Welsh Government – draft Priorities for Culture in Wales 2024 to 2030
August 2024
The Older People’s Commissioner for Wales (OPCW) welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Welsh Government’s consultation on the draft Priorities for Culture in Wales 2024 to 2030.
The Commissioner broadly agrees with the three priorities of ‘Culture brings us together’, ‘A nation of culture’, and ‘Culture is resilient and sustainable’ and would like to offer the comments below.
Priority 1 – Culture brings us together
The emphasis on culture’s ability to strengthen the connection between generations (A6) is extremely welcome. Such activity can be an important way of building and enhancing relationships.
For example, in Denbighshire, one project collected local stories from older and younger people, covering experiences of life in Trefnant, looking back on weaving heritage in the village. Intergenerational work had been done to bring older and younger people together via ConneXions and the local school, allowing the sharing and capture of story content across generations.[i] This led to a book being published.
Similarities with this project were picked up by the local Race Equality Network, who detailed work they’d been doing in textile form capturing experiences from minority communities – particularly those of Caribbean heritage, where historically, many Welsh woven products were shipped for use by slaves. This prompted dialogue between the two and exploration of potential to jointly exhibit the book and textile arts from their respective projects. The printing of the book was funded by support from the Denbighshire Age Friendly team.
This example shows how culture is an important way of bringing people from different generations and backgrounds together, contributing to place-making and community wellbeing. This also helps to tackle ageism (the stereotyping, prejudice and/or discrimination against people on the basis of their age or perceived age) by encouraging intergenerational contact and friendships, as well as making communities across Wales more age friendly. This complements the Welsh Government’s Age Friendly Wales: Our Strategy for an Ageing Society where one of the four aims is enhancing wellbeing.
Age-friendly communities are environments that enable people to stay connected, take part in social activities and access local services and facilities. The World Health Organisation (WHO) describes age-friendly communities as being places in which older people, communities, policies, services, settings, and structures work together in partnership to support and enable us all to age well.
Culture is an important aspect of this and there are also complementary links to Ambition 4 in the draft Welsh Government strategy where culture is integral to place-making and community well-being. The Welsh Government is committed to an age-friendly Wales that supports people of all ages to live and age well, providing dedicated funding to local authorities to progress this work.
The draft strategy should consider how the priorities it contains connect to the purpose and long-term vision of the Welsh Government’s Age-Friendly Wales: Our Strategy for an Ageing Society, and in particular the aim of ‘Enhancing people’s well-being’. In addition, the draft strategy should also review how the ambitions set out across all three priorities can enhance existing work underway on developing age-friendly communities across Wales.
The ambition that culture is inclusive, accessible and diverse (A1) is admirable but specific consideration will need to be given as to how to make this a reality for older people, with resulting actions developed, allocated and carried out within a defined timescale. Discussions with older people are an essential part of meeting the ambition to make culture inclusive, accessible and diverse. The latest National Survey for Wales shows that older people were least likely of all age groups to have attended or participated in arts, culture or heritage activities at least three times a year: 35% of 65-74s and 47% of over 75s had not done so, in comparison to 20% of 25-44s.[ii]
In terms of arts events specifically, more than half of people over 65 had not attended an arts event in the last 12 months (65% of over 75s and 50% of 65-74 year olds had not attended). In terms of why this was the case, 29% of older people (aged over 60) said they didn’t attend because they were not interested in what was offered, while 25% of over 75s said their health wasn’t good enough. A further 4% of older people (aged over 60) said there was a lack of access/facilities for disabled people. Proximity is also a factor for older people: 56% of 65-74 year olds and 52% of over 75s said they would go to more arts events if they were nearer.
These findings show the challenges that need to be overcome if the ambition of culture being inclusive, accessible and diverse is to be realised. They also show how older people’s ability to participate in cultural activities is related to health and locality. Cultural venues and performances need to be accessible. This has implications for the design of spaces and venues, whereas designing arts events that are of interest to older people requires engagement and involvement. Improving the health of older people, enabling everyone to age well and increasing healthy life expectancy, have widescale benefits, with the ability to take part in and contribute to culture being just one.
In terms of diversity, it is crucial that the experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic older people are reflected in both Wales’s culture and the draft Welsh Government strategy, and their contribution valued, building on Ambition 3 – ‘Culture takes an inclusive and balanced approach to interpreting, commemorating and presenting our past’. The diverse voices of older people need to be reflected throughout the draft strategy.
Priority 2: A nation of culture
As with the other ambitions of the draft strategy, the main challenge in this priority lies in how the ambitions are realised and measured. Once the draft strategy is finalised, the Welsh Government should set out how it intends to implement the strategy, realise the ambitions, and how the strategy’s success will be measured.
Ambition 9 – Cultural engagement supports individual and community well-being – fits well with the work across Wales by the Commissioner, the Welsh Government, local authorities and partners, including crucially, older people, to make places more age friendly. The Commissioner is recognised as an Affiliate of the World Health Organisation’s Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities and works to promote age-friendly progress at the local, regional, national and international levels. The Commissioner’s Office works as a catalyst at the national and regional level by promoting the age-friendly approach as well as providing guidance and support to local authority-led partnerships who wish to become members of the Global Network.
The Global Network provides opportunities to share good practice, including where culture supports age-friendly activity. There are opportunities via the Global Network to support Ambitions 12 and 13 (A12: Culture is integrated into how Wales establishes and develops international relationships; A13: The profile of culture in Wales is raised, by celebrating and promoting culture at a local, national and international level). Wales is already recognised by the WHO Global Network as having played a significant role in Network discussions and sharing of international best practice. The draft Priorities for Culture strategy offers opportunities to further build on this cultural exchange of age-friendly practice.
