MONDAY 15 MAY 2000

MS ANA PALAZO«N, MR TOM MORAN AND MS J DIX

  500. Welcome. I am sorry we have had to make you wait a little, it is one of the occupational hazards of this job that we tend to go on perhaps a bit longer than we thought. I do apologise for that. I wonder if you could begin by introducing yourselves.

  (Ms Dix) I am Jackie Dix. I work for Age Concern as a Policy Officer and I have been working for Age Concern for about four years.
  (Ms Palazo«n) I am Ana Palazo«n, I work for Help the Aged Cymru. I am the Welsh Executive Officer since a year ago. Previous to that I worked for five years as a research and resource officer for Wales.
  (Mr Moran) I am Tom Moran. As you can see, I am an old codger. I am 78 years of age. I am Wales Secretary of Wales Pensioners and also Chairman of Monmouthshire Pensioners Forum.

  501. Thank you very much. Help the Aged said in their evidence "the traditional imagery of community does not match the reality experienced by older people". Age Concern says that older people's needs are "mostly similar to the wider population". Can you expand on those things? Perhaps Help the Aged could start.
  (Ms Palazo«n) I think really what we were trying to say by this statement is how the nature of communities is changing in Wales and has been an historical process that perhaps has more relevance from the Second World War onwards in that the population of Wales has increased but at the same time it has aged and continues to do so. Whilst that population trend develops economically the lives of the communities have also changed. Whereas we had stable industries, such as coal and steel making, by then perhaps not so much the slate, and in some industries in the agricultural communities, all that has changed, certainly as far as coal, it is no longer a source of employment. That has meant the younger generations have had to look to other places to find employment. The trend seems to be that the younger generations are moving southwards and eastward as well, thus leaving what would have been the traditional networks of support, the family networks and extended family, also the chapel for example, the Miners' Institutes, all of those that have been the traditional patterns of community support and community networks are disappearing. We have also a change in the role that women have played. Certainly up to the Second World War women were not a significant part of the workforce. They were in terms of unpaid work, of course, but not in terms of the active economy. That is something that has changed since the 1970s. At the same time as acquiring a higher involvement in the economy, women have not relinquished their role as carers. For those who are in the generation that are now pensioners, the present pensioners, they are women who did not work and possibly do not have occupational pensions and are living on a very low income. With the traditional networks of support disappearing we have increasingly older women living on their own, because as you know women live longer than men, and, therefore, what was seen as the traditional image of the community is something that is disappearing certainly in South Wales. Also in many of the rural areas there is a whole other series of socio-economic problems affecting rural areas as far as older people concerned but equally for rural and for urban areas and for the Valleys which are neither urban nor rural but have characteristics of both. Communities are changing because of population change and economic change.
  (Ms Dix) The statement that I made about older people's needs into the wider population stems from my concern that the People in Communities programme and the regeneration programmes tend to ignore older people. What I have tried to argue is that older people's needs are actually very similar to that of the wider population. They need to have adequate income, like other people, they need to be able to make a choice about whether they can afford to save for a holiday, whether they can afford to buy presents for their grandchildren, and they need to have a certain amount of income to follow leisure pursuits and their hobbies. The research that we have done with Help the Aged shows that three out of five pensioners in Wales live in poverty and they have not got enough money to pursue what I would see as being a normal life style. Just picking up on one of the points Ana made, women in Wales over 60 now account for 41 per cent of people living alone. There has been a big decline in traditional communities of people living together.

  502. Would both of you say that older people are more in danger of poverty and social exclusion than the population in general?
  (Ms Dix) I would say so. The work we did shows that three out of five pensioners are living in poverty but we want to do a rerun of that because it appears that four out of five pensioners are now living in poverty. That will obviously affect the type of housing they live in. 52 per cent of older people will live in housing pre-1919 in Wales which obviously is in more need of repair and they have a lack of money to be able to carry out those repairs and they are more likely to suffer through poverty than other households. I am also quite concerned about inequalities in relation to access to health care for older people. There appears to be quite a lot of age discrimination and, again, good quality of health care is essential for older people.
  (Ms Palazo«n) Also in terms of being more at risk of social exclusion than other groups in terms of age, having to live on a state pension is maintaining that person at a poverty level. They do not have the prospects that other age groups have who are experiencing social exclusion. Using the example of mental health, a young person with a mental health problem may be experiencing severe aspects of social exclusion but that person can undergo treatment and rehabilitation, there are some hopes that person can regain employment and can also rebuild social networks. A retired person will not work again and if a retired person is forced to live on a pension that keeps them in poverty then by definition that means they are at a higher level of risk than any other age group.

