This case study analyses government policies to inform older people of their rights to means-tested benefits. It begins by briefly describing the social security benefits designed for older people and the demographic and financial situation of older people in the UK. These data put the case study into context and explain the importance of benefit schemes for both government and for older people themselves. The chapter then takes a brief historic view of central government policies on information about means-tested financial assistance for older people; that is, National Assistance, Supplementary Benefit and Income Support. The main focus of the chapter is the New Labour government's information policy for Income Support/Minimum Income Guarantee.

This case study was chosen to illustrate the link between providing information and attitudes to citizenship. There has been a long-standing recognition of under-claiming by older people and of a link between older age and poverty. However, it was New Labour's explicit commitment to older people, especially those living in poverty, which resulted in April 1998 in a radical pilot scheme to find ways of informing this group of their eligibility for Income Support. The case study explores why concern about older people as a group resulted at this time in more active and targeted information.

The citizenship status of older people is ambiguous. Seen as ‘deserving’ in some ways, older people are also characterised by negative images based on the devalued status accorded to unproductive older people in western, capitalist societies (Phillipson, 1981). Walker (1998, p 249) observes that “Britain is a country in which age discrimination, or ageism, is widespread”. Ageism influences – and is perpetuated by – policies on health, housing, employment, personal social services and social security. Health policy, for example, denies some older people treatment purely on the basis of their age. Epstein (quoted in Tinker et al, 1993, p 13) found “disheartening evidence that these workers [health staff] may be neither equipped nor inclined to provide information to elderly people” (emphasis added).

The previous chapter concluded that information policies for unemployed people and low wage earners, despite their sometimes ambiguous citizenship status, were generally and perhaps surprisingly research based and clear in their objectives. This case study will enable comparisons to be made with information policy for another group of citizens.