Rebecca Duffett spoke with Christian Guy of Centre for Social Justice

Christian Guy

The number of pensioners living in poverty in the UK fell by nearly a third in the 10 years to 2007/08, official figures showed earlier this year, but there were still an estimated two million living below the breadline. Latest figures also showed that income inequality increased over the past 30 years. Leading think tank, Centre for Social Justice, warned last month that social breakdown is fuelling shocking levels of pensioner poverty and social isolation. With budget cuts and a freezing winter taking hold, Rebecca Duffett spoke with senior policy specialist Christian Guy to find out more.

Rebecca: What is pensioner poverty and social isolation?

Christian: We sought to ask that very question as we went all over the UK. We found that poverty in later life is prevalent. That can mean income poverty; people are struggling to make ends meet through benefits, or perhaps they own a home and have assets but they do not qualify for benefits, yet they have a very low income, that can mean they are asset rich, but cash poor.

There's also a social element to that income poverty; poverty of relationships and quality of life. In this report we've tried to identify that it's so much more than money. Some older people are living in real isolation, experiencing extreme loneliness. They haven't got family ties and aren't part of a community. We've met a number of older people whose day consisted of sitting on their settee on their own and not speaking to anyone for days at a time.

We've tried to talk about the lack of money but also the lack of quality of life and relationships too.

Rebecca: What are the causes of this?

Christian: We have found that there are a number of things driving this. In large part, building on the work that CSJ has done over the last few years, we have found that there is a lot of social breakdown which is fuelling poverty and exclusion in later life. The breakdown of family life in some of our poorest areas and the lack of good education is starting to come through in later life now too. Living out of work for much of your working age means you're much more likely to be in poverty and exclusion in later life. Having difficulties with debt and having poor housing; we've found that all of these traits that drive poverty throughout the younger years are actually now bearing fruit in older age too.

Rebecca: Do you think that the situation will get worse in the future?

Christian: This is partly why we're publishing an interim paper now. We can see that the situation is already fairly bad. We've had a period of 15 years of record economic growth. Money has been thrown at older people through the benefits system and actually universal benefits have been retained in the latest spending review. We still have this situation though, where we have an entrenched poverty among a certain section of our older population. This is already a worrying situation, but in view of the aging society; in view of public spending restraints that are already being felt by older people over the last few years, but will continue to be felt more acutely over the next few years, we could see that this is gathering into something of a perfect storm where it will only get worse unless we act now.

The other thing that this report does is to speak up for older people and celebrate the fact that people are living longer and champion the work that older people do in our community. We're not saying it's all bad; we're simply saying that this is a group of people that has been left behind and has become detached from the rest of our older population.

Rebecca: What would you urge the government to do about it? Is there a solution to the problem?

Christian: We are now moving on from our analysis to our recommendation stage and we'll be publishing our agenda for reform in the early summer.

I think there are certain things they can do now and we are encouraged by some of the things that are coming out of the new coalition government on the working age and pensionable age. I think the key thing that needs to be understood from our report, is that this is so much more than money. The previous government was almost obsessed with the poverty line and being able to throw money at people and lift them just above the poverty line and claim that they're not now living in poverty; but this is bigger than that and it's about time we understood that poverty and exclusion is a broader picture.

Another important thing to understand is that it doesn't always have to be the State that has the answers, so we'll be looking at community, the role of families, the role of informal social networks, in helping older people prepare for later life. Many of them don't think about growing older much, so we need to help people deal with the reality of later life, whether it's care or housing or issues around lifestyle.

We're coming to look at that now and we'll be publishing in early summer.