Ishares Age Pop Discussion Threads

[grupo guitarlumber] 17/11/2004 08:12

Council tax bills may soar by 10%
Paul Eastham, Daily Mail
17 November 2004

COUNCIL tax bills will rise by an average of 10% next year unless Gordon Brown agrees an emergency aid package to prop up cash-starved town halls, it has emerged.



Local authority leaders have warned the Treasury there is a £1bn shortfall in the cash they need to meet the Government's demands for low single figure increases next April.



Without financial help, they say there will have to be swingeing cuts in local services - including police officers on the beat - just weeks before the General Election expected next May.



And council leaders warn that even if the Chancellor covers the shortfall, they will still only be able to limit the rises to an average of 6.7%.



A 10% rise would mean the typical Band D household can expect a bill of £1,063, compared to last year's £967.



Council leaders blame a shortfall in pension funds, extra costs imposed by new European Union waste disposal rules and central Government's insistence on earmarking chunks of cash specifically for schools, for creating the crisis.



Meanwhile, senior police officers have warned MPs they need a 5.7% increase from the Home Office if they are to fund existing services.



Many council leaders accuse Brown of using the council tax as another New Labour 'stealth tax' to raise money that should come from income tax.



The threat of council tax rises running at eight times the 1.2% rate of inflation galvanised the Government into action last night.



It emerged that the regular annual announcement of local council funding, originally due to take place yesterday, has been put back until after Brown makes his pre-Budget report on 2 December.



Leaders of the Local Government Association believe this indicates that the Chancellor plans to announce a grant increase for each local authority.



It is a deeply embarrassing development for the Government because it is the second year running that the Chancellor has had to bail out the Town Halls, after a 'one-off' grant of £340m last year.



Ministers privately say that this second rescue payment suggests the Government may have to admit councils are being under-funded.



But there was little doubt in Westminster that Labour cannot afford to see such huge bills being delivered weeks before a possible General Election.



The problem has arisen because Brown assumed, when he put his spending plans together, that councils would obey the demand for tight single figure rises.



Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had warned that he may resort to capping to control council budgets.



Average council tax increases of 8.2% in 2002-03 and 12.9% in 2003-04 were followed by a smaller 5.9% rise this year after he made repeated threats to keep a lid on spending.



Treasury officials have privately accused Prescott's allies of deliberately stoking up scare stories about soaring bills in an attempt to push the Chancellor into making a more generous settlement.



But with spending on local authority schools ring-fenced, local government experts say huge pressures have built up.



And Tory local Government spokesman, Eric Pickles, said: 'The threat of a 10% rise is nothing compared to the explosion in council tax bills that will hit people the year after next - bills are going to rocket.'



A Treasury spokesman refused to confirm or deny whether there would be an increase in council funding in the pre-Budget statement.

[grupo guitarlumber] 09/11/2004 07:12

RNS Number:9963E
Dignity PLC
09 November 2004


For Immediate Release 9 November 2004

Dignity plc

('Dignity' or 'the Group')

Trading Update

Unaudited quarterly results for the 39 week period to 24 September 2004


Dignity plc, Britain's largest single provider of funeral-related services,
namely funeral services, cremations and pre-arranged funeral plans, announces
unaudited trading statement for the 39 week period ended 24 September 2004.

Group turnover for the 39 week period ended 24 September 2004 increased by 4.3%
to #100.4million (2003: #96.3 million).

Unaudited profit before interest, tax, amortisation and exceptional items
increased by 18.4% to #27.0 million (2003: #22.8 million). Depreciation charge
in the period was #5.6 million (2003: #6.1 million).


Peter Hindley, Chief Executive of Dignity plc, commented:

"The Group continues to trade well and I am pleased that these results remain in
line with our expectations."

In accordance with the terms of the securitisation carried out in April 2003,
Dignity (2002) Limited (the holding company of those companies subject to the
securitisation) has today issued reports to the Rating Agencies (Fitch and
Standard & Poor's), the Security Trustee and the holders of notes issued in
connection with the securitisation confirming compliance with the covenants
established under the securitisation.

Copies of these reports are available at


For further information please contact:

Dignity plc 0121 354 1557
Peter Hindley, Chief Executive
Mike McCollum, Finance Director

Buchanan Communications 020 7466 5000
Suzanne Brocks



This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END

TSTQVLFBZFBEFBV


Dignity(DTY)

[waldron] 02/11/2004 17:42

Where's my £100?
2 November 2004, This Is Money

STILL haven't heard anything about the extra payments pensioners are supposed to receive to compensate for rises in council tax. What has happened to it? KB, Teesdale



The Department of Work and Pensions says:

'The Age-Related Payments Bill was introduced in the House of Commons in April to enable the payment of £100 to households with someone aged 70.


