Glasgow is an ambitious and entrepreneurial city with a track record of delivery and making things happen. We are Scotland’s largest city and like many large urban areas, we face challenges in tackling issues of deprivation and inequality. In our Council Strategic Plan 2012-2017, we provide a vision for Glasgow that will deliver economic growth and resilience for all in our community. The plan sets out a range of practical commitments to ensure that older citizens can participate fully in the life of the city. This includes a:

• programme of free and discounted access to a range of sports and activities;
• strong commitment to independent living and support for older citizens;
• range of supports for carers;
• programme to help alleviate fuel poverty for some of our most vulnerable older people.

Glasgow’s approach to supporting older people is based around the principles of equality and inclusion. We want to ensure older citizens can participate fully in all aspects of life in the city. Access to our museums is free and our library service offers home delivery of books for citizens unable to visit their local library. We actively encourage older people to volunteer and our older citizens played an important part in the delivery of the 2014 Commonwealth Games as Host City Volunteers. We want to support our older citizens to live independently. We have a range of services to support this. Our Home care provider Cordia organises homecare services for over 6,300 Glaswegians daily and weekly and this is supported by the community alarm service and other assistive technologies.

We believe that being part of the WHO Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities will help us to accelerate our approach, building on the good practice we can already demonstrate and allowing us to set our aspirations for older people in Glasgow at the highest level.