Ian Stobie » The Prince's Initiative for Mature Enterprise (PRIME)

Olderpreneur - a word to love or loathe

May 042011

We’re guilty of using it a lot – e.g. read about these olderpreneurs.

“Olderpreneur” is undoubtedly a bit distasteful or irritating. Maybe that’s why it sticks in the mind so well.

We’ve found that older entrepreneurs themselves are split about about whether they like it. We’re not sure exactly how opinion divides, hence this poll – which we are also running on our client-support site PRIME Business Club.

It’s more ugly or clumsy or trivialising than truly offensive, in my view.

We use it because it works. People find us by using Olderpreneur as a tag or search term. Journalists also like it – because it’s shorter than anything else that gets the meaning across.

The people who read the stories may not remember that our name is PRIME, which is in any case a very common word used by prime ministers, mathematicians and bankers. But that irritating weird word Olderpreneur sticks in the mind better – hopefully long enough to be typed into a search engine, which will bring someone looking for us to our site.

It works well for us in search engines because they tend to like unique content, and this includes unusual words. So it’s usually the case that if you can find an obscure term relevant to your business it is worth including it on your site. Should anyone search on that term they are then quite likely to find your site – because you should appear high in the search engines’ results.

Many of the other collective terms you might use to describe older business starters as a phenomenom are equally cringe-worthy. Mature entrepreneur, senior entrepreneur, silver entrepreneur, grey entrepreneur – they are all pretty yucky too. We could plaster them all over the site as well, but that really would be irritating.

So Olderpreneur may not be ideal. But until someone comes up with a better phrase the business case for using Olderpreneur on this site is overwhelming. Anything that brings your audience to you so efficiently has plenty to recommend it.

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Who are PRIME's clients?

Blogs, Ian Stobie, Impact No Responses »

Apr 202011

Here are three interesting facts about the people who registered with us last year (the year to April 2011).

Being out of work for more than six months is a common experience. Source: People registering with PRIME, year to April 2011.
They are mostly in their fifties. Source: People registering with PRIME, year to April 2011.
Half of PRIME clients come from the south. Source: People registering with PRIME, year to April 2011.

DWP reveals who will deliver new Work Programme for jobless

Blogs, Ian Stobie No Responses »

Apr 012011

The government has announced the main contractors who will take on the task of delivering the new Jobcentre Plus welfare-to-work programme, due to start going live in June and July this year.

The 16 private and two voluntary-sector organisations named as Work Programme preferred bidders will now go on to award sub-contracts and recruit staff to do the actual delivery.

PRIME was involved as a partner in 12 of the successful bids. But we don’t yet know exactly what we will be doing.

It’s too also soon for claimants to find out exactly what support will be available from which of the 751 Jobcentres in England, Scotland and Wales. This won’t be known till the winning bidders have got their services set up on the ground. However, the pressure is on to get the programme into Jobcentres by the end of July at the latest.

Some of the new Work Programme main contractors have already got existing infrastructure such as qualified staff, premises and sub-contractors in place because they have previously worked on similar programmes, such as New Deal. But others haven’t – or their offices, trainers and managers are many miles away from where they are now required. This could make meeting the summer start date much more of a challenge.

The Work Programme is replacing other Jobcentre schemes such New Deal, which have historically been important to PRIME clients as one of the few officially sponsored routes off benefit for people considering self-employment.

One key limitation of the Work Programme compared to New Deal is that you have to wait longer as a claimant before you become eligible – 12 months as compared to six months (for over 50s) on the New Deal. PRIME is keen for this qualifying period to be re-examined, since it makes little sense for older people – who are especially unlikely to be offered a regular job, to wait a whole year on benefit.

Fortunately there are some other new programmes that will have a shorter delay, notably the New Enterprise Allowance. The qualifying period for this on Jobseekers Allowance is 26 weeks.

