2020: Realising the opportunities of an ageing population

Speaker Biographies

Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP Chief Secretary to the Treasury, HM Government

Born in 1972, Danny Alexander grew up in the Highlands and Islands and went to Lochaber High School in Fort William. He then went on to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. After this, Danny worked as a press officer for the Scottish Liberal Democrats before spending four years at the European Movement and then four years as Director of Communications for the Britain in Europe Campaign.

In 2003 he was appointed the Head of Communications for the recently formed Cairngorms National Park Authority before becoming an MP for the newly created seat of Inverness, Nairn and Badenoch & Strathspey in the 2005 election.

Danny joined the shadow Work and Pensions Team in 2005 and in July 2007 was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, holding the post until June 2008. He gave this up to concentrate on the roles of Chief of Staff to the party leader, , and Chair of the Manifesto Group.

He played a key role in the negotiating team and in the drawing up of the coalition document for the new Government. Danny was initially appointed Secretary of State for Scotland and at the end of May 2010, was promoted to become Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Danny was appointed to the Privy Council in May 2010.

Danny is married with two daughters. His parliamentary responsibilities combined with having a young family do not afford a lot of time for hobbies but when they do he enjoys hill-walking, fishing, travel and sports of all kinds.

Brian Sloan Chief Executive, Age Scotland

Brian Sloan has a background in financial services, hospitality and retail, and he was for over a year Chairman of Age Scotland Enterprises, the Charity’s social enterprise arm. He became the Charity’s Interim Chief Executive in July 2012 and was appointed Chief Executive in January 2013.

Previously Brian was involved in strategic business development for Young Enterprise Scotland, charged with leading the promotion and expansion of enterprise into mainstream education. His financial experience included over a year as Head of

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Business Development with Capital Credit Union, Britain’s fifth largest not-for-profit cooperative.

Brian is married with four children, active both as a participant (golf and squash) and a spectator in a variety of sports and in early 2011 was appointed by the Scottish Government as a member of the Edinburgh Children's Panel.

Kenneth Howse Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, University of Oxford

Kenneth Howse is a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. With a background in philosophy, Kenneth worked for several years with the Institute of Medical Ethics. He became interested in ageing in the 1990s when he joined the Centre for Policy on Ageing, a London-based think-tank, before moving to the Oxford Institute of Ageing in 2003.

Kenneth has a broad interest in policy implications of demographic ageing (i.e. across most policy areas), with special interest in: problems of intergenerational fairness and ethical issues surrounding ageing; and determinants of mortality changes. He is currently working on several projects including: a study of home care service in Bangladesh; the ageing of the agricultural workforce in East Asia; and the health policy challenges of population ageing.

Professor David Bell Professor of Economics, University of Stirling

Professor Dawn Skelton Professor in Ageing and Health, Caledonian University

Dawn Skelton is Professor of Ageing and Health at Glasgow Caledonian University. She is a commissioned author for the WHO’s Health Evidence Network and the UK’s Department of Health. She was Scientific Co-ordinator of the EC funded ProFaNE (Prevention of Falls Network Europe) project at the University of Manchester and is a collaborator on the new EC Thematic Network ProFouND (Prevention of Falls Network for Dissemination).

Dawn was co-host of the 8th World Congress on Active Ageing, in 2012 and on the Expert Panel for the Chief Medical Officers Start Active Stay Active recommendations for physical activity and public health in 2011. She also runs training courses to move research into practice with allied health professionals and fitness instructors. Her recent research (MRC and NIHR) focuses on effects of visualisations of biomechanics on adherence to exercise in older people with a history of falls, group versus home exercise referred through the GP on habitual physical activity, effects of the Otago home exercise programme in visually impaired older people, the outdoor environment on avoidance of activity and falls in older people and reducing sedentary behaviour (long periods of sitting) in older people.

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Dr Joanne Crawford Senior Scientist and Ergonomist, the Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM)

Joanne is a Senior Scientist and Ergonomist at the Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) and a Fellow of the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors. Before joining IOM in 2007, she was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests include preventing and managing musculoskeletal problems in the workplace, knowledge transfer for occupational safety and health, promoting mental wellbeing in the workplace and the impact of ageing on work and work on ageing.

Recent and current research at the Institute on ageing and work has included a systematic review of the health, safety and health promotion needs of older workers and on-going work is adding to this evidence base in an EU funded project called e- capacit8. This project aims to develop an online training platform to aid occupational health professionals support an ageing work force. This research has helped to build the evidence base in relation to age and work but there is still the need to remove the myths and create a better understanding of healthy ageing, job demands, job design and human capacity to enable individuals to have a healthy working life into a healthy retirement.

Professor Bryan Manning Visiting Professor in Cross-Sectorial Compunetics Research, University of Westminster

After many years providing strategic management consultancy services within the Public and Private Sectors, although nominally retired, Bryan has continued to accept a number of strategic commissions across the Health & Social Care domain. This is closely linked with developing Compunetics as a new inter-disciplinary research topic based within the School of Electronics and Computer Science, but also closely involving Applied Psychology and Management sciences within the University of Westminster.

Added to this he continues to be deeply immersed in international standards development with ISO, CEN and BSI, and is currently part of an international Strategy Group working on Ambient Assisted Living for the Elderly and those with Long Term Conditions. In the latter context he is guiding strategic development of the Dementia Action Alliance, having previously fulfilled a similar role for the Thalidomide Trust.

Much of his work has focused on Healthcare service provision with the UK, Europe and USA where he has worked from Ministerial, senior civil service staff, CEO/Clinical Director level downwards. As a result he has gained exceptionally wide range of expertise dealing with strategic and operational issues across the complete spectrum of Community, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Care service commissioning and provision, spanning Physiological, Mental and Social problems.

