Should the default retirement age be 65?

In March 2009, European Judges confirmed that the UK Government will have to overcome a high hurdle in the UK courts to explain why it’s social or employment policy objectives justify the National Default Retirement Age and therefore allow forced retirement. This has now been heard in the High Court and judgement is expected this Autumn.

Age Concern and Help The Aged report that nine out of ten over 50’s believe they should have a right to continue working past 65 if they wish, as long as they are capable of performing well in their job. Not everyone agrees. Michael Winner is reported in The Daily Telegraph when commenting on Selina Scott’s successful legal action for discrimination against Channel 5, as saying: “Now we’re told you can’t fire anyone on TV if they are over 50 because its ageism. So that means you have all these stupid women who thinking they have a right to a job for ever”.

The Statutory retirement age and the age at which one continues to work are essentially different. The statutory retirement age should be no more than the age at which the government has to pay old age pensions and provide other benefits such as bus passes. The Government has a right to fix this age because it is paying for the cost of the benefits from our taxes. It does not have the right to tell us when to retire however, that is a private matter between each of us and an employer.

The sad fact is that the Government, being mired in debt and knowing that half the UK population will soon be over 65 desperately needs the Default Retirement Age to increase in order to save money. At the same time the Government needs old people to leave their jobs to provide employment opportunities for the mass of young people from all social backgrounds who cannot find work, and in the current depression have little immediate prospect of work. They also have strong policies in favour of choice in old age. We therefore have the amusing, but not unique sight of our Government going in two opposite directions at the same time.

The decision when to retire will be made by each individual depending on his or her health, financial situation, and appetite for work, and these will vary for each of us. There is a difference however between providing the freedom to freely negotiate continuing employment and ascribing a right to people to work. Any such right must be balanced with the need for an employer to receive value for that labour.

Employers need to be flexible in the allocation of hours and work for older people, but older people also need to accept their physical and mental limitations. This may mean lower pay scales if their productivity is lower – illegal under current equal pay legislation – and it may also mean that employers have a free hand to decide when an employee is fit for work.

I suggest that the vast majority of old people would be happy to acknowledge their slow physical and mental decline and be happy to accept terms and conditions which reflect their changing circumstances and thereby enable them to enjoy happy and productive work into later years without the stress or competing against their juniors. For the rest the courts will have an absolute field day.

Nigel Welby

Chairman

Too Much Righteous Indignation - Let's get real about the costs of supportive living!

I read the piece in Sunday's Observer ("elderly put at risk as sheltered homes are forced to axe their resident wardens") and, while feeling a great deal of sympathy for Joan Garbet the retired nurse who has had her resident warden taken away from the sheltered housing complex where she lives, I was depressed to see, once again, politicians taking the opportunity to score a few brownie points for appearing to support the elderly, without seriously getting to grips with the reality of the situation.

Even Joan Bakewell, the old peoples Czar has got involved "this is putting the elderly at risk and creates a continuing sense of unease in their lives. We want wardens restored" she said. Well yes Joan but who is going to pay for this? Joan Garbet's landlords is Circle 33 Housing Trust, a major “not for profit” Housing Association, which relies, to some degree on government grants to fund the accommodation it provides. Why is it cutting services? Because it is being squeezed by decreasing amounts of housing subsidy and ever rising expectations from its tenants.

So it is interesting to see that this issue seems to have cross party support. Geoffrey Cox, the Conservative MP for Torridge and West Devon is very righteously saying that "when parliament comes back from its summer recess, I shall request an urgent debate" on the other side of the house Andrew Dinsmore, the Labour MP for Hendon is similarly supportive but I wonder if either of them have had a conversation with George Osborne or Alistair Darling who will need to pay the bill for all this?

The reality is that it is not economic to provide a resident warden for small schemes of this kind. The best way of allowing people to live with dignity in their own homes while providing care and support at affordable cost, is to develop more retirement villages and larger communities where care and support of the highest quality can be delivered affordably. In order to operate and provide catering and domiciliary care services economically a development needs to have at least 100 residents and there are some private sector operators, including ourselves, who are developing excellent facilities like this, without any government subsidy.

The number of retirement villages in the UK has risen from a slack handful 20 years ago to more than 100 and there are many such schemes on the drawing board. Oddly, the only people preventing further development of this kind are civil servants - planners and care commissioners who regard this kind of innovation with deep suspicion. The best way for our politicians to help people like Joan would be to shake up thinking and policy in Whitehall!

Jon Gooding
Chief Executive

Retirement villages - what's in a name

Sharing the same name as the product we sell and manage has its definite benefits – but there can also be some negative moments. Our company has been called Retirement Villages for over 25 years now and for a large proportion of that time, the name itself has had little significance or bearing on the wider world.

But that has now changed significantly with the adoption of the retirement villages model – now a serious lifestyle proposition for people reaching their mid 50s upwards. This week is a good example. Retirement villages have been making headlines for a number of reasons.

First of all there’s the retirement village with only one resident, not the greatest piece of PR in the world. And there’s also been the BBC’s fly-on-the-wall documentary Silverville which has stirred plenty of debate – both good and bad.

While neither are linked to us directly, our name association means that by default, people assume we are.

As head of sales and marketing I wouldn’t allow any article to be written about a village with only one resident because of a lack of sales for the past year (this wouldn’t happen at Retirement Villages anyway). Equally, I wouldn’t allow a TV crew to come into a village to film and subsequently edit to suit their storyline.

We are justly proud of our company name Retirement Villages Ltd and what it represents and although it can sometimes get muddied by its use in the wider context, we will continually strive to ensure our name is synonymous with high quality retirement living and high quality service levels.

Sarah Burgess
Sales and Marketing Director

Provision of care for older people high on Government's agenda

It is good to see the provision of care for older people is high on the Government’s agenda (Care and Support Green Paper). But what concerns me with this proposal is that they seem to be focussing on the finance rather than the service delivery.

There’s no service specification and nothing to indicate what people are going to get for their £20,000. If it equates to a 15-min visit from an overworked carer working to an overpriced local authority contract then that doesn’t seem to me to be a very good deal.

Of course money is important, but it isn’t the be all and end all. The private sector is already doing some innovative things in terms of care for older people. There are some excellent retirement village and assisted living developments being operated, RSLs are creating excellent extra care facilities, and the private sector is more than happy to step in and help fill this space given the opportunity but what is needed from Government is more than just money.

What is required is a new policy on planning so it’s much more clearly understood how these kinds of developments are going to be created. And we need to have more clarity in terms of the regulatory requirements, in terms of CQC (the successor to CSCI).

I think that with some appropriate financial stimulus from the Government, this will enable the private sector to go a long way towards achieving the Government’s objectives without the need for a massive capital injection being talked about here.

Jon Gooding
Chief Executive