Top-level Work Programme contractors

Scotland Ingeus UK Limited Working Links

Wales Rehab JobFit * Working Links Wales

North East Avanta Enterprise Limited (TNG) Ingeus UK Limited

North East Yorkshire & Humber G4S Newcastle College Group**

West Yorkshire Business Employment Services Training (BEST) Ltd Ingeus UK Ltd

South Yorkshire A4E Ltd Serco Ltd

North West(Merseyside, Halton, Cumbria and Lancashire) A4E Ltd Ingeus UK Ltd

North West(Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Warrington) Avanta Enterprise Limited (TNG) G4S Seetec

East Midlands A4E Ltd Ingeus UK Ltd

West Midlands (Birmingham, Solihull and Black Country) FourstaR Employment & Skills Ltd Newcastle College Group** Pertemps

West Midlands (Coventry, Warwickshire, Staffordshire and the Marches) ESG Serco Ltd

East of England Ingeus UK Ltd Seetec

West London Ingeus UK Ltd Maximus Employment UK LTD Reed in Partnership

East London A4E Ltd Careers Development Group (CDG) * Seetec

South East (Thames Valley, Hampshire and IOW) A4E Ltd Maximus Employment UK LTD

South East (Surrey, Sussex and Kent) Avanta Enterprise Limited (TNG) G4S (Private Sector)

South West (Gloucester, Wiltshire and West of England) JHP Group Limited Rehab JobFit *

South West (Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset) Prospects Services Ltd Working Links

External links:

Indus Delta – popular site for welfare-to-work providers.
Chris Grayling MP – blog of the Minister for Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions.

Is Startup Britain the sorry future of business support?

Blogs, Ian Stobie 1 Response »

Mar 282011

Startup Britain www.startupbritain.org is a new web site “designed to celebrate, inspire and accelerate enterprise in the UK” that launched on the 28th of March 2011. It has fulsome praise from the government – including the PRIME Minister in attendance at the launch and a press release distributed direct from No 10, but little or no government money behind it. The site itself seems to offer mainly links to other existing support web sites, with its own original content currently consisting mainly of discount offers from established businesses.

Startup Britain - valuable resource or just platform for self-promotion?

That’s not to knock discount offers – we run them ourselves on PRIME Business Club, in the belief that they can be useful to cash-strapped new entrepreneurs trying to keep spending under control. So a new offers site is to be welcomed. But it’s not really business help – more a form of advertising.

It’s hard not to see Startup Britain as evidence of a decline in the quality of the support and encouragement available to new enterprises. It’s simply not in the same league as some of the things that are closing down at the moment. We have just lost Enterprise UK – which for all its obsession with youth did still attempt to beat the drum loudly for those starting up new small businesses. A much more substantial loss is the closure of the Business Link local advice service, which has shut down already in some places and is scheduled to disappear everywhere by November 2011 – leaving just a web site and call centre.

So the lavish praise heaped on the meagre resources offered by Startup Britain are not very convincing. Business support in Britain, certainly for small self-employed businesses, looks to be in serious decline.

PM David Cameron talking at the launch event

Still, in the absence of serious government investment this is the kind of thing we shall have to get used to. Maybe Startup Britain or some other private initiative will eventually amount to something. So we wish them luck.

What Startup Britain says about itself

StartUp Britain is a new campaign by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs [...]

This is a response from the private sector to the Government’s call for an ‘enterprise-led’ recovery. We believe that many of the important functions and services necessary to foster and champion new enterprise can be open-sourced, instead of provided by government directly. We aim to do this by creating a living market-place online for the wide range of enterprise support that is already available.

As a private sector organisation we aim to shoulder some of this responsibility for enterprise promotion with the government, re-modelling existing cost centres, and reducing the cost to the taxpayer.

Survey follows PRIME clients as they start up

Blogs, Ian Stobie, Impact, PRIME publications No Responses »

Oct 292010

Olderpreneurs are not being put off by the recesion. A higher proportion are going ahead and giving self-employment a go than five years ago. And the gender gap is narrowing – a higher proportion of women are going ahead than five years ago,

These are among the results of a follow-up study PRIME has completed to find out what has happened to clients a year or so on. The sample was taken from clients who registered with PRIME in the year between October 2008 and September 2009. Telephone interviews were carried out in the third quarter of 2010, at least 12 months later. This interval was to allow time for people to plan their ventures and get them underway.