  503. I want to come in quickly on this. You said in your submission that three out of five are living in poverty and you have just suggested it might be higher than that. How are we measuring poverty?
  (Ms Dix) Say four out of five are living in poverty, that would be taking the average income of £400 a week, half of that is £200 a week, so four out of five older people do not have an income of £200 a week.

  504. So your measure of poverty is half the average income?
  (Ms Dix) That is the four out of five figure. The work that we did before in the Money Matters report had a medium income of £124 which would mean less than that. That work was done in 1996.

  Mr Caton: Thank you very much.

  505. Could I ask you about rural issues. How do you feel that public transport could be improved for older people? You also talk about imaginative solutions, possibly piloting a rural resource programme in North Wales. Could you expand on those two points?
  (Ms Palazo«n) Yes, of course. In terms of rural transport, we feel that transport is an issue of importance as far as older people are concerned and that influences aspects of social exclusion, particularly so in rural areas. We feel that transport is very important in that it has to be physically accessible for older people who may experience mobility difficulties but also has to be affordable in terms of what we have been saying, that older people are on a low income. In rural areas it has to exist and that is the problem, in many rural areas, particularly in the more remote rural areas, we may find people who are extremely isolated physically and who may find themselves with just one bus a week. I am sure that we have some real life examples that could help exemplify this. When we talk in terms of imaginative solutions it is because Help the Aged is a grant making organisation and a community development organisation and we have worked closely with grass roots community organisations, such as Age Concern and other voluntary organisations, in looking at alternatives in those areas where there are not commercial companies to run transport. We have worked in funding community transport initiatives that will serve older people specifically and people with disabilities. We have also looked in terms of more imaginative solutions at resources, such as the project that has been operating until very recently in Gwynedd by Age Concern which was a coach that had been adapted to act as a dining coach and an information service. It went to the more remote rural villages and hamlets where people were receiving no meals on wheels and no day centre provision. The food was taken to them in groups, to the most convenient point in the village, neighbours would help with taking them there and they would have a meal, they would have company, they would have information about things such as claiming the right benefits, do they know about housing alternatives, etc. It is trying to provide alternatives but it is certainly not solving the problem. The Rural Resource Initiative is a project that we have only just started. The background is that over the past ten years Help the Aged has done a lot of research work and has been active in funding projects in rural parts, particularly in England. In 1996 we completed a series of research programmes that had been partly funded by the Rural Development Commission but because the Commission only acted in England the focus was there. We looked at whether or not older people in rural areas were disadvantaged in relation to counterparts in urban areas. One of the most striking results of the research was that, indeed, older people in rural areas are disadvantaged because although the national expenditure per capita is exactly the same for an older person in a rural area as an older person in an urban area, services are far more expensive to provide in rural areas because of the sparsity and distance and that makes the older person more disadvantaged. We realised that there were many community organisations, voluntary sector organisations, providing alternatives for reaching the more isolated communities. We also realised that we had not done that work for Wales, so we engaged in a second exercise late last year looking through basic census data and we identified areas using statistical indicators, wherever four of those indicators combined. We looked at the high proportion of older people living in an area plus we looked at clusters but also lack of proper public transport, lack of basic amenities at home such as indoor toilets, central heating, we also looked at long-term and life limiting illnesses. Where those indicators combined obviously there was a high probability that older people were disadvantaged and were at a very high risk of experiencing social exclusion. We gave those indicators to Lancaster University who have been working with us to map this exercise. This was for the whole of the United Kingdom. Inevitably Wales came quite high as a result of clusters particularly in the Gwynedd area, the Llyn Peninsula and Pembrokeshire and the middle belt of Powys and Central Wales where all of those indicators showed that older people in Wales are highly disadvantaged and at risk of being socially isolated. We are at the very early stages of this Rural Resource Initiative in that we are working in partnership with community agencies. In Gwynedd we are starting with two pilots, one in the Llyn Peninsula and the other one in the Aberdyfi area and it is in partnership with Mantell Gwynedd, which is a local community voluntary service council, Age Concern Gwynedd, and the University of Bangor are also helping us. We are contracting two freelance community development workers who will be there for the first six months initially involved in identifying the needs by engaging older people and using community development techniques, which mean that older people themselves will be the ones who will be expressing what is needed. Once that has been established we will have a further two and a half years actually developing what may be the solutions to those communities, but again through community development techniques which mean that older people are empowered to do what they feel is needed in their community, it comes from them. This work is being done by Help the Aged through the Rank Foundation and we are committed to fund raising in order to bring about changes. The changes could be very small. It could be that people turn around and say "we are very deprived, we want to be left alone" or it could be that people say "there is a need for having a bus running at 11 o'clock or two o'clock, that way I can get to the town, I can get to the post office and do things". It could be small changes but perhaps changes that have national implications. We do not know just yet, we are waiting for the results.
  (Mr Moran) May I say a word?

