Well, it certainly helped in Finland.
When I first started to work with colleagues in Finland on creative ageing over ten years ago, Finnish colleagues would modestly say how much they had to learn from the UK. They would still modestly say the same thing today, but the difference is that it is much less true. A contrast between our nations has been a proactive, consistent and systematic approach from the Finnish Government which has turbo-charged the development of creative ageing there.
A new era began with the National Arts and Culture for Wellbeing Action Plan for 2010-2014. This took an interdisciplinary approach based on an acceptance of the health and wellbeing impact of arts and culture. It came with an arts infrastructure body, the Taike, as a coordinating centre. This approach directly led to a similar pattern of working across health and culture departments at the local level, for instance in Helsinki with shared posts and budgets. More recently this has been further developed at the local authority level in the Municipal Cultural Activities Plan 2019.
Finally, the Government’s National Programme on Ageing 2030 includes the following impact objectives:
- preventative measures for at risk groups
- extending functional ability and working careers of older
people especially in social and health care - increase voluntary work
- ensure equality and economic sustainability
- improve age-friendliness of housing
- use technology to assist older people.
Creative ageing is then funded by the Ministry for Social Affairs and Health (not Culture) and facilitated by Taike to help secure these goals, along with a commitment to institutionalise creative ageing in wellbeing services around Finland (especially rural communities) and to have distinct plans with all cities and towns. So, it is a national strategy on ageing which specifically weaves in creative ageing throughout and funds it.
Our report Love in a Cold Climate: creative ageing in Finland (2021) gives a series of case studies of developing practice there, often supported by this national policy. Examples include the use of digital technology for culture in domiciliary care, cultural planning for new care home residents and expert arts facilitators in care called Cultural Instructors, as well as national learning networks to improve creative ageing practice.
However, every nation is different and at the Baring Foundation we are deeply aware that the functions of government that relate to creative ageing (arts and culture, health and social care, employment and education etc.) are all devolved. So that would mean each administration being responsible for establishing its own national strategy. We also understand the issue of scale. Finland has a similarly sized population to Scotland. The budget of Taike is reasonably similar to that of Creative Scotland, its closest analogous body. What is different is the degree of national government leadership and coordination. And national traditions differ. Finland, like other Scandinavian countries, tends towards strong government involvement throughout society and the relationship to culture to health, wellbeing and ageing is just one example.
The situation in each of the four home nations of the UK is unique and the current state of play on arts and ageing would take more time than I have here. Each of the national Arts Councils has their own strategy. These are generally open or permissive to creative ageing, but none of them really prioritise older people in the way we have seen happening with children and young people for some time. But here I am really talking about national plans or frameworks for older people. These need to encompass all aspects of ageing and not just be, for instance, a single-issue policy on social care or health for older people, or pensions and so on. To my eyes, Scotland comes closest to this with ‘A Fairer Scotland for Older People: framework for action’ (2019). Wonderfully, this specifically includes a section on ‘Engaging with Culture and Creativity’ and had input from Luminate, the Scottish Creative Ageing Development Agency. That’s a really strong start but my gentle criticism is that it does not then link creativity with all the issues affecting older people but only commits to listening to older people when developing the Scottish Culture Strategy which seems very limited in ambition and a long way from what has been happening in Finland. (When the Scottish ‘Culture Strategy’ was published in 2022 it simply referred to the previous document and made no commitments whatsoever regarding older people – so perhaps we are no further forward.)
There are bad ways to create and run a national strategy and good ways. The bad ways are not evidence based but a matter of short-term political whim, lack genuine consultation with stakeholders and are little more than press statements. They suppress the bottom-up view of practitioners and citizens and quickly become reports sitting on shelves gathering dust. Good policies, as we see with Finland, are the opposite. A National Pledge model as described in Ireland by Tara Byrne in our report is a complementary approach, which gives guidance and a framework within which arts organisations can choose to be judged. In some ways it is similar to the Age
Friendly Standards developed by the Family Arts Campaign which are already in operation here and well used. (Ireland also has a National Plan on Positive Ageing.)
There is much to be said for a bottom-up approach, but government action can be designed to support this without abdicating all responsibility. Matters seen to be important by Government will be the subject of national strategies. Ageing effects all government departments which is why it needs a cross-governmental strategy and that should include culture and creativity. Active and explicit government support opens doors in government departments, the NHS and local government. It gives direction and sets expectations. Although Arts Councils are arms’ length bodies, a national policy helps set a context for their decisions.
A Finnish-style national policy feels like distant goal. Perhaps we need to admit how much we have to learn from them.
This essay was first published in a new Baring Foundation publication – Creative ageing – what next? An agenda for the future (published 10 October 2023)