The Budget announced a cash boost of £100 per household in recognition of pensioners' council tax bills which can take up a large percentage of fixed income.


The new money will be paid with the 2004-05 Winter Fuel Payments which means that eligible households with someone 70 or over will get £300 (including £200 winter fuel payment) and eligible households in the country with a pensioner 80 or over will get £400 (including the enhanced £300 winter fuel payment).


Around 11m people will automatically receive their Winter Fuel Payment – those already claiming State Pension or another social security benefit (but not Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit or Child Benefit) or have previously received a Winter Fuel Payment, won't need to apply. And, as last year, anyone aged 80 or over will get an extra payment of up to £100.'


Payments should be received by Christmas. New applications should have been sent to the DWP by 24 September to get payment in time for Christmas.

[grupo guitarlumber] 15/9/2004 07:59

Whole-of-life on the critical list
(Filed: 15/09/2004)


The Financial Ombudsman Service is getting an alarming number of complaints about the rising cost of open-ended insurance policies. Teresa Hunter reports

The Financial Ombudsman Service has warned consumers to tread cautiously when signing up for whole-of-life insurance policies after receiving an increasing number of complaints about these plans.


Storm warnings: the FOS is cautioning consumers
The policies give an open-ended promise to pay out a lump sum on death. An estimated 5m policies are currently in force, and they are often marketed with encouraging slogans such as "flexible security" or "golden harvester".

But last year the ombudsman, Walter Merricks, received 5,442 complaints about these plans - the biggest single cause of disquiet after the ongoing scandals concerning endowment mortgages, precipice bonds and split-capital investment trusts.

The problem is growing - the previous year the FOS received 5,009 complaints about this issue. Consumers are winning compensation in roughly half these disputes.

There are a number different types of whole-of-life policy. The main source of the complaints concerns unit-linked policies, where the premiums are not fixed for the life of the plan but are reviewed on a 10-yearly basis.

Rather than simply offering straightforward term insurance, these policies offer an ill-fitting amalgam of basic-term insurance backed by a complex investment product.

The theory behind these policies is that policyholders pay lower premiums for life cover at the start of the plan, using the gains made from the investment to fund the increased cost of life cover as they grow older.

In practice, investment returns have not matched expectations. In some cases, this has left policyholders facing sharp premium increases or a drastic reduction in the cover.

To make matters worse, these unit-linked policies were mainly targeted at those in their 50s and 60s as inheritance tax planning devices. If they are written in trust the eventual payout remains outside the estate and can be used to pay off any future IHT bill.

By the time any premium increases roll round, policyholders are often in retirement and on a fixed income, and can ill afford the additional payments.

David Cresswell, a spokesman for the FOS, says: "Our big concern is that these contracts were sold to produce a specific sum of money, that they will now not produce.

"It comes as a terrible shock to many people in their 60s and 70s, who took out contracts when they were working or first retired, to be told 10 years later they need to find twice or three times as much money. They just can't do it."

He adds that the FOS is concerned that in many cases these risks were never fully explained to policyholders.

The ombudsman says that it is not enough for companies simply to include in their literature a clause stating that premiums can be renewed. The implications of this review must be spelled out clearly.

Cresswell adds: "It's not good enough just to slip it into the small print in a brochure somewhere, or gloss over it in the sales patter."

The ombudsman says it ordered one insurer to refund all contributions and pay the policyholder compensation for loss of investment opportunity, after he was asked to double his contributions at the 10-year review or accept a significant reduction in life cover.

Cresswell says: "We found that he had been given several confusingly similar sets of product literature, only one of which applied to his particular plan. Some of the literature suggested the premiums would be level, while only one booklet mentioned a review."

The biggest increases in complaints have been seen on policies that were sold under a "maximum cover" benefit.

Unit-linked policies offer two levels of cover. The first - called standard cover - aims to ensure that premiums will remain level for life, provided the investment fund grows at a set growth rate. This is usually set at a fairly conservative level, although the exact rate varies between providers.

However, many firms also offered a "maximum cover" option. Here, premiums were set at a much lower level, but only guaranteed life cover for the first 10 years. Far higher growth rates would have to be achieved to prevent premiums rising steeply after the first review. Again, the ombudsman fears that these risks were not always fully explained.

