APPENDIX 21
Memorandum submitted by the Third Age
Trust on behalf of the Universities of the Third Age
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
ABOUT THE
TRUST
1.1 Briefly, the Third Age Trust is the
national representative body for some 410 Universities of the
Third Age that are distributed throughout the United Kingdom and
have between them close to 100,000 individual members. The U3As
are democratic, self-funded, self-managed, locally based organisations
that provide low cost day-time learning opportunities for men
and women no longer in full-time employment. Membership is open
to all and between them the U3As offer their members an opportunity
to pursue a shared interest from a wide range of subjects in the
company of other like-minded people. The U3As are in fact lively,
dynamic outward looking organisations for those retired men and
women who do not want to be just passive recipients of social
services support.
1.2 While the work of the U3As is primarily
educational, because of the fellowship generated by peer group
activities, the members gain an enhancement of their physical
well-being and an increase in their self-worth which goes a long
way to eliminate the "scrap heap" feeling that often
accompanies retirement or redundancy. In our view the U3As have
an important social welfare role, particularly for single older
persons, and it is our firm belief that through active involvement
with U3A the individual members stay healthier and keep active
longer, thus delaying the onset of the "fourth age of dependence".
OFFICE OF
SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE—EQUAL
2.1 As far as members of the Third Age Trust
are able to judge the EQUAL initiative has largely been unnoticed
by members of the U3As. They will be aware, to varying degrees,
that there are many research projects in operation but these seem
to be mainly long-term projects which will have little or no current
impact on the daily lives of older people. The impression in the
minds of older people in general is that these research projects
are devised by people in their second age based on their perceptions
of "older people"—usually stereotypes—without
any effort being made to seek the views of the older people themselves.
THE TRUST'S
RECOMMENDATIONS TO
THE COMMITTEE
3.1 Introduction
The author recently attended the seminar organised
jointly by Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology and
the European Community's "Quality of Life" research
programme on the theme of "Independency in Later Life—What
are the Research Priorities"? The majority of the projects
described were long-term and there was no evidence that there
had been any consultations with the potential beneficiaries of
this research. Indeed very few of those invited to attend could
be described as a "third ager".
3.2 The Trust believes that much more effort
should be devoted to consulting members of the "third age"
about their views on the priorities for extending the quality
of life. It is wholly wrong to rely solely on the views of people
still in their "second age" even though they may be
employed to serve the needs of those in the third age, and not
to do otherwise will perpetuate the stereotypical image of the
older person. By definition, someone still in their second age
can have no first hand experience of what it is like to be in
the third age.
3.3 Members of U3As would obviously support
long-term research to obtain a better understanding of the various
degenerative conditions that can affect the older person but the
research priorities should focus on how best to prolong the period
of purposeful independence of older people. This means considering
issues such as:
(a) Encouraging older people to actively
participate in self-help organisations (eg like U3As) because
the membership of these organisations leads to the development
of a new network of friends who are mutually supportive and so
help combat isolation;
(b) Ensuring that the local milieu is conducive
to the continued operation of such self-help groups, ie local
authorities hire out meeting rooms at concessionary rates, offer
help with printing or photocopying, make low cost small loans,
etc;
(c) Facilitate the continued membership of
such groups by older persons by providing better local public
transport;
(d) Encourage older people to participate
in learning, see "Learning in Later Life: Motivation and
Impact", DfEE Research Brief No.183.
CONCLUSION
4 While various government departments pursue
their own agendas and their narrow projects very little progress
will be achieved on the issue of "extending the quality of
life". It is the view of the members of the Third Age Trust
that significant progress will only be made on this issue if there
is co-ordinated and concerted effort by all relevant government
departments. It has been a big disappointment that the "Inter
Ministerial Group to Co-ordinate Government Strategy for Older
People" has not been able to achieve very much in the two
years of its existence and to have three chairmen cannot have
helped. To emphasise this point it is relevant to include, as
an Annex, the Trust's comments on the DSS consultative paper "Building
a Better Britain for Older People".
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