CPC co-Director gives evidence at Holyrood's Finance Committee

Professor Eslpeth Graham, co-Director of CPC, gave evidence on 'Demography and our ageing population' at Holyrood's Finance Committee on 19 September.

Professor Graham attended the Scottish Parliament's Finance Committee alongside experts including Alan Sinclair of the Centre for Confidence and Wellbeing, Barbara Hurst of Audit Scotland, and Colin Mair of the Improvement Service.

In her address Professor Graham estimated the number of over 75's in the Scottish population would increase from the current number of 0.4m to around 0.7m by 2035. She also noted that "One of the problems in forecasting an ageing population is migration. Scotland is very much affected by migration into Scotland and migration within Scotland that is going to change the balance of population ageing in different local authorities". Elspeth lamented the lack data available to monitor this.

Alan Sinclair commented that the impact of the current recession will be felt in the economy over the next 30 years, and called for more realistic economic modelling when looking at Scotland's ageing population and changing demography.


The outcomes from the committee were reported in the Scottish Daily Record, and the BBC's Democracy Live recorded the evidence session - please click here to see the video of the session before the MSPs. Professor Graham first appears from around 20 minutes into the recording.

Posted 20/09/2012 17:29