2010 follow-up survey

(Note: this chart automatically updates to show the latest results.)

So in the 2010 survey, 45 per cent of clients interviewed went on to start a business, 41 per cent are still considering it and 15 per cent have given up. The main change compared to the earlier survey is that now fewer people are giving up – 15 per cent now compared to 27 per cent five years ago. The economic downturn provide a plausible explanation, with fewer conventional jobs available and more unemployed people competing for them.

Number of business starts
In principle we can use the proportions above to get a fairly accurate idea of the number of people that PRIME assists who go on to start a business. With over 500 respondents the sample is large enough to give a good idea of what’s happening to everyone registering with PRIME.

There were some differences between areas of the country, age and gender in the start-up rate, but the overall figure of 45 per cent going ahead provides a useful touchstone. It suggests that of the 3,793 clients registered by PRIME between October 2008 and September 2009, about 1,700 of them will have started a business.

However, not all of these were brand new starts. PRIME can also help those in the process of starting up – provided they haven’t been self-employed for more than a year and as long as they qualify because of their age, prior unemployment or redundancy. This latitude is necessary because people coming off benefit and attempting to go into self-employment don’t all do it in an instant big-bang way. Often the process is stop-start and tentative as they attempt to find a viable niche.

So allowing for the fact (know from clients’ registration forms) that around 15 per cent are in the already-self-employed category, we can also use the ratio of 30 per cent to find the number of brand new starts helped by PRIME. This equates to 1,138 new businesses in the study period October 2008 to September 2009.

We can go on to apply the same proportions to get an approximate idea of client outcomes in other periods, assuming the percentage of people remains the same. In the financial year April 2009 until March 2010, PRIME had 4,665 clients, so using the figures from this survey and applying the 30 per cent and 45 per cent ratios, it would be reasonable to project around 1,400 brand new starts from PRIME’s client group, with a further 700 recently-self-employed also assisted. So that’s over 2,000 new businesses started by PRIME clients in the 2009-10 financial year.

Other findings

Two-thirds of those starting a business were happy with the way things had turned out and a quarter were unsure. Men who started a business were happier than women with the way things had turned out.

Compared to the 2006 study, an increasing percentage of women are now starting their own businesses. They were more likely than men to run a part-time business. Over 70 per cent of businesses started by male respondents were full time, compared to 49 per cent for female business starters.

Women were more likely to start a business in care, health and beauty, in arts and crafts and in teaching and training, and men more likely to enter consultancy and home maintenance. But there are huge variations in the businesses started within each category, so these results need to be interpreted carefully.

Two-thirds of the clients in the sample survey rated PRIME’s services and support as good or better (over seven out of 10 on a 10-point scale). PRIME will be building on this to improve our rating.

GET FULL REPORT AS PDF
Completed report

Method

Interviews were completed with 503 clients, representing 13 per cent of the 3,793 eligible clients (unemployed or otherwise workless, under threat of redundancy or newly self-employed but coming from a workless state) registering with PRIME in the period. The survey replicated a similar study undertaken approximately five years earlier (published in March 2006 but with most of the fieldwork completed in 2005), enabling some longitudinal comparisons. See PRIME publishes study into olderpreneur outcomes

Details still hazy on New Enterprise Allowance

Blogs, Ian Stobie 5 Responses »

Oct 062010

Work-and-pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith used the Conservative Party conference to unveil a new government scheme to get the unemployed back into work – by setting up their own businesses.

“If you have been unemployed for six months and want to start your own business, we want to support you”, Mr Duncan Smith said in his keynote speech to the delegates, “we will provide business mentoring and a financial package worth up to £2,000 to get your business up and running. We want to see 10,000 new small businesses by next year.”

Full transcript of IDS speech

Broadly this is to be welcomed, if the support lives up to its promise and poverty traps caused by operation of the benefits system are dealt with at the same time. But the timescales look very tight.