Cresswell adds: "The most surprising thing to come out of our investigations was that when customers were aware of a pending review, many were under the misapprehension that this was a good thing which would work to their advantage. There was a complete misunderstanding about what it really meant."

These policies were launched in the mid-1980s and sold aggressively by many insurance sales forces for the following decade - often for generous commissions when compared with simple term assurance policies.

Skandia, which is one of the biggest sellers of these unit-linked policies, justified their existence on cost. A spokesman said: "Typically these policies are cheaper than the guaranteed whole-of-life policies. For some families this many have been the only way they could have afforded cover."

David Riddington, a spokesman for Norwich Union, says: "These unit-linked policies were fashionable at a particular time, but they were always only a niche product to meet specific needs."

Several large insurers have pulled out of this market in recent years. These include Norwich Union, Standard Life and Aegon UK. Axa, while still selling a small number of contracts, said it was reviewing its position as part of a major overhaul of its protection range to be announced within the next few months.

Inheritance tax planning is the primary reason these policies are now sold, yet although they offer a simpler solution than some of the trust-based schemes, they can be expensive.

[waldron] 24/7/2004 07:05

Retirement with a home to pay for is not so cosy

LINDSEY ROGERSON


A CONSIDERABLE number of the next generation of pensioners are in for a shock when they retire.

According to the latest Pru Retirement Index from insurance group Prudential, just 1 per cent of 45 and overs are concerned that they will not have paid off their mortgage before they retire. However, the reality is that today some 14 per cent of pensioners - one in seven - are struggling to meet their mortgage payments out of retirement income.

Independent financial advisor Key Retirement Solutions says that 250,000 over 65s households still have mortgages. On average they have an outstanding mortgage of £32,000 and are paying £344 a month or £4,128 a year in mortgage repayments.

The IFA points out that, with the average income for pensioners at just £14,600 a year at present in the UK, mortgage repayments are eating up almost 28 per cent of those incomes.

Colin Taylor, Key's managing director, said: "The trend is growing as people buy their first property later in life, and re-mortgage into middle age."

However, as, according to Prudential, over £1 trillion of property equity is held by the over 60s, there is tremendous scope to rethink finances in order to provide a better standard of living in retirement. Selling up and downsizing is the best way to clear out standing mortgage debt and/or provide a higher level of retirement income.

For those who don't want to take the option of selling up, Taylor believes a lifetime mortgage may be suitable although he points out that appropriate independent advice should be sort as it is not a solution for everyone.

[maywillow] 18/7/2004 15:21

Council tax bombshell planned
18 July 2004, This Is Money

OUNCIL tax will soar under new government plans, according to reports. People living in homes valued at more than £170,000 would be hit, with bills almost trebling over three years at the top end of the market, said the Sunday Telegraph.


The planned move aims to ease the council tax burden on the less well-off, who will see their bills fall if they live in homes worth less than £130,000.

However, it has been branded a 'stealth tax' by Conservatives as soaring house prices have brought the average value of a home in England and Wales to around £196,000, well over the £170,000 mark.

Pensioners and 'hard working people' who have lived in their homes for a number of years are likely to be among the hardest hit by the proposed changes, according to shadow local government minister Caroline Spelman.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that a leaked draft of the Government's Balance of Funding Review, due out on Tuesday, has recommended a revamp of the eight current council tax 'bands' when a nationwide property revaluation takes place in 2007.

It could see one or two more bands brought in at the top end of the scale and another at the bottom end. If implemented, the paper said, council tax bills for the most valuable properties - worth more than £620,000 at current prices - could rise from their current level of £2,334 a year to £6,224 in three years, the paper said.


For homes in the £310,000 to £440,000 bracket, charges could go up from £1,949 to £2,982, the paper said. The aim is to enable the Government to cut the charges for less well-off households, by making good the shortfall from those in more expensive homes.

People living in properties worth between £130,000 and £170,000 at current prices would see their bills unchanged, while those in homes under £130,000 would pay less and those in homes over £170,000 would pay more.

London and the South East, where property prices have boomed in recent years, would be particularly hard hit by the changes.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which is publishing the review, refused to be drawn on the report, saying simply that it was 'speculative'.

Ms Spelman warned that pensioners, who have been in the homes for many years and seen the value climb, would also be badly affected by the proposals.

'Across the country, council tax has soared by an average of 70% since Labour came to power across all types of home. But worse is to come,' she said.

