NATIONAL FORUM ON AGEING
OLDER PEOPLE'S CONSULTATIVE FORUM
ALL OUR FUTURES: PLANNING FOR A SCOTLAND WITH AN AGEING POPULATION
IMPLEMENTATION - STARTER PAPER
Introduction
1. On 14 August the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing (Ms Sturgeon) met older people's stakeholder groups. She made it clear that the Scottish Government endorses All Our Futures: Planning for a Scotland with an Ageing Population as an evidence base and a clear strategy for the future, and supports the overall conclusions that are contained within it.
2. All Our Futures: Planning for a Scotland with an Ageing Population was published on Friday 9 March by the then Minister for Communities. Shortly after, the Scottish Executive entered the pre-election period, in advance of the Scottish Parliament elections on 3 May. In addition Fiona Hird, who headed the Older People and Age Team, retired early in May.
3. All Our Futures included an action plan of activities under 6 strategic outcomes:
· Improving opportunities for older people to participate and be involved
· Forging links between generations
· Improving health and the quality of life of older people
· Improving care and support
· Ensuring the right infrastructure is in place
· Offering learning opportunities throughout life.
4. To ensure implementation and monitoring of the action plan, All Our Futures proposed:
· establishing a broadly based National Forum on Ageing
· holding a national stakeholder event
· developing indicators of success across the strategic outcomes
· providing regular reports to Parliament from 2008
5. At her meeting with representative organisations on 14 August, the Cabinet Secretary identified three early priorities for action in implementing All Our Futures:
· establishing the National Forum on Ageing
· developing proposals for the Scottish Centre for Intergenerational Practice, and
· considering initial plans for raising awareness of ageism, and promoting positive images of older people.
6. At that meeting, we agreed to meet in September to discuss a number of issues, including how we take forward All Our Futures. We have prepared this paper as a discussion starter for the day. It offers proposals for discussion. It has a page for each of the subjects listed in the bullets above, plus one on priorities. However, the meeting is intended as an open opportunity to raise issues and ideas in taking forward the priorities identified in All Our Futures
Older People and Age Team
Scottish Government
September 2007