and we played a huge role in making that happen.
The Equality Act strengthens our equality law by:
For more information about this new law, visit the Equality Act 2010 page on the Government Equalities Office (GEO) website.
Care and Repair England have worked with a number of partners monitoring activity across the country and looking for changes. This has led to a detailed report called Time to Adapt (to view this report, visit the reports page of the Care and Repair England website) and now a leaflet that highlights issues around obtaining home adaptations and lists improvements that should be demanded of the next government.
The leaflet, Home adaptations for disabled people, may be useful when questioning prospective candidates or as some information to give them to digest.
If their reply is along the lines that funding is set centrally, this does not affect the inadequacy of a system which may take years rather than weeks to complete an adaptation.
Local election candidates may wash their hands of a funding allocation which is centrally set, but there are ways available to them to speed up the system or be creative with the way money is spent.
For more information about issues around obtaining home adaptations, visit the contact us page of the Care and Repair England website and find contact details for Wendy Cocks, or write to:
Wendy CocksCare and Repair EnglandRING88 Carr LaneNorris GreenLiverpool L11 2UE
Mervyn Kohler, special adviser, Influencing Team, Age UK, March 2010
One third of our housing stock is occupied by people in later life. Nationally more than a quarter of UK carbon emissions come from our homes, and under the Climate Change Act, the government plans to reduce domestic carbon emissions by 34% by 2020 against the 1990 benchmark. Between a quarter and a third of older people live in households in fuel poverty. So people in later life have a very real interest in the publication (2 March) of Warm Homes, Greener Homes: a strategy for household energy management.
This fleshes out a number of targets, and builds on existing programmes and pilot schemes. Every home, where practicable, will have wall cavities filled and a properly insulated loft by 2015. By 2020, 7m homes will have had an eco-upgrade - a comprehensive refurbishment including solid wall insulation and the installation of renewable energy technologies such as heat pumps. Between now and 2020, every home will have a smart meter installed, helping householders to understand and manage their use of energy better. Some of the proposals in Warm Homes, Greener Homes will require legislation and some will be put out for consultation. Much of the programme will be delivered by the energy companies - especially to low income households - but the government "will plan for there to be no additional impact on fuel bills".
Meanwhile the government is committed to continuing the winter fuel payment and the means-tested cold weather payments, and is pressing ahead with its plans for the energy companies to implement a mandatory price reduction to some customers. At present, this is envisaged as helping householders over 70 and receiving pension credit, who will be identified by data-sharing between the DWP and the energy companies, and for customers not on a social tariff it will provide for an automatic reduction of £80 on an annual electricity bill. Over time, this mandatory price reduction scheme will replace the existing social tariff regimes.
Warm Homes, Greener Homes has several other features:
These proposals apply to all of Great Britain, but obviously some of the implementation will be devolved.
Inevitably there is more detail in these government proposals than we have had from the other political parties, but in terms of general principles and approach there is a substantial measure of consensus.
Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are promising a faster roll-out of smart meters, and both talk about a 'smart grid' which would improve the management of both the generating and distribution of electricity, and facilitate the faster development of domestic renewable energy technologies. Both want to bear down on the energy supply companies and simplify and improve access to social tariffs - the LibDems have talked about seeing social tariffs extended to 2m vulnerable households.
Both have various ideas about advancing householders green loans to upgrade their properties, repayable by the savings arising from the improved energy efficiency of the house. The Conservative version, the ‘green deal’, is a loan of up to £6,500 and could be organised and provided not just by the energy companies, but social landlords, charities, and even Marks & Spencer and Tesco. A green deal offer, a bespoke package of proposed energy efficiency improvements, would automatically follow the issuing of every energy performance certificate, requiring the householder only to say 'yes please'. The LibDems are talking of Warm Homes packages, but the concept is the same. The LibDem ambition is to insulate all homes to a decent standard within 10 years. The party also wants to extend the energy efficiency labelling scheme to more goods and products.
With all these proposals on the table, there are still questions to be answered about the pretty steep costs associated with some 'hard-to-treat' homes - for instance solid wall houses off the gas grid in rural areas - and how we help the fuel poor and those with little appetite or ability to borrow money for home improvements. What do we do with the basic refusniks? Will smart meters simply lead people to use less fuel, regardless of the impact on their health?
In conclusion though, whichever party forms the next government, there seems to be quite a lot in Warm Homes, Greener Homes which is likely to be rolled forward.
All current positive practice found by Audit Commission inspectors since April 2006 has been collected into a report summary.
To download the summary of the Audit Commission: Housing - Good practice compendium report, visit the publication summary page for this report on the info4local website.
Based on the study of 50 third sector organisations in North East England and Cumbria, these two reports (What makes a Third Sector Organisation tick? and Beyond ‘flat-earth’ maps of the third sector) are both works in progress from the Northern Rock Foundation’s TSTS: their emerging findings already contain important new messages for sector researchers, practitioners, funders and policy-makers.
The reports examine the realities behind some of the dominant rhetoric which currently influences thinking abut the local third sector. They suggest that:
To download summaries and full reports, visit this latest news page of the Northern Rock Foundation website.
State pension age for women starts going up from 60 to 65, the number of years needed to qualify goes down, and other changes in state pensions. The minimum age for taking an occupational or personal pension goes up from 50 to 55.