  506. By all means.
  (Mr Moran) Mr Edwards asked about transport in particular. I live in Monmouth, which is why I know Mr Edwards very well. To get from Monmouth to Cardiff, the capital city, to come to an evening concert is physically impossible, it cannot be done. There is no railway station in Monmouth, we depend on buses. To get to Cardiff I have to come from Monmouth to Newport, change at Newport and get a bus again into Cardiff. The last bus leaves Newport at six o'clock in the evening, so if I am not back in Newport by six o'clock I cannot get home. That is point one. The second point is I attended the first public meeting of a new pensioners forum in Monmouth a few weeks ago and Mr Edwards was present. Towards the end of the meeting a lady who was sitting in the front row stood up and turned around to the audience and said something like this: "I am a 78 year old widow existing on the Minimum Income Guarantee. I live five miles away from the centre of Monmouth. I live in a corporation house in a small hamlet. The only transport I have got is the public bus which comes once per week on a Friday morning and that is the only transport that serves that hamlet". She said, "I come into Monmouth every Friday morning. I go to the post office and I collect my pension, my Minimum Income Guarantee. I go and do my week's shopping in Monmouth and then I have to have to hurry to catch the bus back to the hamlet. If I have missed it, I am stuck, I cannot get home." It so happened that the meeting was on a Friday, which was why she was there, and she had arranged a lift back in the afternoon. She said, "Yesterday—Thursday—I had nothing to eat at all. I had no money and no means of access to it". She said, "Whenever my clothes wear out, as they do even as a pensioner, I have to replace my clothing by going to the charity shops. I cannot dream of buying new clothing." She said, "I cannot go to the hairdresser, therefore my hair is cut short so that I can wash and comb it myself". She said, "Yesterday I had nothing to eat. That is the life of a 78 year old widow living all alone on Minimum Income Guarantee". This 78 year old lady turned around and said, "And I am bloody fed up with it" and there was a huge cheer. Mr Edwards will confirm that statement. In Wales, and in particular in rural Wales, the exclusion caused by two main things, the lack of proper pension and the total lack of public transport, is creating huge, huge difficulties which should not be allowed in this country in which we live, it is totally against our civilisation. Please, please, please do something about it.

  Chairman: That is what we are trying to do, Mr Moran. I think you have demonstrated the problem of transport very well. If we can now go on to the other item, which was income, Mrs Williams has got some questions.