Ambition 7 – Culture supports and promotes the Welsh language and reflects Wales as a bilingual and multilingual nation – also presents a chance for older people to play a key role. According to the recent census, 116,788 people over the age of 60 can speak Welsh and 28% of fluent Welsh speakers aged over 65 – an estimated 21,000 older people – feel more comfortable speaking Welsh than English.[iii] Existing projects such as Ein Hanes Ni in Ynys Môn are examples of good practice in bilingual cultural activity, bringing together older and younger residents of an area to explore the recent local history. The Ein Hanes Ni project includes short films in Welsh with English subtitles.[iv] Projects such as these enhance community engagement, interaction between generations, and also address some of the barriers as to why older people do not participate in arts events by ensuring cultural activities take place closer to home. Lessons from projects such as these should help inform the draft strategy.
Priority 3: Culture is resilient and sustainable
The Priorities for Culture in Wales strategy needs to be sustainable and the ambitions described need to be ones that can succeed over the medium and longer term.
The recognition of volunteering as part of the draft strategy in Ambition 19 (The culture sector in Wales is a great place to work and volunteer, with a professional and skilled workforce) offers a good opportunity to recognise the role already played by older people in volunteering across a range of activities including cultural activities. Data from 2022-23 shows that 32% of over 65s took part in some form of volunteering activity.[v] This also presents the chance to bring people from different generations together to naturally work on areas of shared interest or learning, promoting intergenerational solidarity.
The ambition for culture to be supported and enhanced by good digital practice (A17) is wide-ranging. While online collections, such as that from Amgueddfa Cymru, offer the chance for people to view a wide range of portraits and images from their own homes, and smaller, more local cultural projects can also share their findings online, including via YouTube, it is essential that digitalisation does not lead to people who are not online being unable to access cultural resources.[vi]
Hosting cultural resources online opens up opportunities for a wide range of people to view, hear, share and participate. However, in Wales, 31% of over 75s (95,069 people) do not have access to the internet at home, while 33% of over 75s (101,200) do not use the internet (including Smart TV and handheld devices).[vii] It is important to ensure that good digital practice takes an inclusive approach and complements Ambition 1 of the draft strategy which focuses on culture being inclusive, accessible and diverse.
The Commissioner’s ‘Access Denied’ report sets out the problems faced by many older people as an increasing amount of information and services move online.[viii] It is essential that participation in culture does not mean exclusion for people who do not or cannot use the internet. This extends to practical issues such as publicising events and the operation of booking/ticketing systems. In order to be inclusive, it is important to avoid information about cultural events being solely or almost exclusively online, as well as not moving to digital-only booking systems or entrance tickets. Such action excludes people who do not use the internet, as well as those who do not have a smart phone, from cultural events and sites. Older people have shared their experiences of the frustration and feelings of being left out and left behind that result from not being able to do everyday activities as a result of digital exclusion. Culture must not further embed the problems of digital exclusion and instead should actively promote opportunities for all people to take part.
Conclusion
The Commissioner welcomes the Welsh Government’s draft Priorities for Culture in Wales 2024 to 2030 and supports many of the specific ambitions it contains. The draft strategy should:
- Consider how the priorities it contains connect to the purpose and long-term vision of the Welsh Government’s Age-Friendly Wales: Our Strategy for an Ageing Society, in particular the aim of ‘Enhancing people’s well-being’.
- Review how the ambitions set out across all three priorities can enhance the existing work underway on developing age-friendly communities across Wales.
- Explore opportunities provided by the World Health Organisation’s Global Network of Age Friendly Cities and Communities to share and learn from international good practice on supporting age-friendly activity through culture.
- Ensure that cultural venues and performances are accessible and attractive to older people, and that future cultural events reflect older people’s interests.
- Reflect the diverse voices of older people, including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic older people and others whose views and interests are less likely to be heard.
- Learn from bilingual projects such as Ein Hanes Ni on how the Welsh language can help bring local communities together across generations to collaborate on cultural activities.
- Use culture to promote volunteering opportunities to a wide range of older people and highlight the value this contribution makes.
- Ensure that culture does not contribute to further embedding the problems of digital exclusion experienced by older people, including via channels used to publicise events and booking/ticket systems.
Rachel Bowen, Director of Policy, Older People’s Commissioner for Wales
Rachel.bowen@olderpeople.wales
[i] See short video of the project via: ConneXions and Ysgol Trefnant, Denbighshire (youtube.com)
[ii]Welsh Government (2024) National Survey for Wales. Available at: National Survey for Wales headline results: April 2022 to March 2023 | GOV.WALES.
[iii] Welsh Government (2023) Welsh Language by population characteristics. Available at: Welsh language by population characteristics (Census 2021) [HTML] | GOV.WALES.
[iv] See ‘Ein Hanes Ni’ project from Menter Iaith Môn at: The Community – Menter Iaith Môn (menteriaithmon.cymru).
[v] Welsh Government (2024) National Survey for Wales. Available at: National Survey for Wales headline results: April 2022 to March 2023 | GOV.WALES.
[vi] See Collections Online | Museum Wales
[vii] Welsh Government (2022) National Survey for Wales April-June 2021. Available at: https:// gov.wales/national-survey-wales-results-viewer.
[viii] Older People’s Commissioner for Wales (2024) Access Denied: Older people’s experiences of digital exclusion in Wales. Available at: Access Denied: Older people’s experiences of digital exclusion in Wales.