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Ageing Well Strategy 2020-2025

Minutes:

5.1 The Chair opened the item by explaining that it would look at the implementation of the Ageing Well Strategy to achieve the Council’s broader objectives and aspirations to support residents to grow old in Hackney.

 

5.2 Attending for this item was:

 

·  Councillor Chris Kennedy, Cabinet Member for Health, Adult Social Care, Voluntary Sector and Culture

·  Sonia Khan, Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery 

 

5.3 The Chair invited the Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery to give a short verbal presentation to compliment the reports received and included in the agenda pack. The main points from the presentation are outlined below.

 

5.4 It was explained that the commitment to being an age friendly borough was made in the last administration’s manifesto, and it represented an opportunity to understand and respond to the needs and interests of older people.

 

5.5 The strategy aimed to ensure that council services, policies and practices were age friendly, to create a culture shift in how older people were perceived and supported and influence partners and the community and voluntary sector to support the shared vision.

 

5.6 In producing the strategy, the Council took stock of local data and national and international research about older people, before holding informal focus groups exploring what it meant to grow old in Hackney.

 

5.7 The Council recruited trained older peer facilitators through HCSV Connect Hackney to codesign the consultation and engagement with older population in Hackney. Stakeholder engagement also took place with services being asked how they felt they could adapt and change based on the findings of the consultation.

 

5.8 Stakeholders and the peer facilitators came together to produce the recommendations following the consultation and engagement, and the peer facilitators led on the drafting of the strategy.

 

5.9 A roundtable was then held with umbrella older people’s groups to discuss the draft strategy, and a formal online and offline consultation was held from September - October 2020. The strategy was adopted by Cabinet in December 2020.

 

5.10 There were a number of priority areas for ageing well in Hackney, and a number of conditions that needed to be put in place in order to meet those priority areas and make the strategy successful.

 

5.11 This included ensuring that older people were involved proactively in the delivery of the strategy, not only in terms of monitoring and oversight but also in the co-design and co-creation of programme activity, and ensuring that opportunities for better joined-up working between services were actively explored.

 

5.12 Some of the key achievements so far were outlined. This included Hackney joining the UK network of age-friendly communities, joining the World Health Organisation's global network of age-friendly cities and continued co-production with stakeholders and older people through working groups themed around the six priority areas.

 

5.13 There had been challenges in progressing officer level governance of the strategy due to the pandemic, resource constraints and the refugee crisis but it was a priority to establish and progress the strategy by the autumn.

 

5.14 The main focus so far had been about building the older person’s voice into council mechanisms and influencing culture and transformation, advising and providing insight into older people’s needs and interests.

 

5.15 There were a number of examples of work where ageing well principles had been applied. This included the link work model in the Customer Services team which aimed to ensure that vulnerable residents were supported early on and prevented from reaching crisis.

 

5.16 As part of that pilot, people aged 70 and over who had not logged a repair in two or more years with the Council were prioritised. The repairs service was used as a route to speaking about the other wellbeing issues people may be facing.

 

5.17 The Hackney Older Citizens Committee fed into the Health and Wellbeing Strategy and Public Health heavily engaged older people’s groups beyond the Hackney Older Citizens Committee to attain feedback and insight.

 

5.18 Adult Social Care had redesigned their resident involvement work including adding new groups such as the Carers Partnership Board and recommissioning services such as homecare using a co-design approach with residents.

 

5.19 The Council had also worked closely with Hackney Social Radio, through the Culture team, including on intergenerational conversations being recorded with older and younger people around the experience of ageing, ageism and climate change.

 

5.20 The Planning team were organising intergenerational forums for the child friendly supplementary planning document, ensuring that the guidance referenced older people and age friendly spaces.

 

5.21 The Parks team were also working to ensure that older people’s needs were being considered within the Parks Strategy. For example, a ‘Chatty Corner’ was to be piloted in Shoreditch Park with benches that had been co-produced by the Hackney Older Citizens Committee.

 

5.22 The Hackney Older Citizens Committee had participated and provided input into the Libraries Review, and had been invited to contribute to early discussions on what needed to be included in the Housing Strategy and what needed to be included in the consultation process.

The Council was successful in its bid for the Government's Shared Outcomes Fund, which was a fund that had been committed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for a Partnerships for People and Place project focusing?on place-based?initiatives,?which?created better?cross-government coordination.

 

5.23 As part of the bid the Council pledged to focus on preventative approaches to health inequalities through community engagement, integration and neighbourhoods with a specific focus on ageing well.

The overall outcome of the programme was to reduce health inequalities by increasing the wellbeing of older adults through investing in local voluntary and community sector capacity via a flexible grants programme.

The next steps for the strategy were then outlined. These included a review of the governance and officers group, establishing a provider forum which would ensure a link into the wider voluntary and community sector and the Council’s dementia work and reviewing membership of the Hackney Older Citizens Committee.