The other major reform covered in Duncan Smith’s sppech, the introduction of a Universal Credit to replace the present system of multiple benefits and tax credits, won’t be coming in till at least 2013. But the New Enterprise Allowance is being given the job of producing 10,000 new businesses “by next year”.

Is this possible?

We won’t know till we see the details. There was a similar scheme in Britain in the 1980s (introduced by Norman Tebbit, Iain Duncan Smith’s predecessor as Chingford MP), and more recently Germany tried something similar – the Ich-AG, which gave you business support for three years instead of paying unemployment benefit. New Zealand also has a scheme. Ireland has two schemes active at the moment – the Back-to-Work Enterprise Allowance and the Short-Term Enterprise Allowance. So this is not completely unknown territory.

Places to watch for details:

DirectGov Newsroom
Currently has story on Universal credit to replace current benefit structure

Google search on New Enterprise Allowance

PRIME clients still going ahead despite tough times

Blogs, Ian Stobie, Impact Comments Off

Aug 052010

Olderpreneurs are not being put off by the recesion. A higher proportion are going ahead and giving self-employment a go than five years ago.

These are among the preliminary results of a follow-up study PRIME is currently conducting. We are ringing a sample of 500 clients who contacted us at least 12 months ago to find out what has happened to them. The timing makes these people clients of the recession, which is generally held to have started in the second quarter of 2008.

2010 preliminary results

We did a very similar follow-up study asking many of the same questions at the end of 2005. The results showed slightly fewer over-50s starting than now, and many more giving up.

2005 results

We plan to analyse the results more once we have completed the fieldwork. But one contrast between 2005 and now is that more of those giving up then cited getting offered a regular job as the reason – 29 per cent in 2005 versus 21 per cent now. So though the recession does not seem to be dampening enthusiasm for self-employment, it is still diminishing the chance of getting offered a conventional job from an employer.

There is a big element of necessity behind older entrepreneurship – at least among PRIME clients (as a charity we concentrate our efforts on the unemployed and those facing redundancy).

UPDATE: Oct 2010

Completed report

Budget axe falls on useful 50-plus tax credit

Blogs, Ian Stobie 1 Response »

Jun 222010

Buried away in the detail of the Chancellor’s budget report is notice of the end of a very valuable incentive for those struggling to work their way off benefit. From April 2012, the 50-plus element will be removed from Working Tax Credit. This means PRIME clients won’t be able to get it any more. This could mean a cut of £1,965 in their income in the first year back in work.

Working Tax Credit is a kind of reverse income tax that you should get if your household income falls below a certain level. For the newly self-employed it provides a useful safety net, as it means you know your income won’t fall to zero even if your net profit does. In the early stages of a new business this is very reassuring, as the risk of low or negative income from the startup is real.

Since the 50-plus element is only available to those who are returning to work after previously being on benefit it seems a very odd thing to cut. And it won’t save much for the public purse, since you’ve only ever been able to claim it for your first 12 months back in work. After that it ceases automatically anyway.

The Chancellor hopes to save £35 million in the tax year 2012-2013 by this measure, and £40 million a year thereafter.

Lets’s hope all of this money returns in some way to those striving to get themselves back into work by their own efforts. It’s a very strange thing to remove one of the few forms of financial assistance that was already well-targeted at those actively trying to work themselves off welfare dependency.

On a more positive note the Chancellor announced that the personal income tax allowance is to rise from April 2011 by £1,000 to £7,475, removing some 880,000 people on the lowest incomes from having to pay income tax at all. Eventually he hopes to raise the allowance to £10,000, but gave no definite date.

This measure should help many self-employed people, since most are set up as sole traders and are taxed primarily through income tax, filling in the self-employed self-assessment form.

There’s more about the budget on the resources area on PRIME’s other web site, PRIME Business Club.

Working Tax Credit – current maximum rates per year
(what you actually receive tapers off as your income rises. The Chancellor has also changed the taper “withdrawal rate” too, up two per cent to 41 per cent, so in future you will lose money faster).