  507. The Help the Aged submission notes that older people have three main concerns: the rising cost of living, paying their bills, and also the cost of long-term care. What do you think should be done about this?
  (Ms Palazo«n) These three main concerns were taken from the research that we did in 1996 and obviously those are things we are applying to our comparative research now to see how things have changed, if at all, in the last five years. One of the things that the people interviewed stated, and it came out as a common fact, was that in order not to be in debt older people will do without what they consider to be items that are not of importance. Amongst those items they put food. Older people are doing without food in order not to get into debt with paying their bills. Whilst living on those low pensions they realise that life is not getting easier, there are aspects of long-term care and in some instances families take care of them but in most instances families are no longer taking that role. There is this problem about what is going to happen when, and if, they go into a nursing home. Again, we believe that people have not been given enough information about what the Government is proposing or not proposing to do in terms of long-term care since the Royal Commission report was published well over a year ago. I am sure Age Concern has experienced similar enquiries but in Help the Aged we have had a very significant rise in enquiries from people who are wanting to know what is going to happen: "Do I have to sell my house? What is going to happen to me?" Perhaps in answer to your question, in that particular respect both nationally but also here in Wales, the Assembly and the Government need to look very closely at those recommendations and act upon them in order to bring about an equitable answer to long-term care. People are not clear what their responsibilities and rights are under the current system. People are making irrevocable decisions that are not necessary. People are selling their houses, which could be avoided. People are going into long-term care without having had a proper assessment of whether or not that is necessary for their needs. Economically it is irreversible, once the house is sold that is it. We believe that the recommendations from the Royal Commission should be taken on board. In terms of being able to afford the rising cost of living and the payment of bills I think the answer is about obtaining a decent pension. The pension should not mean people having to make choices between heating their homes or eating or not even having a choice, as in the example Mr Moran has quoted. It is about not having to depend on welfare benefits, it is about having the choice and dignity of an income that will let people make their own choices out of choice and not out of no choice.
  (Ms Dix) In the Money Matters report I was interested at the time that people were commenting about the price of funerals, about how it is very hard to pay for funerals. I am amazed that over the last two years the price of funerals in Wales actually rose by 72 per cent. The majority of older people wish to remain living in their own homes for as long as possible and this is proving problematic now with charging coming in, paying for care services. An Audit Commission report has just come out called Charging for Care and it shows that charges vary around the country. For example, paying for 12 hours of personal care can vary from no charge at all from the local authority to £120. There is evidence that older people are not having the small amount of care they need to stay in their homes, they feel they cannot contribute to paying for that care so that is affecting people's independence and maybe forcing them to move into residential care when they do not actually need residential care.

  508. Can I move on. The Government has recently launched a campaign to improve the take-up of the Minimum Income Guarantee for pensioners. How can the campaign be made effective do you think?
  (Ms Dix) Age Concern is particularly pleased with this. We have a very similar campaign called Your Rights Week which happens every year in April time. Perhaps we could see the merit of the two campaigns tying more closely together. Although Your Rights Week always has successes in improving take-up there are still many pensioners who are reluctant to take up means-tested benefits. Some quite interesting research was done by the Department for Social Security, that 26 older people who were told that they were entitled to Income Support still did not want to take up a claim that relied on means-tested benefits. The campaign could be improved with more home visits. There is evidence to suggest that older people feel more comfortable with people going through forms with them and they are more likely to put in a claim form. There is also a need to target those people who are housebound who are the people who are tending to be ignored by the Minimum Income Guarantee campaign at the moment.
  (Ms Palazo«n) The evidence we have is that what makes take-up campaigns successful is having the one-to-one face-to-face contact, help with going through those lengthy forms which have been designed not to be filled in, and being able to have confidence that the person who is there with you is not judging you and is not policing you but helping you to fill in those forms. Certainly in our experience that is what has made those campaigns successful. Having said that, the reason why older people are reluctant to take up the benefits that they are entitled to take are varied and complex. They range from total ignorance, not knowing what is available and they have a right to that money, to actually choosing not to claim those benefits, as Jackie has said. At present we are talking about a generation that worked very hard, learned to save, went through a war, even paid the ultimate price for their country under the understanding that in their old age they would not have to depend on benefits or what can be seen as hand-outs or charity. Although pride may be seen as a petty aspect, it is not, it is very, very important in the lives of a generation who never expected to have to live on a small pension. Pride is a very important element, and rightly so. It is important not to substitute. We believe from Help the Aged that it is important not to substitute a decent pension with welfare benefits. Another aspect that influences this particular question is that many people, because of an occupational pension, may be only ten pence above the threshold at which they are able to claim benefits and that will preclude them from claiming those benefits. So they are still living in poverty with a very, very small pension because of a sum, perhaps as small as ten pence, which means they cannot access other benefits. There are those who do not want to claim but some may want to claim and they cannot.