For standard letters up to 100 grams first class post went up on 6 April from 39p to 41p and second class from 30p to 32p, but the prices for ordinary meter and account mail remain the same as they were. All other weights and sizes are increased regardless of whether they are stamped, meter or account.
For more information about increased postage prices, visit the New prices from 6 April 2010 page of the Royal Mail website.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is looking at finding better lives for older people with high support needs in the community. It’s part of a project for improving lives, where you have a chance to contribute.
To view a news story about this project, visit the Joe Public blog on the Guardian website.
Bookbite encourages people 60 and over who rarely or never read books, to engage in reading and writing for pleasure, using the internet to access additional resources. To mark its launch, more than 100,000 Bookbite magazines have been distributed throughout England and a new website has been unveiled.
The magazine has been distributed directly to people's homes via organisations including Age Concerns, local library services and UK online centres. It is also available to download from the Bookbite website.
Celebrated authors, poets and well-known faces including Andrew Motion, Pam Ayres, Val McDermid, Sherrie Hewson and Mihir Bose have all contributed stories, poems and support to the project.
For more information about Bookbite, visit the Bookbite website.
How to safeguard sector stability - using your Compact is a briefing published by Compact Voice for voluntary groups concerned at the possible effect of changes to funding from local councils. It suggests a number of steps to take to achieve best local outcomes.
To download this briefing, visit the Working with public sector to protect funding page on the Voluntary News website.
The Triangle Trust 1949 Fund supports organisations who work in the following areas:
Grants are normally in the range £1,000 to £10,000. The next meeting to allocate funds is on 17 June, for which applications must be in by mid-May.
Visit the Triangle Trust 1949 Fund website for more information about these grants.
The People’s Postcode Trust offers opportunities to small organisations, community groups and charities through grants of £500-£10,000. Projects must either prevent poverty, promote, maintain, improve and advance health, advance citizenship or community development, advance public participation in sport, promote, improve and advance human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation, or promote and advance environmental protection or improvement.
Visit the People’s Postcode Trust website for more information about these grants.
Concertina makes grants to charitable bodies which provide musical entertainment and related activities for the elderly.
Concertina is keen to support smaller organisations which might otherwise find it difficult to gain funding. Since its inception in 2004, it has made grants to a wide range of charitable organisations nationwide in England and Wales. These include funds to many care homes for the elderly to provide musical entertainment for their residents.
Visit the Concertina Charitable Trust website for more information about these grants.
The Nationwide Foundation has expanded its small grants programme criteria for charities working with older people. Small grants can now be applied for by charities working for the benefit of all older people to improve their housing needs or address financial exclusion. They urge charities which are eligible to apply for a grant. Their application process is very simple and they pride themselves on processing grants quickly.
Visit the Nationwide Foundation website for more information about applying for this funding, or write to:
The Nationwide FoundationNationwide HousePipers WaySwindon SN38 2SN
The Virgin London Marathon on Sunday 25 April will have 110 runners for Age UK in the 26.2 mile route. They include Tom Harrison, aged 72, and John Starbrook, aged 78. We wish them good luck.
The traditional "elderly pedestrians" road sign showing a hunched couple has been given a makeover. Cumbria Tourism came up with the idea for the new sign and it has been placed at the summit of Coniston's aptly-named Old Man mountain in the Lake District.
Visit the BBC website to view a news story about this new older people road sign.
Have Your Say was a great starting point for sharing Age UK's plans for the new merged organisation and attracting feedback. There are two versions of the Have Your Say report of feedback from the events: the short version is a summary of the feedback, the long version includes the presentation that Age UK gave at each event.
Download PDFs of the short version and the long version of the Have Your Say events report. For a hard copy of the short report, please contact us or call Age UK free on 0800 169 87 87.
8 – 10 June: Pensioners Parliament, Blackpool21 – 25 June: National Falls Awareness Week1 October: International Day of Older People
Set your location to see what Age UK offers in your local area.
Feedback from the summer 2009 events.
Downloads
A download is a document (like a research report, a leaflet, or an application form) that can be transferred from our website to your computer. You can download a file, view it on your screen, print it, or save it to your computer.
PDF stands for ‘portable document format’.
Most downloads on this website are PDFs. We use this format to ensure that the document looks the same on everyone’s computer (website pages, by contrast, appear differently depending on how people have set their computer up).
Computers use a program called Adobe Acrobat Reader to download PDFs. If you try clicking on a link to download a PDF and it doesn’t work, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your computer.
The process is quite straightforward and is free.
PDFs cannot be changed. If you need to be able to type into a downloaded document (for example, if we are offering a letter template that you need to put your name on) we will provide it as a Microsoft Word document rather than a PDF. You can then download it, type into it and save it to your computer.
Downloads will open on your computer in a new browser window.
Inside this window (below all your web browser menus), there will be a toolbar with options for you to print or save the document.
Close the browser window to return to the Age UK website.
We have made every effort to make our PDFs accessible to screen readers. Here is an overview of your accessibility options available in Acrobat Reader. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Reader website to ensure that they are included in your version of the programme.
You can use Adobe Reader to read a PDF out loud with the following shortcut keys:
You can also convert a PDF into a web page by following these steps:
You can convert a PDF document into a text file for use with other software and hardware such as Braille printers by opening the PDF and choosing ‘Save as text’ from the File menu.
Have your say in the decisions that affect our lives, by joining one of our independent forums.
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