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Typical activities have been aimed at countering latent and low-level Mental Health problems at source in the context of the IAPT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy programme via the development of enhanced inter-disciplinary cross-agency community Well-Being services. This is coupled with the integration of mobile telecare/telehealth systems development in the context of the UK New Dynamics of Ageing programme as well as that of similar EU and USA policies.

Pat Scrutton Co-ordinator, Intergenerational National Network

Pat Scrutton is a free-lance project manager. Originally a linguist, her working background has been in community development, with a particular interest in active ageing. She co-ordinates the Intergenerational National Network; is on the Steering Group of Generations Working Together; chairs the National Forum on Older Volunteering; is secretary to the National Forum on Ageing Futures Group; and is a board member of Outside the Box and of Change Agents Network UK. Her interests include walking, reading, music, cooking, crosswords and travel.

Amanda Britain Managing Director, Craigforth Research and Consultancy; Joint Improvement Team Associate

Tommy Whitelaw Project Officer - Dementia Carer Voices Project, Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland

For five years Tommy was a full-time carer for his late mother Joan who had Vascular Dementia and in 2011 undertook a walk around Scotland’s towns and cities to collect hundreds of life story letters detailing the experiences of individuals caring for a loved one living dementia.

Since then, he has engaged with thousands of carers through his ‘Tommy on Tour’ blog and as Project Officer of the Health and Social Care Alliance’s Dementia Carer Voices Project, conducting frequent talks to health and social care professionals and carer organisations across Scotland, raising awareness of the carer journey and the importance of treating people living with dementia as unique individuals, not defined by their age or a long term condition.

Brenda Rankin Fundraising and Partnership Manager - Scotland, The Prince's Initiative for Mature Enterprise

I joined PRIME in March of this year when the organisation expanded into Scotland. My role is to raise awareness of PRIME and what we offer to support self-employment for the over 50’s, to establish and develop partnerships with other organisations who share our interest in enterprise and to secure funding to support our activities in Scotland.

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I have been working in the charitable sector since 2009, initially with The Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust (PSYBT) and subsequently as a result of the merger in 2012, with The Prince’s Trust. My main area of responsibility was to secure funding from Trusts and Foundations to support a variety of programmes.

Prior to joining PSYBT I was employed by Scottish Enterprise, (SE) Scotland’s economic development body. This provided me with a varied career, initially in the field of securing foreign direct investment for Scotland, including a period working in the US.

I subsequently was project manager with the SE Financial Services Team responsible for the design, development and delivery of a strategy for the sector in Scotland with a focus on skills development. This strategy was devised in collaboration with industry partners, Scottish government, academia and the professional financial bodies in Scotland.

Before joining SE I was engaged in medical and scientific research with both the NHS and in the private sector.

Rachael Brown Director of Business Development & Consultancy, Impact Arts

Rachael has over 18 years experience working within Glasgow’s communities. She leads on all flagship programme developments and particularly our work with young people. Rachael has been instrumental in the last 10 years in raising the profile of creative approaches to engaging young people, with a specific focus on engaging young people within their local communities. She has in depth knowledge of the social housing, regeneration and youth sector, and understands the challenges and opportunities faced when transforming communities. Improving the environment through high quality public art is one of Impact Arts strategic priorities. Rachael has specific expertise in creative community consultation within a wider strategic framework, and has a long track record in translating this into highly creative, tangible project ideas which partners can engage in and adopt.

Patrick Harvie MSP Co-Convener of the Scottish Green Party (subject to Parliamentary business)

Patrick Harvie was elected as a regional MSP for Glasgow in May 2003. He was a member of the Communities Committee dealing with housing, planning, charity law, and social issues, and more recently Convenor of Parliament’s Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee.

Patrick has also been involved with issues from asylum and civil liberties to sexual health and food policy. He is also the joint Convenor of the Scottish Green Party.

Before Parliament Patrick worked in the sexual health field, for an organisation called PHACE Scotland which is now part of the Terrence Higgins Trust.

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Kenneth Gibson MSP Convener of the 's Finance Committee (subject to Parliamentary business)

Sarah Boyack MSP Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Planning, Party (subject to Parliamentary business)

Gwen Harrison & Antonia Baird Community Resilience, Argyll Voluntary Action

Antonia Baird and Gwen Harrison are Community Resilience Officers for Argyll Voluntary Action (AVA) and are employed under the Reshaping Care For Older People Agenda.

Professor Richard Kerley Conference Chair: Professor of Management, Queen Margaret University; SRK Consultancy; Chair of CSPP

Richard is currently Professor of Management at Queen Margaret University College, where he has been since January 2003. He was previously at the University of Edinburgh and the Scottish Local Authorities Management Centre, University of Strathclyde. He has also been a visiting scholar at Yale University and is a visiting professor at ITM Mumbai and EASB Singapore.

Before entering academic life Richard worked in advertising, hospitality and in prison education. Richard was a councillor in Edinburgh for 8 years where he chaired two committees. He also chaired the Scottish Executive's Working Party on Renewing Local Democracy, the report of which was published in July 2000 and which was legislated for in June 2004 as the Local Governance Act.

Richard is the author of various books, research papers, academic journals and numerous articles in the quality print media. His most recent publications include a book chapter on performance in public services and journal articles on the management of urban car parking as an example of effective practice in public management and Single Outcome Agreements in local government. He also writes regularly for the quality and trade press and contributes to TV, radio and online news/current affairs.

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