Page 693 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 1990
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The fourth area is coordination and integration - recommendation 60. Under our administrative arrangements responsibility for the ageing falls within my portfolio. These arrangements ensure for the first time a cohesive and holistic approach to ageing policy, with fully integrated service delivery. It is appropriate, I believe, that my department, rather than the Rehabilitation and Aged Care service in the Department of Health, as recommended by the committee, undertakes coordination and integration. The recommendations and the matters which the Government has adopted go way beyond rehabilitation and aged care matters which are encompassed by that service.
The Government will continue the consultative process commenced by the inquiry. The "Blueprint for the Ageing" has been discussed with the ACT Council on the Ageing, and it has its support. We will be meeting regularly with community organisations to discuss implementation of the blueprint.
As well as embracing the recommendations of the Social Policy Committee inquiry, the "Blueprint for the Ageing" goes further and addresses issues that are outside the range of the terms of reference of the committee. We have used the inquiry as a springboard and, as foreshadowed in the Alliance Government's policy on the ageing, have set the broad priorities and general framework for the next five years for how we will deal with issues and services which affect the ageing.
We need to know more about the ageing and their needs. We will conduct a phone-in so that the ageing and those who care for them can tell us first-hand their problems and how we might best meet their needs. The phone-in will be organised for Senior Citizens Week in May, and the date will be widely publicised.
It is essential that we continue our dialogue with the ageing population. I have therefore arranged for a designated coordinating officer position to be established in my department's Social Policy Division, to ensure a high level of communication on service delivery and policy development as we implement the blueprint.
The Alliance Government places great importance on the quality of life and opportunities for the ageing to continue to contribute to the community. It is a primary aim to ensure that the ageing maintain a sense of worth and dignity, and feel that they constitute a vibrant part of the ACT community. The blueprint explains how we plan to build on intergenerational links and reduce social isolation by increasing access to recreational, cultural and all other community facilities.
We will improve educational opportunities for the ageing by arranging for the University of the Third Age to use existing school facilities to enable it to run courses more effectively.
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