Today’s Challenges, Yesterday’s Thinking?
Demographic change at the heart of decision-making in Wales
While the Senedd has been in summer recess, work has continued ‘behind the scenes’ and I have shared a wide range of evidence with newly established Senedd Committees, setting out which matters and issues should be the focus of scrutiny and investigations in the months and years ahead.
This has included calling for inquiries into broad structural issues, including older people’s rights and ageism, as well as issues more directly rooted in older people’s day-to-day lives, such as poverty and home adaptations.
And while a number of important themes emerged when preparing and sharing this evidence, one in particular cuts across almost every aspect of policy in Wales, from housing and transport, to health and social care, to community safety and economic development: demographic change.
The population of Wales is changing in ways that have been well understood for many years. We are living longer and the number of older people continues to grow. Household structures and support networks are changing.
So we need to ask a simple but fundamental question: are our public services, policies and communities equipped to respond effectively to these changes?
As things stand, the evidence suggests this is not the case.
For example, I recently published a report highlighting that the number of people growing older without children is projected to grow by nearly two-thirds by 2030, representing a significant and rapid increase.
My report examined people’s lived experiences and found that many older people without children can feel invisible in a society where growing older is still frequently viewed through a family lens. But perhaps more concerningly, my findings also show that many policies and services continue to assume the presence of family support, which leads to a number of barriers. This not only creates challenges in terms of accessing key services such as health, social care and transport, but also things like social activities and information (particularly when this is only available online).
Similarly, we are seeing increasing numbers of people living alone as they grow older, which is leading to changes in levels of home ownership and housing tenures.
Projections suggest that around 20% of older people could be renting privately by 2040, up from around 4% today. This means that a growing number of older people are likely to find themselves at risk of housing insecurity and associated issues such as poverty, which have implications for health, wellbeing and inequalities, as well as service delivery.
It’s also important to recognise that a number of issues are already having a significant impact on older people today as a result of failures to plan effectively to meet the needs of changing populations.
For example, projections over many years have indicated that the number of people living with advanced dementia was set to rise significantly as we reached the 2020s, yet many older people affected by this struggle to access the support they need due to the limited availability of specialist care services. This often leads to individuals having to stay in hospital for prolonged periods despite being medically fit for discharge, or people being left with no option but to move many miles away from their loved ones to access the care they need.
And despite a range of evidence highlighting ways in which support could be improved for the growing number of older unpaid carers in Wales, such as opportunities for respite, improved financial support or greater flexibility within employment, many individuals find themselves at breaking point, unable to access the assistance they often have a right to.
None of this has appeared suddenly. For many years, the evidence has pointed clearly to the demographic changes we are now seeing, with organisations, including my office, producing reports, recommendations and calls for action. Taken together, this work has repeatedly highlighted the consequences of failing to plan and respond effectively to our changing demographics.
While there has been recognition that demographics are changing, planning and investment by successive governments has fallen short, resulting in policies and services that often seem to be built on assumptions about people’s needs, rather than being person centred and built around lived experiences.
This increases the risk of responding to today’s challenges with yesterday’s thinking, applying outdated solutions to issues and circumstances that have already changed.
We need to move away from reacting to demographic change to actively planning for it, building services and communities around how people actually live their lives, recognising the diversity of people’s experiences and supporting independence, connection and wellbeing.
So as crucial scrutiny and inquiries begin in the Senedd, I hope committee members across all parties will consider the evidence they’re presented with through a demographic lens, alongside asking important questions about whether policies and investment will meet both the needs of people today as well as people’s changing needs in the future.
We also need to see questions like these being asked across our public sector, where I know there is shared ambition to deliver high-quality services and tackle the barriers that prevent people from accessing support if they need it.
Achieving this means recognising demographic change as a present reality, not a future challenge, and using evidence to enable action now to ensure services, policies and communities across Wales are inclusive and fit for the future.