 

5.24 The Chair then invited the Cabinet Member for Health, Adult Social Care, Voluntary Sector and Culture to make any closing remarks. The main points are outlined below.

 

5.25 He highlighted the importance of co-production in developing the strategy, particularly through the Hackney Older Persons Citizens Committee which, as previously mentioned, had been involved in developing the Libraries Review, Parks Strategy and early stages of the Housing Strategy.

 

5.26 The Council had taken strides in building the older person’s voice into mechanisms and influencing culture and transformation, despite the challenges that had been presented by the pandemic, resource constraints and the refugee crisis.

 

5.27 The ‘Chatty Corner’, which was to be piloted in Shoreditch Park with benches that had been co-produced by the Hackney Older Citizens Committee, was seen as a particular highlight of the work thus far. It showed the value of co-production and ensuring that services were tailored to the needs of the communities that they serve.

 

5.28 Looking forward, the Partnerships for People and Place project would broadly focus on two strands of activities in the Hackney Marshes neighbourhood (Homerton and Kings Park):

 

·  The co-production and implementation of a flexible grants programme to engage older people not already involved in local activities, fund gaps in local activities, and add value to existing activities

·  To maximise the impact of local activities, including intergenerational activities, to tackle health inequalities and help people age well.

 

5.29 Following feedback during the consultation process, employment was highlighted as an area of difficulty for some older people who were unemployed or who had taken a career break. The Council would undertake a pilot to support older people struggling to get back into work.

 

Questions, Answers and Discussion

 

5.30 A Commission Member asked how the Council would monitor and evaluate the progress of the Ageing Well Strategy against its desired outcomes.

 

5.31 The Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery explained that the Ageing Well Delivery Plan would be used to track and monitor progress, both in relation to what the Council had committed to and what the Council would influence through its partners.

 

5.32 The Council was keen to quantify what sustained change it had made or influenced by understanding how each commitment was being implemented and what the outcomes of those were. Within this, the Council would seek resident and stakeholder feedback to help determine how these outcomes were felt across communities.

 

5.33 A Commission Member asked how the Ageing Well Strategy would interact with other cross-cutting pieces of work being undertaken by the Council such as on anti-racism and carbon net zero.

 

5.34 The Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery explained that an important aspect of the strategy was to ensure a diverse range of voices were involved in its development and delivery, and it was felt that this would help it to influence the wider agendas and priorities of the Council.

 

5.35 The strategy sought to imbed the voices of older people throughout services across Hackney. For example, there were specific strands of work with the Windrush Generation which tied in with the Council’s wider work on anti-racism, and to ensure low traffic neighbourhoods were age friendly which tied into the Council’s wider work on net zero.

 

5.36 A Commission Member asked how the Council was tailoring its ageing well approach across different communities of older people, and specifically how it would tailor the approach to different age groups within the older people cohort.

 

5.37 In response, the Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery explained that through resident feedback and engagement it became clear that the concept of ageing was different for different people. It was therefore important to see age as a process and look at what can be done across services to make them more age friendly.

 

5.38 For example, the Partnership for People and Place project sought to learn through intergenerational dialogue what could be done to get residents to think about ageing whilst they were younger, and what could be done on a preventative basis to help with the ageing process.

 

5.39 A Commission Member asked how the Council would ensure that the resident voice was heard throughout the delivery phase of the Ageing Well Strategy and how this would shape policy.

 

5.40 The Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery explained that the Hackney Older Citizens Committee would feed into the delivery of the strategy and provide challenge to the Council’s decisions.

 

5.41 Regular engagement had been a challenge due the pandemic with older people more likely to get involved when there was a live opportunity to influence something rather than through regular conversations. However, there was a commitment to broadening that engagement, reviewing the membership of the Hackney Older Citizen’s Committee and increasing its membership.

 

5.42 A Commission Member asked whether it was possible to ensure that age friendly approaches were embedded into planning policy in the same way that child-friendly places were through the child-friendly places supplementary planning document.

 

5.43 The Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery explained that there was a manifesto commitment by the current administration to co-produce a new design guide with disabled and older people to ensure that streets, parks, estates, public buildings, high streets and public spaces are inclusive and accessible for all.

 

5.44 A Commission Member asked whether there would be scope for involving the Hackney Older Citizen’s Committee in discussions and reviews across Hackney Council’s Scrutiny Commissions.

 

5.45 The Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery recognised that the Hackney Older Citizen’s Committee could add value to the work of scrutiny and that it would consider the ways in which it could do so when reviewing its role and responsibilities.

 

5.46 The Chair then invited the Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Education, Young People and Children’s Social Care to give any closing remarks.

 

5.47 The Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Education, Young People and Children’s Social Care emphasised the importance of intergenerational dialogue with young and older residents coming together to co-produce work under the strategy.

Supporting documents: