A winning partnership in tackling pensioner poverty

Scoring a win with a partnership to tackle poverty

Former Rangers player Alex Rae at the

We teamed up with the Rangers Charity Foundation for the 2021/22 football season to tackle pensioner poverty in Scotland. And what a season it was!

The Rangers Charity Foundation’s mission is to be a force for good in the community for people of all ages. They understood that older people had been more impacted than most by Covid-19 and felt strongly about supporting our drive to alleviate poverty and help those experiencing loneliness. At Age Scotland, we work to ensure older people receive all the support they are entitled to. Last year, our helpline identified £565,000 of unclaimed support and benefits for older people. This might sound like a large amount but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. £332m in Pension Credit payments goes unclaimed in Scotland every year. Funding from the Rangers Charity Foundation enabled us to continue to offer this service. More than that, the foundation offered us the opportunity to share our message and to raise funds ourselves. They kindly invited us to do a bucket collection at the stadium in February. The players warmed up for the match in Age Scotland t-shirts alongside

Nan McKay Community Hall | Brian Sloan shows us how Body Boosting Bingo should be done

club mascot Broxi Bear, who was also delighted to show his support for Age Scotland. To highlight our work, a film focused on our helpline was shown on the screens inside Ibrox too. In celebration of a season of partnership, our friends at the Nan McKay Community Hall in Glasgow invited Age Scotland and the Rangers Charity Foundation along for a morning of fun, exercise, food and camaraderie in May. Our healthy active ageing trainer, Cara McGurn, delivered a fantastic session of Body Boosting Bingo and it was great to see former Rangers player, Alex Rae, and Age Scotland Chief Executive, Brian Sloan, take to the floor and give it their all. Not to be outdone, Broxi Bear did a superb job of doing each of the exercises demonstrated by Cara, dutifully replicated by those who attend Nan McKay on a regular basis. Our thanks go to Bill Lawns and the team for hosting us with such good humour and efficiency. So, a fantastic partnership delivered much needed funding for Age Scotland. We hugely appreciate the support given by the Rangers Charity Foundation. It gave a tremendous boost to our efforts to help alleviate the financial challenges faced by older people all around Scotland.

To find out more about the various ways in which you can help us raise vital funds, visit www.age.scot/fundraise

Does your local authority have an Older People’s Champion?

Our campaign to have every local authority in Scotland appoint a councillor as an Older People’s Champion is gathering pace. Working alongside the Scottish Older People’s Assembly (SOPA), we are seeing the impact of our campaign. There are now 16 local authorities who have an Older People’s Champion, compared to just a handful when we began. We also know of several other councils considering an appointment or reappointing a councillor to take on the role, but we want to see an Older People’s Champion in all 32 local authorities. An Older People’s Champion is a councillor within a local authority who is tasked with ensuring that older people’s voices are heard. Older People’s Champions raise awareness of issues affecting local older people and work to seek solutions on their behalf. How each champion approaches the role will differ depending on the needs of their local community, but they are all united in their goal to act as a link between councils and older people. Local authorities are responsible for providing and supporting many services which older people use frequently – including public transport, health and social care provision, and community services. With a growing older population across Scotland, it is vital that local decision-making meets the needs of older people and that they can have their voices heard. As part of our campaign, we are building up a network to which all Older People’s Champions are invited. This network is a forum for older people’s issues to be raised at both a local and national level and a space where councillors can work together on shared challenges and collectively influence change at both a local and national level.

Let’s get an Older People’s Champion in every council

To the best of our knowledge, the following local authorities have an Older People’s Champion: Angus Argyll and Bute Dundee City East Ayrshire East Dunbartonshire East Lothian Falkirk Highland Inverclyde Midlothian Moray North Ayrshire Perth and Kinross Scottish Borders South Lanarkshire West Lothian

If you think we have missed your local authority from this list in error, please get in touch.

If your local authority does not have an Older People’s Champion yet, please contact your council leader to ask them to create the role. We have drafted a template letter, which you can download at www.age.scot/opcletter or to request a digital or paper copy, get in touch on campaigns@agescotland.org.uk or 0333 323 2400.