The only way is up – for old folk in Essex

However, not everybody who is already involved with pensioners’ problems is enthusiastic about the proposal to have a minister for the elderly.According to a report in the Essex County Standard, the chairwoman of the Colchester Pensioners Action Group, Barbara Williamson, thinks that such a ministry would be just a cosmetic exercise creating a new layer of bureaucracy overlapping with other ministries such as Health, Housing and Pensions.
Mrs. Williamson, whose group champions the interests of pensioners living either at their own home or at care homes in Essex, may think that a minister for the elderly is going slightly over the top but she can understand why the government is taking pensioners so seriously. They already account for 16 % of the population and this figure is expected to rise to over 20 % by 2031. This is largely due to improved health care and the increased longevity that results. Pensioners are also traditionally more determined than younger voters to turn out and vote in elections.
According to Mrs. Williamson, the common perception of older people being a growing burden on the state needs to be heavily qualified. Clearly, the steady increase in the ageing population means higher expenditure on health care and state pensions but, on the other hand, a large proportion of those people of pensionable age are active in the community and doing a lot of unpaid work in such areas as helping in charity shops and acting as school governors. They also undertake a variety of caring and other voluntary work, much of which would otherwise cost the government millions, if not billions, of pounds.
The redoubtable Mrs. Williamson is quite adamant when it comes to the subject of a Minister for Pensioners - “Members of our action group feel a minister for older people would be, at best, a cosmetic irrelevance, at worst an obstruction to coherent policy “ she insists. She has a long list of gripes about the government’s treatment of pensioners but no doubt her views may have softened following the latest news that it is going to set a limit on the amount pensioners have to contribute to the cost of living in a care home. It seems as though, in future, they will not be obliged to sell their own home to pay for care. Things may already be looking up for Mrs. Williamson and her campaigners.