Independent Age will provide funding over a three-year period.
National charity Independent Age has allocated £3.1million in grant funding to help 19 advice-based organisations across the UK reach and support more older people in their local communities.
In Scotland two organisations, Hamilton & District Citizens Advice Bureau (who will be delivering the project in partnership with East Kilbride Citizens Advice Bureau and Clydesdale Citizens Advice Bureau) and Coatbridge Citizens Advice Bureau will receive a combined £291,181.
The funding will be paid over a three-year period in order to provide stability to organisations that will ultimately benefit older people.
Hannah Lison, head of grants and partnerships at Independent Age, said: “We are delighted to support these organisations as part of our ongoing commitment to improve the lives older people in financial hardship across the UK.
“Every organisation that applied for funding showed remarkable dedication to achieving positive outcomes for the areas and communities they support and we are really honoured to have the opportunity to work with them over the next three years.”
The aim of the fund is to increase resources in the advice sector and to enable local organisations to provide additional, much needed face to face advice to people in later life.
The advice and support will be aimed at those in financial hardship, ensuring older people get all the support they are entitled and get help with unavoidable costs.
Independent Age recognises the importance of advice provision for older people and that the sector is seriously under-funded.
By providing funding over three years the grants will provide some additional stability, and hopefully result in older people having more money in their pockets and increased financial wellbeing.
Joanna Elson CBE, Chief Executive of Independent Age, said: “Over 2m older people are living in poverty in the UK, and many more are living precariously on the edge. Our ambition is to improve the lives of one million older people facing financial hardship by 2027 and our grants programme is an essential part of this.
“Key to tackling this problem is boosting older peoples’ income by raising awareness of the financial support available to them. For example, we know that up to 1.2m eligible individuals are missing out on Pension Credit. We want to get straight to the heart of the issue by improving access to free advice services across the UK. The organisations we have awarded funding are trusted within their local communities and are located in areas with high numbers of older people in financial hardship.”
