Toolkit

Context: Roughly 25 percent of the Welsh population will be age 65 and over by 2038, according to the United Kingdom Office of National Statistics. Already, an estimated 12.5 percent of older people in Wales live in poverty, demanding government intervention to ensure all people can enjoy health and financial security into old age. To address these concerns, the Welsh government has been at the forefront of aging policy, developing its first national strategy around aging, the Strategy for Older People, in 2003. This prioritization of aging policy led to the creation of the world’s first Older People’s Commissioner, as well as numerous achievements around the health and well-being of older people in Wales. The latest strategy, Age-Friendly Wales (2021), seeks to build on these successes and spans multiple policy areas, including financial security.

Plan Development: In addition to demographic and medical research, Age Friendly Wales: Our Strategy for an Ageing Society, published in 2021, was informed by input from those age 50 and over through surveys and forums held in each local authority. This extensive consultation process helped ensure that the strategy was specifically designed around the needs and wants of older people in Wales. 

Principles & Goals: The strategy is underpinned by three “cross-cutting themes,” which include creating an age-friendly environment, prioritizing prevention of chronic disease, and promoting older persons’ rights. It is notable that the Age Friendly Wales Strategy takes an explicit human rights approach to aging, aligning itself with the UN Principles for Older Persons. With these rights in mind, the strategy addresses community planning, civic engagement, employment and financial security, social inclusion, access to health, long-term care, transportation, and housing. It centers around four “aims”: 1) enhancing well-being, 2) improving local services and environments, 3) building and retaining people’s own capability, and 4) tackling age-related poverty. Each “aim” provides examples of actions taken by the government to improve older people’s access and experience in that area, as well as priorities for the future. For example, the strategy seeks to improve access to public bathrooms as a future priority to achieve Aim 2, improving local services and environments. Additionally, the strategy provides relevant examples of how technology is improving services, products, and environments for older persons in Wales. For example, the strategy highlights the Digital Communities Wales: Digital Confidence, Health, and Wellbeing program, which supports the digital inclusion of all people in Wales, including older adults.

Execution & Achievements: The Age Friendly Wales Strategy was only recently published. As such, a delivery plan is still to be released, and specific policies or programs have yet to be enacted. Wales also has yet to publish metrics to track progress toward the Strategy, though an Action Plan and metrics are expected in late 2022. However, the Strategy highlights ongoing projects and programs alongside longer-term priorities. Many of these ongoing projects and programs targeting older Welsh adults were established by the strategy’s predecessor, the 2003 Strategy for Older People. For example, over its three phases, that policy introduced free bus passes for older persons and promoted a maximum weekly out-of-pocket payment limit for home care and social support services (currently £100) for older persons, enabling older people to age in their homes and communities. These successes are, in part, the result of detailed delivery plans that accompanied each phase of the strategy. These delivery plans included timelines for specific actions and metrics by which progress can be measured. 

Current Status & References: For updates on the status of the plan, contact ask@olderpeoplewales.com. For more information, see this website to view the Strategy. 

Context: The number of Californians over age 60 is expected to double by 2030, reaching 10.8 million and representing a quarter of the state’s entire population. Meeting the needs of these older adults, especially regarding housing, health, and long-term care, will be a massive challenge for California. Although California submits a state plan in compliance with the Older Americans Act of 1965 every four years, the Older Americans Act covers a limited range of subjects, including health, long-term care, and caregiver support. To meet the modern challenges of population aging, in 2019, California’s Governor signed an Executive Order calling for the creation of a “blueprint” for state and local government, the private sector, and philanthropic organizations to prepare for these dramatic demographic changes. This blueprint materialized in 2021 as the Master Plan for Aging.

Plan Development: The Master Plan’s development was informed by extensive engagement with communities and stakeholders through surveys, town hall meetings, pledges, webinars, and community roundtables that California’s Department of Aging held between September 2019 and October 2020. The Executive Order also called for the creation of a Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC), which brought together 78 health care providers, health plans, employers, academics, researchers, and community-based organizations to provide policy recommendations and public comment. The SAC notably created an Equity Working Group to ensure that the plan addressed life-long disparities and inequities faced by people of color and LGBTQ+ Californians. Public and stakeholder input was considered by the state government’s Cabinet Working Group, which represented all ten Cabinet departments and other Executive offices in the development of the plan.

Principles & Goals: The California Master Plan’s development, goals, and implementation are substantive and robust. The Master Plan outlines five goals around housing, health, inclusion, caregiving, and economic security. Each of these goals is further broken down into “strategies,” which include unique aging policy considerations, such as disaster risk reduction and climate change within the plan’s housing goal. The role of these supporting strategies is to provide flexible paths for state and local governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and community-based organizations to achieve goals.

Execution & Achievements: To accelerate progress toward these goals, California developed over 100 Action-Ready Initiatives. These Initiatives have already been adopted by state agencies or local governments and are ready for implementation. Each Initiative identifies the government agencies responsible for leading its execution. To begin implementation, California’s Enacted Budget for Fiscal Year 2021–2022 included 3.8 billion USD to fund new investments to advance the Master Plan for Aging, which is a significant level of funding for a subnational plan, although a relatively small investment for an economy of California’s size ($3.6 trillion USD). In January 2022, California released its first annual report on the plan’s implementation. Leaders have appointed the state’s first Senior Advisor on Aging, Disability, and Alzheimer’s and are investing billions into 132 programs and initiatives to make the state more aging-friendly. Progress toward reaching each goal is monitored on the data dashboard. Reports on the plan’s implementation are published annually—few plans feature similar robust dashboards with accessible data.

Current Status & References: The Annual Report identified progress on many initiatives outlined in the original plan. For more information, see this website to view the Master Plan.