Rates and Thresholds	FY 2010/11
Basic element	£1,920
Couple and lone parent element	£1,890
30 hour element	£790
Disabled worker element	£2,570
Severe disability element	£1,095
50+ Return to work payment (16-29 hours)	£1,320
50+ Return to work payment (30+ hours)	£1,965

Latest Working Tax Credit rates and thresholds

Full budget report on HM Treasury site (as big PDF) Stuff about ending the 50-plus back-to-work element is budget policy decision 41 in table 2.1 on page 48.

New UK government begins to reveal back-to-work ideas

Blogs, Ian Stobie No Responses »

May 242010

More details are emerging of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition’s policy on issues that affect employment creation and the encouragement of new businesses. Here’s a round-up based on what’s been said in important ministerial statements today. I also include some words said before the election by the winning side that still seem to be relevant.

The official statements 24 May 2010

Jobs and Welfare
http://programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk/jobs-and-welfare/

Key points seem to be: a new “Work for Yourself” programme to encourage self-employment with loans and mentoring, new locally-based Work Clubs for conventional job seekers, and a promise of faster access to back-to-work programmes for those facing the biggest barriers.
On the last point, currently those unemployed and over 50 normally have to wait at least six months before getting on a government-sponsored self-employment programme.

Business
http://programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk/business/

No real detail here, but several interesting commitments. Some (unspecified) RDAs are likely to be replaced by local authority-led “Local Enterprise Partnerships”, the IR35 self-employment tax ruling will be replaced with something less hostile to genuine small businesses, and more government tenders will go online with an “aspiration” that 25% of government contracts will eventually go to small and medium-sized businesses.

Detail on corporation tax rate changes that could well affect older entrepreneurs wanting to sell up to move into retirement are still to come.

Pensions and Older People
http://programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk/pensions-and-older-people/
The default retirement age will go, while the state pension age probably will increase to 66 – but not before 2016.

Conservative position before the election

“Our ‘Work for Yourself’ programme will help move people into self-employment. We will build a network of business mentors and offer substantial loans to would-be entrepreneurs, supporting self-employment and franchising as a route back into work. We will work with specialist organisations that already have a proven track record in this area, like the Prince’s Trust and the Bright Ideas Trust, to offer the best support.”

For getting workless people back into ordinary jobs (as opposed to their own self-employed businesses) the Conservatives were talking about a mixture of “Service Academies” for particular employment sectors and small locally-based job clubs. This ideas still seem to be going forward, but no new detail has emerged.

Future of RDAs

While the Conservatives have long been sceptical about the value of England’s nine Regional Development Agencies in promoting prosperity and economic growth, the man who now has the top job at the department that funds them is Liberal Democrat Vince Cable, 67.

But he wasn’t a great fan of the RDAs either. Before the election he explicitly questioned the value of having them at all in the South East and the East of England, but suggested they might have role where structural unemployment is still a problem.

The form of words used in today’s statement suggests RDAs could possibly survive in areas where they can show they are popular – and in particular if they are supported by the local authorities in their region. But that the presumption now is that many will go.

In England local authorities are elected by the people. The big weakness of the RDAs is that despite spending large amounts of tax payers money they are not elected, and with the single exception of the London Development Agency they have very little democratic accountability.

So with spending cuts now a priority they have few allies to defend them. It seems local authorities will increasingly take over any functions that are deemed worth keeping.

This will move England closer to the Scottish position, where the elected local authorities already take on more business promotion and economic development functions.

Most relevant new ministers

DWP
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions – Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP
Minister of State – Chris Grayling MP
Minister of State – Steve Webb MP
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State – Maria Miller MP
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Welfare Reform) – Lord Freud
(What do they all do? More details may be posted on the DWP site later:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/about-dwp/ministers/ )

BIS
Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills – Dr Vincent Cable MP
Minister of State – Mark Prisk MP

Other relevant departments
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government – Eric Pickles MP
Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Women and Equalities – Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Secretary of State for Education – Michael Gove MP

Over 50s still the Cinderellas when it comes to support

Blogs, Ian Stobie No Responses »

Mar 052010

A lavish government mentoring scheme has kicked off today with expensive ads in many newspapers. For a change it’s not just spin – over 150 major companies are backing the plan to get unemployed people into work with the support of their own mentor. There is only one problem – you have to be aged under 25 to benefit.