'The Government is clearly planning to use the Balance of Funding Review and the revaluation to increase council tax further by stealth. This will punish pensioners and hard-working families who have lived in their homes a long time, the value of whose homes have risen, but who are on modest incomes and cannot afford even larger tax bills.'

[ariane] 18/7/2004 09:38

Council tax bills set to soar Jul 18 2004







Council tax will soar under new government plans, according to reports.

People living in homes valued at more than A£170,000 would be hit, with bills almost trebling over three years at the top end of the market, said The Sunday Telegraph.

The planned move aims to ease the council tax burden on the less well-off, who will see their bills fall if they live in homes worth less than A£130,000.

However, it has been branded a "stealth tax" by Conservatives as soaring house prices have brought the average value of a home in England and Wales to around A£196,000, well over the A£170,000 mark.

Pensioners and "hard working people" who have lived in their homes for a number of years are likely to be among the hardest hit by the proposed changes, according to shadow local government minister Caroline Spelman.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that a leaked draft of the Government's Balance of Funding Review, due out on Tuesday, has recommended a revamp of the eight current council tax "bands" when a nationwide property revaluation takes place in 2007.

It could see one or two more bands brought in at the top end of the scale and another at the bottom end.

If implemented, the paper said, council tax bills for the most valuable properties - worth more than A£620,000 at current prices - could rise from their current level of A£2,334 a year to A£6,224 in three years, the paper said.

For homes in the A£310,000 to A£440,000 bracket, charges could go up from A£1,949 to A£2,982, the paper said.

The aim is to enable the Government to cut the charges for less well-off households, by making good the shortfall from those in more expensive homes.

[grupo guitarlumber] 05/7/2004 11:22

RNS Number:4812A
Dignity PLC
05 July 2004


For Immediate Release 5 July 2004





Dignity plc

Notification of Interim Results



Dignity plc announces that Interim Results for the 26 weeks ended 25 June 2004,
will be announced on 6 August 2004.



Contact:


Buchanan Communications Tel: [phone]
Mark Edwards/Suzanne Brocks




This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END

NORUUUPWMUPCGUA


Dignity(DTY)

[ariane] 04/7/2004 07:08

Management

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Counting the wrong beans

Accountants are blind to the assets that really matter, says Simon Caulkin

Sunday July 4, 2004
The Observer

The accountancy profession is in denial, betraying its past and endangering the present. Five years after the dotcom bubble, three years after the collapse of Enron and the evaporation of Arthur Andersen - then one of the globally pre-eminent audit firms - the business world is no nearer any reliable means of valuing the intangible assets that are critical to the way things are made.
In fact, says Clive Holtham, professor of information management at Cass Business School in London, the situation is worse than five years ago. 'The issue of measurement and reporting of intangibles is not only being ignored, there are active efforts afoot to play down its significance by the accountancy profession,' he claims.

When, in the late 1990s, UK companies were given greater flexibility to report intangibles, not one top-100 finance director showed any interest, according to a Loughborough University report. Most companies are indifferent or hostile to new measures, Holtham believes.

The result is a dangerous paradox. With 75 per cent of wealth-creation now reckoned to be attributable to intangible assets such as knowledge and information, rather than physical assets, the numbers accountants give to investors, bankers and indeed their own managers are increasingly irrelevant.

Failure to come up with a robust way of measuring intangibles was at the heart of the dotcom boom and bust, the most spectacular miscalculation and misallocation of capital since the South Sea Bubble. A convention of fortune tellers would have blanched at the analysis used to justify some investment decisions, says Holtham. 'Yet the accountancy profession appears to be using the Enron scandal to retreat into seeking reliability of traditional tangible financial statements, and paying even less attention to extending reporting.'


This can only increase the risk of the same thing happening again.

The accounting retreat betrays not only investors, but companies too. Whether companies choose to report on 'soft' issues - brand, reputation, human capital, learning, innovation - or not they do, like investors, have to allocate resources. That's hardly made easier when the accountancy stance gives credence to the view that measuring intangibles is both unimportant and impossible.

The absence of agreed overarching accounting principles at least has the advantage that companies can choose how they measure intangibles internally, points out Holtham, since they don't have to satisfy formal stock exchange requirements.

As to importance, consider Shell, whose current travails are a classic case of knowledge mismanagement. Some high-level officers were clearly aware of the discrepancies in reserve estimates and the dangers they posed to the company's reputation, but their doubts were suppressed. There also appears to have been a strong element of groupthink on the board. Shell has always prided itself on being a socially responsible company, but it evidently didn't devote enough resources to nurturing the cause.