  509. Can I ask Ms Dix, you mentioned that perhaps the Government ought to be targeting those who are housebound. Who would organise that? How do you do it?
  (Ms Dix) That would be more through the home visits system. You need to get out to those people. It does cost resources. What Age Concern does at the moment is we go out to the properties to see people but it is difficult.

  510. How do you identify those who are housebound because it is on a large scale? How would you do it? The Department which pays the benefits knows, how can the Department identify pensioners who are housebound so they can be targeted in the way you are suggesting?
  (Ms Dix) I believe the Department is actually writing to people who are not claiming benefits. That letter is saying "would you like someone to come and visit you in your home?"
  (Ms Palazo«n) I am sure you know that there have been a number of pilots around Britain looking at take-up campaigns. Help the Aged aided the Citizens Advice Bureau in Gloucestershire, in Stroud, with a small grant towards employing development workers over a finite period so they could do the research through the local networks, writing to people and offering house visits so they could do face-to-face work with them. I do not have the figures to hand but they are keeping us informed as to how the campaign is developing and it is increasing the number of people who are applying.

  511. Would you accept in whichever system should be adopted that everybody should be covered? We cannot have a system where it would be patchy and some would still be socially excluded from what you are suggesting.
  (Ms Palazo«n) Absolutely. Part of that will include people from ethnic minority backgrounds for whom the present system may not be reaching them in terms of language and in terms of other cultural restraints. Not enough research has been done on this. We have some indications to believe that older women from particularly the Asian communities may not have pensions, may not be claiming benefits, and because of other cultural constraints, if you can call them that, will not be accessing benefits because the present systems are not appropriate. That has to be explored as well.
  (Mr Moran) Can I cut in here. There is one simple way to overcome all of the difficulty and that is by a straight forward and adequate increase in the basic state pension. You do not need a Minimum Income Guarantee, we all go above the level of the Minimum Income Guarantee. Wales Pensioners believe that a fair and adequate basic state pension would be £150 per week. This country can afford it.

  512. Is that £150 per individual or per couple?
  (Mr Moran) Per individual.

  513. So that is £300 per couple, is that what you are saying?
  (Mr Moran) Yes.

  514. It has become clear that at least two of your organisations advocate that increase in the basic state pension, perhaps all three of you, yet the Government has so far anyway given priority to support the poorer pensioners rather than improving the pension across the board. You have already begun to do so but I would be grateful if you could enlarge on what you have been saying about your attitude to the Government's policy. I think you have dealt with your concerns about means testing, and please enlarge if you want to, but there is also the aspect of payments for particular purposes that we have seen, particularly the large increase in the winter fuel payment. I would be interested to know your views on that approach as well.
  (Ms Palazo«n) I am speaking on behalf of Help the Aged here. Whilst we welcomed the increase in the winter fuel payment, particularly for Wales where, as you know, you know it is summer because the rain is warmer, it is cold in Wales, perhaps colder than many other parts of Britain, nobody is going to refuse a one-off payment but, again, that is not resolving the issue. Equally, with the payment for the television licence, these one-off payments are taking away choice. If people have a decent pension then they can choose whether or not they spend it on the television licence or extra heating or on more food, whatever it is that their needs are. Whilst one-off payments are welcome they are a poor substitute and do not provide an overall increase in the standard of living, it is still maintaining people at poverty level.