The scheme is the latest stage of Backing Young Britain, an even larger campaign launched back in July. Initially the emphasis was on apprenticeships, work experience and internships.

The mentoring offer has only just kicked off. The main money is coming from the Department for Work and Pensions. Companies contribute volunteer mentors, who get trained for free at taxpayers’ expense.

So it’s a well-thought-out scheme. Shame there’s nothing similar for older people.

Meanwhile here at PRIME we are starting our own more modest mentoring scheme for older people thinking about going into self-employment. These programmes do cost something to run even with volunteers as you need to vet and train the mentors, and then publicise what you are doing so the right people get to hear about it.

Fortunately as a charity we’re not completely without supporters. As yet we haven’t quite managed to get 150 organisations on board to back the mentoring project, but we have got two. Bank of America Charitable Foundation is providing the money and HMRC are first in with a team of volunteers.

Bristol is the first city to go live. We’ll be adding two more later this month.

If you want more details about getting mentoring support for yourself then contact PRIME’s Mentoring Manager Harri Harrison at harri.harrison@ace.org.uk . He’s also your man if you are an organisation that has some volunteer mentors to offer.

Get yourself a PRIME mentor in Bristol

Reality check on work-till-you-drop retirement plans

Blogs, Ian Stobie 1 Response »

Feb 162010

Plans to deal with pension shortfalls by encouraging people to work for longer received a dash of cold water today. Three-quarters of us could be too ill to work, Professor Sir Michael Marmot of University College London warns in a new report.

All but the richest Britons suffer years of ill health. People in the richest neighbourhoods in England live seven years longer than in the poorest, and enjoy an extra 17 years of good health.

Even if you exclude the poorest five per cent and the richest five per cent the gap in life expectancy between those in low and high income places is still six years, and in disability-free life expectancy 13 years.

Much more needs to be done to address health inequalities if raising the retirement age to 68 is really to mean people remaining active and working for longer, the report warns.

The report is not the work of some maverick outfit, but the final paper from the Marmot Commission – set up in 2008 at the request of the Secretary of State for Health. The Commission, chaired by Sir Michael Marmot, was tasked with finding the most effective strategies to reducing health inequalities in the country.

Fair Society, Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review)

Coverage at Times Online

Forced retirement at 65 under attack

Blogs, Ian Stobie 1 Response »

Jan 252010

The number 65 Influential voices are calling for the current “default retirement age” of 65 to be scrapped. The latest call comes from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which has said that workers should be able to stay in their jobs beyond the age of 65. The EHRC polled 1,500 workers, and found that a relaxation of the current rule would be welcomed by most. The House of Lords is likely to debate the issue today, as part of the debate on the Equality Bill, which is currently threading its way through parliament.

Currently employers have the legal right to force employees to retire at 65 – irrespective of whether or not the employee in question is still able to do the job. This was confirmed in a legal ruling in September of last year – but there were strings attached.

The High Court ruled that the default retirement age was not unlawful – but that there was now a compelling case for it to be scrapped. In practice this means that employers can still lawfully retire people against their will at the age of 65, for the time being. But the court wanted an urgent review of this provision.

The current Equality Bill does provide an opportunity to decide whether the default retirement age stays in place. The government has said it intends to get the bill passed before the general election this year. So there’s a chance here for the political parties to do more than make promises, but to actually vote on the issue.

Many organisations have already scrapped automatic retirement based on age, without waiting for a change in the law making them. They include Tesco, Marks & Spencer, HBOS, the Co-op Group and the Civil Service (for all but senior civil servants). An umbrella group called The Employers Forum on Age has been campaigning against forced retirement at 65 for several years.

However, Personnel Today magazine, which itself backs the campaign to scrap forced retirement, reports that some employers are still against changing the law, particularly now, in the middle of a recession. This is because it provides a useful mechanism for them to reduce staff numbers legally. Personnel Today quotes one HR director, who is against changing the lw, as saying “It’s useful to us now”.