'At some stage something happened to Shell's values that made it acceptable to put up figures that weren't completely above board,' Holtham says.

On the other hand explicitly managing intangibles, as elusive and unpindownable as they seem, can bring substantial benefits. This is because, as the Shell and Enron cases demonstrate, managing intangibles is closely linked to issues of risk and sustainability.

In a report entitled Unlocking the Hidden Wealth of Organisations, Cass researchers have developed a framework for looking at intangibles and identified a group of organisations that, despite the lack of official encouragement, have decided to cultivate their intangible production factors.

They include B&Q (sponsor of the report), Whitbread ('from manufacturer to brand manager'), Bloomberg, the UK Fire and Rescue Service, MMO2, Italian cosmetics company Intercos, the Austrian Research Centres and Swedish learning consultancy Celemi. Together they chart some of the different ways in which companies can cherish their invisible assets and use them as a source of competitive advantage and wealth creation.

But it shouldn't be left to practitioners to pioneer new accounting methods, says Holtham. He contrasts the timid approach of accountants and most managers to devising measures for the things that matter with physicians' commitment to accumulating a deepening evidence base. 'Medicine as a profession has a deep belief that it can use evidence to develop better ways of making decisions than in the past,' says Holtham. 'You can't but marvel at that compared with what's not happening in business.'

Holtham, himself accountancy trained, notes that the first written script, cuneiform, was devised in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago not by storytellers but (in effect) by accountants, to record transactions and stock levels for an increasingly settled society - a brilliant social and economic inven tion. Other accounting innovations such as double-entry bookkeeping in 15th century Venice and today's financial accounting were equally daring intellectual advances.

We're now desperately in need of a new cuneiform for the knowledge era, but there's little chance we shall get it from a profession that seems determined to disavow its illustrious intellectual heritage.

Grey head and shoulders above the crowd


Having recognised that ultimately its fate is settled by the perceptions of those outside, DIY retailer B&Q has learned to distinguish itself from rivals by careful management of its brand and other intangibles that affect how it is regarded.

As with many companies, its distinctive qualities were initially the result of an accident: growing fast in the late 1980s, it had to spread its recruitment net to the over-50s. It discovered that the necessity of employing older workers could be a virtue. As a result of a deeper skills base and wider experience, it found that its Macclesfield store, staffed entirely by over-50s, was outperforming others in profits, sales, customer service, short-term absenteeism and shrinkage.

Of the company's 37,000 workforce, 21 per cent are aged 50 or more and 7 per cent are over 60. B&Q even boasts two employees in their nineties.

The company amplified its knowledge advantage by setting up a corporate university. In a self-reinforcing spiral, it transpired that over-50s were adept learners too - not just about products but also about the wider brand. When, in response to uncomfortable questioning at an AGM, the company launched sustainable sourcing and an ethical trading policy for its timber, over-50s were quick to become persuasive company advocates. In effect, the company now sells not products but what consumers can do with them and what they represent. B&Q user clubs are a further investment in knowledge building.

'Having accidentally uncovered evidence of the value of the over-50s, B&Q has had the wit to exploit it,' says Clive Holtham of Cass Business School. The same goes for sustainability. 'Rather than just hoping nothing will happen, it has anticipated the likely repercussions and acted to reduce the risks. That's knowledge management in action.'

[e-mail]

[grupo guitarlumber] 23/6/2004 11:36

Not so brief lives: The danger of underestimating how long we will live
EMBARGOED UNTIL 00.01HRS MONDAY 21 JUNE 2004

People retiring in the next decade or so will live considerably healthier, more active and longer lives than their predecessors. But according to research by James Banks and colleagues, many are drastically underestimating the chances of their retirement lasting at least 10 years – and hence may not be saving 'enough'.

The first results of Banks et al's study of people's expected longevity – which draw on data gathered in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and are published in ESRC's new report Seven Ages of Man and Woman as part of Social Science week – show that:

People currently approaching retirement will receive the most generous state pensions of any generation – and will enjoy considerably healthier and longer lives.

But on average, both men and women aged 50-64 are underestimating their chances of living to 75.

Women report chances only slightly greater to those of men. As a result, women underestimate their longevity chances by considerably more than men.

The 'true' probability of a 60-64 year old woman reaching the age of 75 is greater than 80%. But, on average, 60-64 year olds report a chance of just 65%.

