THE Change in the City report, which is published today by the council, paints a fascinating picture of how the demographics in Edinburgh will alter over the next decade.
It highlights a number of challenges, both organisational and financial, that this will throw up for both the local authority and the Scottish Government.
The most startling is how we will be forced to cope with a steep rise in the number of eld
erly people – a spike which can be explained by a combination of several factors. This is the first generation for almost a century whose numbers have not been substantially reduced by World Wars. On top of that, advances in medicine and diet have meant more people are living for a lot longer.
This growth in the ageing population will have more effect in reasonably affluent areas like Edinburgh than in some other parts of the country. The council estimates that by 2016 there will be a 10 per cent rise in the number of people aged between 65 and 84, and a 30 per cent rise in those over 85.
This will not only pose problems for the NHS – which was designed around entirely different demographics after the Second World War – but will have far-reaching consequences for social services. Today's report puts the added financial burden on the council at £4.5 million a year by 2012, as more and more pensioners require support.
As more become reliant on the state, there is a need to ensure the civic and national economies expand to meet the challenge. More tax generators will be needed, and it is forecast that Edinburgh will require an additional 38,000 people of working age over the next eight years to fill gaps, mainly in the expanding services industries.
The onus remains on both the UK and Scottish governments to create and maintain the best conditions for economic growth. To date, both have paid plenty of lip service towards creating a dynamic business environment economy.
But no clear route map has been laid out by either Labour in London or the SNP in Holyrood, with one mired in confusion about tax policy and the other still bogged down in trying to meet its manifesto commitments.
Both seem very adept at finding ways to spend public money – but less so when it comes to genuine wealth creation.
The issues raised by today's report will not go away, and building the prosperity needed to meet the needs of an ageing population will be hampered by a punishing local income tax and a needlessly complex credit system.
The full article contains 440 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
