Guest Blog: Security not Struggle for Scotland’s older people

Every day at Independent Age – the national charity for pensioner poverty – we hear from older people in Scotland who don’t have enough to live on. Today we’re launching our manifesto, Security not Struggle, ahead of the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections.[i] Our manifesto sets out the actions needed to tackle poverty among people over State Pension age (SPa).

Poverty among pensioners is often overlooked and underestimated. It’s wrongly assumed that once we reach SPa, people’s years of struggle are over as we access more ‘generous’ entitlements such as the State Pension and Pension Credit.

However, the risk of poverty among those over State Pension age is significant and rising. The pensioner poverty rate is currently over 15%, its highest rate for 20 years. This means almost 160,000 pensioners are in relative poverty, including over 80,000 in severe poverty.

Breaking those numbers down we see poverty rates of  over 40% among older minoritized ethnic communities, 32% of older renters and 22% of older lone female households. We also see poverty worsening as we move through the age bands beyond SPa.[ii]

At the same time, we are witnessing the previous growth in Life Expectancy in Scotland begin to stagnate, and now see a fall in Healthy Life Expectancy for those born today.[iii]

What all this means is more people living a greater portion of their lives beyond State Pension age in poor health and in poverty. We can’t allow this to continue.

As one older person told us: “Council tax, food, bills and electric – I’ve got nothing at the end of the day... I have no social life, I can’t go out.”

Devolved remits have the potential to deliver significant improvements to people’s lives. For example, through the supply of appropriate social housing, rent control areas, home energy performance support, and changes to relevant entitlements such as Discretionary Housing Payments, along with Carers and Pension Age Disability Payments. Much is being done across those remits but, as the numbers above prove, more is required.

Crucially, more can be done in Scotland to ensure that older people take up both devolved and reserved social security payments to improve not only their own lives, but to deliver significant savings to Scottish public spending. Our analysis estimates that a 100% uptake of Pension Credit could deliver over £300 million of annual savings to the health and social care budget in Scotland, while lifting over 40,000 pensioners out of relative poverty.[iv]

Yet as devolved Government focusses on devolved entitlements, and Westminster’s response is inadequate to significantly drive uptake rates of reserved entitlements, older people are falling between the gaps in remits.

Simply put – Scotland needs a plan to tackle pensioner poverty. Our manifesto sets out five pledges all political parties should make to older people in poverty ahead of next year’s election:

1. Implement a national Pensioner Poverty Strategy
2. Appoint a Commissioner for Older People
3. Deliver a dignified social security system
4. Reduce energy bills
5. Guarantee the right to a secure and affordable home

We need a clarity of focus, allocation of resource and political will. We need to change our systems to deliver security not struggle for older people. Our manifesto sets out that change, and we look forward to working with all parties in the next parliament to make the significant policy shifts required to face, with unity and optimism, the demographic and economic changes shaping all our futures.

You can read Security not Struggle: a manifesto to reduce pensioner poverty here

[i] Independent Age, Security not Struggle, a manifesto to reduce pensioner poverty (Oct 2025)

[ii] Independent Age, Building a Pensioner Poverty Strategy for Scotland (May 2025)

[iii] National Record for Scotland, Healthy Life Expectancy 2012-23 (July 2025)

[iv] See, Building a Pensioner Poverty Strategy pg14-15