Long term though forced retirement at 65 is likely to go. But this in itself won’t be enough to keep more people in work and earning. The jobs need to be there in the first place, for anyone of any age to do.

External links
Equality and Human Rights Commission summary of proposals

EHRC report (PDF) Working Better: The over 50s, the new work generation

Personnel Today on attitudes of HR chiefs pro and con

The Guardian Harman wants end to compulsory retirement age

Note:
The default retirement age and the state pension age are currently out of step. The default retirement age was set at 65 for both men and women in legislation that came into effect four years ago. Meanwhile women continue to be receive their state pension earlier than men, currently at age 60 while men have to wait till 65. But the plan is to harmonise the age for both sexes, increasing it in stages to 68 over time.

When will you get a state pension? Official State Pension Age calculator

Expect more olderpreneurs says YouGov poll

Blogs, Ian Stobie No Responses »

Jun 102009

Eight per cent of UK adults now want to start a business in retirement, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by Standard Life. And 85 per cent do not intend to stop work after they reach retirement age.

YouGov surveyed the opinions of 2,100 adults broadly representative of the UK population. A third (33 per cent) of respondents wanted to continue in full-time work after they reach retirement age. Roughly another third (31 per cent) wanted to carry on in a similar role but on their own more flexible terms. While eight per cent wanted to start their own business.

Commenting on the findings, John Lawson from Standard Life said “Quite simply, people do not get old like they used to. The baby boomers started a trend for redefining what is effectively their ‘third age’ and these findings point to a continued trend for re-writing the rule book for younger generations.”

The full report is not yet available at the time of writing but it should appear on the Standard Life site shortly.

Barbie joins the ranks of over-50 celebs

Blogs, Ian Stobie No Responses »

Mar 102009

Barbie, aged 50 in March 2009 Barbie has joined the ranks of the 50-plus, an event celebrated in characteristic style with an immediate facelift. Plastic surgeons at Californian-based manufacturer Mattel have given the world’s most famous doll “a more natural look, including a thinner jaw line, more almond-shaped eyes and fuller lips”.

It is notoriously difficult to judge people’s ages nowadays, as by and large people are looking much younger than their parents did at the same age. This doesn’t seem to prevent the all-too-common tendency by employers and some advertisers to lump all over 50s together as a single group, putting Baby Boomers and their elderly parents in the same category (often the same scrapheap). The mistake is to ignore the real differences in age, attitudes and ability to work between distinct generations.

In tune with today’s celebrity climate, let’s attempt to correct this by identifying some famous people born in the main years of the post-war boom. There are some surprises!

Selected Baby Boom celebrities by year of birth

1945: Ken Livingstone, Helen Mirren, Debbie Harry, Bryan Ferry, Rod Stewart – all 64 this year.

1946: Joanna Lumley, Susan Sarandon, Alan Rickman, Sylvester Stallone, Bill Clinton – all 63 this year.

1947: Alan Sugar, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Hillary Clinton, Salman Rushdie, Glenn Close, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elton John – all 62 this year.

1948: Prince Charles, Ozzy Osbourne, Samuel L. Jackson, Sven Goran Eriksson, Terry Pratchett – all 61 this year.

1949: Twiggy, Bill Nighy, Richard Gere, Duncan Bannatyne, Arsene Wenger, Martin Amis – all 60 this year.

1950: Richard Branson, Jeremy Paxman, Julie Walters, Bill Murray, Stevie Wonder, Robbie Coltrane – all 59 this year.

1951: Gordon Brown, Kevin Keegan, Michael Keaton, Jane Seymour, Sting all 58 this year.

1952: Vladimir Putin, Jenny Agutter, Sharon Osbourne, Liam Neeson -
all 57 this year.

1953: Tony Blair, Victoria Wood, Kim Basinger, Pierce Brosnan, Keith Allen, William Petersen – all 56 this year.

1954: Bob Geldof, Michael Moore, Annie Lennox, John Travolta, Jackie Chan – all 55 this year.