  515. What is Help the Aged's definition of a decent pension?
  (Ms Palazo«n) Unlike Wales Pensioners and Age Concern we have not come up with an actual definition but we would not disagree with the definition that Wales Pensioners have come up with. It is all about not having to live at the level of poverty, not having to depend on welfare benefits.
  (Mr Moran) Strangely enough, these peripheral payments, the winter fuel payment, the television licence, are part of the exclusion as far as pensioners are concerned. By concentrating on things like that you are withdrawing from my generation the right to choice, the generation which won the war, the generation which created the welfare state, the generation which has done more for civilisation in this country than any generation has done before and more than any future generation is likely to be called upon to do. All we need is a proper cash payment week by week so that we can make the choices how we spend it. Not you, we. It is our money, not yours. We have paid it in, it is ours. We ought to have the right to spend as and when we choose in the way we choose. In doing so you would benefit the country because the money which is handed to pensioners gets spent here in this country, it is spent mainly on food produced in this country. It will be spent on things like that. It would not be frittered away, it would be spent here. Actually I find it totally insulting to be told that because I am old I cannot make proper budgeting arrangements. I can. I have been doing this since before you were born. I have more experience of producing proper budgets than anyone else around this table. Purely and simply I was born a lot earlier than you were, an accident of birth caused it. It is there and it cannot be ignored. To withdraw proper choice from my generation is immoral to my mind and should not happen.
  (Ms Dix) Age Concern would echo a lot of what Tom has just said. We actually argue for a higher state pension and pensioners having the choice of how they spend it. I think that is what social exclusion means to me, that people have a lack of choice because they have not got enough money to budget properly. We are asking the Government to increase the pension by 45 per cent. That is based on research undertaken by the Family Budget Unit at King's College, London. That will see an increase to £90 a week for single people and to £135 a week for couples. We think it is wrong to give concessions, people should have the money to spend where they want. With the winter fuel payments, what is needed is to have an insulation programme to ensure that people living in properties will not be experiencing fuel poverty and that approach will not be needing the winter fuel payments.

  516. I guess I have to confess that I rebelled against the Government on this but I am going to put the Government's case as far as I can. Their argument is if you have got limited resources and you have now a sizeable percentage of the pensioner community that is reasonably well off then is it not better to concentrate what resources you have on those people who are actually in poverty, the people that you seem most concerned about, rather than pay even a millionaire an extra basic pension?
  (Ms Dix) I think unfortunately we are not reaching a lot of these people who are living in poverty and I think with an increase in the pension for all you will ensure that the people in most need get the money which they are not getting at the moment.
  (Ms Palazo«n) Pensioners are not scroungers and this is the image the Government seems to be projecting, that they are trying to scrounge but they are not. Particularly in Wales the majority of pensioners are living on the poverty line, the majority of pensioners are women, women from a generation who perhaps did not drive, who did not do many of the tasks around the house that perhaps younger generations do, women who depend a lot more on having to pay for services and yet do not have the income to do so, services such as Jackie was talking about earlier on. It is some years now since local authorities withdrew the home help service. To live in a house that has not been cleaned is not a matter of luxury, it is a matter of basics, to do with dignity, to do with health and to do with social inclusion. Increasingly we are having older people not being able to pay for things as basic as having somebody to come and help them to clean the house because of their health failing.
  (Ms Dix) It also affects older people in relation to the benefits system. For example, one in four carers are over the age of 65 but they are not entitled to the Carer's Premium, so they could be up to £15 a week worse off. Also people disabled after the age of 65 no longer have the Disabled Living Allowance, instead they have the Attendance Allowance but the Attendance Allowance does not contain a mobility element, it is thought that older people stay in their homes and do not want to get out.
  (Ms Palazo«n) Older people, if they go to hospital and are there for more than six weeks lose their pension. Nobody else in this country loses their income for going into hospital but older people do. That is another aspect.
  (Mr Moran) We may be pensioners and we may have been pensioned off but our brains are still active. Our bodies may fail a little bit but our brains do not. We are still working. We work as carers, we work as baby sitters, we work as charity shop organisers, we volunteer in all the organisations in the voluntary sector. We are mentors, we are counsellors, even Members of Parliament. We make a huge contribution to the safety and the well being of this country. If we withdrew all our freely given services the country would grind to a halt within a week, please do not forget that, it is a fact. We still pay our dues and demands, taxes, VAT, Community Charge, etc. We are a hugely important part of the community but we are part of the community, we do not want to be separated off. The recent Government production of the Better Government for Older People system is wrong. We do not need better government for older people, we need better government for all the people. We are part and parcel of this community, we are not something separate just because we have attained the age of 65. Please do not exclude us. Please call upon us. We are there and we will do everything possible to help but we need to be part of it, not shoved to one side.