Those with more education and income report a higher chance of living to 75 than those with less, although the effects are rather small – less than five percentage points – and less significant for men than for women.

Different dimensions of health are strongly correlated with expectations: those with better self-reported health report higher chances, and those with previous conditions such as heart attack, along with smokers, report lower chances.

The data also include measures of attitudes to age that may capture unobserved vitality and health as well as attitudes, optimism or differences in reporting behaviour. These are positively correlated with longevity expectations over and above the measured health and socio-economic variables – those who think old age 'begins' later also report higher chances of living to later ages.

Social engagement (as measured by the frequency with which people see friends) is also positively correlated with subjective life expectancy.

Expected longevity is a key variable for individuals and governments planning their retirement resources. Errors in expectations could have important policy implications. If, as seems likely, people take decisions based on their subjective expectations rather than the true probabilities, unrealistic expectations could well generate adverse consequences in the future.

For further information:
Researchers on sixth age: James Banks, Carl Emmerson and Zoe Oldfield at the IFS on 020 7291 4800

Contact Iain Stewart, Lesley Lilley or Becky Gammon at ESRC, on 01793 413032/413119/413122.

Out of office contacts: Iain Stewart 07747 837615; Saskia Walcott 07973 157625

[grupo guitarlumber] 23/6/2004 11:30

Not 'sans everything': The improved quality of life for Britain's 'oldest old'
EMBARGOED UNTIL 00.01HRS MONDAY 21 JUNE 2004

The ranks of Britain's 'oldest old' – those aged 75 or over – are set to swell dramatically, but what is life currently like for this generation? Two surveys tracking the lives of older people – the Melton Mowbray Ageing Project and the Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study – suggest that men and women in this age group are enjoying a far better quality of life than previous generations.

Reported by Carol Jagger in ESRC's new publication Seven Ages of Man and Woman as part of Social Science week, these surveys show that:

Nowadays, even the oldest old live much of their life without the illness and disability previously considered to be a normal part of ageing.

Some older people may be lonely and dissatisfied, but most are not and they continue to lead socially active and productive lives. Sadly, almost a fifth of all those aged 75 and over sometimes feel that life is not worth living, but four-fifths do not.

Dementia, incontinence, stroke, arthritis, hearing and vision problems, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes are just a few of the chronic conditions whose frequency increases with advancing age. Most over-65s report at least one chronic condition but the number of conditions reported increases with age.

The oldest old report an average of 2.1 conditions compared with 1.7 in the 65-74 year age group. Of those aged 75 and over, 12% report no conditions while 36% report three or more. Women report more chronic conditions than men and more disability even adjusting for age.

Chronic conditions may vary in the way they affect an older person's life. Even when symptoms are unremitting, they may not readily be recalled as limiting if the older person has adapted their daily life to cope.

There are currently 3.7 million people aged 75 and over in England and Wales, 7% of the total population. Over the next 40 years, this proportion is expected to double.

Gender differences are an enduring feature of both the demography and health of the oldest old. This is reflected in women's five extra years of life expectancy at birth, a relatively constant difference over the last century, with women forming over 60% of the oldest old and over 70% of those aged 85 and over.

Although only around 4% of people aged over 65 cannot live independently and require care in a residential or nursing home, this proportion rises rapidly with age so that 7% of over-75s and 18% of over-85s are in residential care.

There are around 6,000 centenarians in England and Wales today and the number may be as high as 39,000 by 2036. In terms of telegrams from the Queen, this translates into an increase from just over 100 a week to 750 a week.

For further information:
Researcher on this age: Carol Jagger at the University of Leicester on 0116 252 3211

Contact Iain Stewart, Lesley Lilley or Becky Gammon at ESRC, on 01793 413032/413119/413122.

Out of office contacts: Iain Stewart 07747 837615; Saskia Walcott 07973 157625

NOTES FOR EDITORS
The ESRC is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It provides independent, high-quality, relevant research to business, the public sector and Government. The ESRC invests more than £76 million every year in social science and at any time is supporting some 2,000 researchers in academic institutions and research policy institutes. It also funds postgraduate training within the social sciences to nurture the researchers of tomorrow. More at

Social Science Week 2004 takes place across the UK from 21-25 June. The week is about highlighting research from the UK's social scientists and how this can contribute to better policymaking and, ultimately, a better society. It is an initiative from the Economic and Social Research Council. For a programme of events: www.esrc.ac.uk/socialscienceweek