1955: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, Ian Botham, Alan Hansen, Lesley Garrett – all 54 this year.

1956: Rowan Atkinson, Kim Cattrall, Mel Gibson, Martina Navratilova, Sebastian Coe – all 53 this year.

1957: Stephen Fry, Paul Merton, Daniel Day-Lewis, Dawn French, Donny Osmond – all 52 this year.

1958: Madonna, Prince, Sharon Stone, Michael Jackson, Kate Bush, Lennie Henry, Viggo Mortensen, Marg Helgenberger, Miranda Richardson – all 51 this year.

1959: Hugh Laurie, Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden, Ben Elton, Morrissey, Linzi Drew, John McEnroe, Kevin Spacey, Val Kilmer, Rupert Everett - all 50 this year.

1960: Nigella Lawson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Carol Vorderman, Hugh Grant, Sean Penn, Gary Lineker, Colin Firth, Antonio Banderas, Michael Stipe, Bono, Richard Farleigh – all 49 this year.

1961: Barack Obama, Barry McGuigan, Eddie Murphy, K D Lang, Meg Ryan, Nastassja Kinski, Boy George, Frank Bruno, George Clooney, Heather Locklear, Michael J Fox, Peter Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Sarah Brightman, Tim Roth, William Hague, Woody Harrelson – all 48 this year.

Perhaps even more suprising are some of those born in 1969, who will all be 40 this year – Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Lopez.

Worth a read: Advice for Barbie at age 50

Baby boomers don't want to retire says pension firm

Blogs, Ian Stobie No Responses »

Mar 022009

Pension giant Standard Life has produced a very interesting report called The Death of Retirement. The key findings are that the current generation of older people are very different to their parents. Above all they want to keep doing things. Baby boomers want to travel, work – and even launch new business ventures. Retirement in its traditional sense is not a concept that appeals to them at all.

“Currently society constrains people into a post-65 mindset which is at odds with their ambitions”, says Honey Langcaster-James, psychologist and one of the report’s authors. “Government, society, industry – particularly the financial services industry, use entirely the wrong language.

“The messages currently conveyed to the next generation approaching third age imply slowing down, being less involved in society, being cautious, risk averse and preparing to be less active.

“Ageism is endemic and could have severe implications for the mental health of third agers because it will ultimately frustrate their ambitions.”

“A huge potential resource is left untapped by not engaging this population, drawing on their expertise, their drive to embark on new ventures and pursue society-enhancing activities such as voluntary work and enterprise.”

Honey Langcaster-James, psychologist

Large survey

The report is based on a large survey of 1,500 people aged 46 to 65 of broadly representative wealth living in the UK. It was then repeated among another sample of 1,000 people from the same age group but representing the wealthiest six per cent of society. So two contrasting groups of normal and great wealth were polled.

Setting the scene, the report says that people from this baby boom generation face a future in which they are likely to be more financially burdened than ever before. They may have to provide for parents who will live a long time and for children who may be financially dependent well into adulthood. This financial burden goes alongside having greater ambitions than any previous generation for their own future after the age of 65.

When asked about their intentions regarding working in the “long-term future”, 30 per cent of the sample representing the normal UK wealth range said they wanted to continue to be involved in work – but on their own terms. This rises to 42 per cent for the wealthier group, who were also asked what their own parents did. Only 15 per cent of parents continued to stay involved in work after retirement. This indicates a massive change between the generations.

When asked about starting a new business, six per cent of the sample of 46-to-65 year-olds of normal wealth want to embark on a new business venture in the future. There was only a slight increase to seven per cent among the wealthier group, so wealth does not seem to be a major factor affecting this aspiration. But the passage of time has certainly produced a change. Among their parents’ generation this aspiration was much less common – seven times less at retirement age.

“It is not that those approaching retirement want to stop working. As our research reveals, baby boomers want to remain active. The challenge for government, society and the financial services industry is how to enable them to remain productive to answer the dilemma of our ageing workforce.”

John Lawson, Head of Pension Policy at Standard Life

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