  Chairman: That is what this Committee is here for today, Mr Moran. We are investigating into social exclusion and we are taking an interest in the problems of pensioners.

  517. Could I just ask about age discrimination. Age Concern notes the New Deal arrangements for the over-50s and the Government has recently announced other changes to the benefit system, like requiring older people to sign on to establish availability for work. What do you think of these developments? Are there any possible advantages and problems with them?
  (Ms Dix) We support some of the proposals made in The Generation Game. There is an urgent need to get people over 50 back to work. The Generation Game actually showed quite clearly that half of the people between 50 and 64 who were relying on benefits were in extreme poverty. In the future the majority of the workforce is going to be between the ages of 50 and 64 so we need to get people back to work. We need to change employers' attitudes to taking on older workers. The Employers Forum on Age, which is an employer led body, has done a lot of research following the Government's recent voluntary code on age diversity in employment and they found that two out of three employers would not actually change their practices because it was voluntary guidance. They also found evidence that one in ten employers actually admitted that they do discriminate in terms of recruitment and promotion of older workers. The research that they did earlier in 1996 showed that 79 per cent of workers over 50 felt that they had been discriminated against in applying for jobs on the basis of their age even though they had the right skills. We are quite enthusiastic about the proposals.

  Mr Edwards: Thank you.

  518. I would like to turn to housing and homelessness. We have been told that the primary problem about home ownership in Wales is not access but sustainability. How would you solve the problem of poor home owners being unable to afford to repair their properties? You touched upon this in your opening remarks, did you not? Could you tell us more about Help the Aged's Care and Repair scheme?
  (Ms Palazo«n) Could I start with the last part of your question. Care and Repair is a movement in Wales that also exists in England but it comes under a very different set-up. Here in Wales Care and Repair are independent charitable organisations that come under the umbrella of Care and Repair Cymru. Help the Aged's involvement with Care and Repair has been as a voluntary sector funder. We have aided Care and Repair agencies to be established either as new agencies or we have helped some of the existing ones around Wales, particularly when Wales reorganised the local authorities, in order that each local authority could have one of these schemes. Basically what Care and Repair agencies do is they work with older people or with disabled people of all ages who are home owners whose houses may be in either a small or severe state of disrepair by providing all the advice on welfare benefits and grants and how to access those and contact with reliable bona fide builders. By doing this what the Care and Repair system does is it enables older people to remain living in their own homes, in homes that are not falling apart around them because they are no longer damp and inappropriate for the mobility needs. It saves millions of pounds to the Government by avoiding people going into nursing care. Help the Aged has been very keen to support Care and Repair agencies. Having said that, certainly Wales has a higher percentage of home ownership than any other part of the country and a high proportion of the housing stock in Wales is deemed as unfit for living. Older people are living in those conditions. I really believe that the answer to the housing problem is partly by increasing services and agencies and the support agencies, such as Care and Repair, but it also comes back again to the question of having a higher income. If people have a higher pension then perhaps the houses will not reach that state of disrepair, they will be able to repair them. In Wales we have a slogan that there are house-rich cash-poor people who are in terraced houses, for example, which are expensive to keep and they cannot afford to do so. If people had a decent income then perhaps they would be able to keep the repairs going year in and year out as opposed to having to live in one small part of the house in the end because the rest of the house cannot be heated, it is damp, the roof is leaking, all through lack of income. This comes back to having an appropriate state pension.

  519. Can I come back to the question of Care and Repair. For the benefit of the inquiry, I am aware of what they do. As an organisation you consider that they are providing good value for money?
  (Ms Palazo«n) Absolutely, yes.