Our All Ages Network comprises 128 members. Our strapline, Supporting intergenerational collaboration throughout your career! reflects the intergenerational, intersectional issues and priorities of our people and those we serve. Our three objectives are: 

Supporting our people to develop their talents, pursue opportunities that enable them to realise their potential, support the people they manage to realise theirs and enjoy rewarding careers. 

Driving culture change by all SCS and managers role-modelling age best practices, raising awareness of the ‘Longevity Dividend’ and challenging our own biases; demonstrating zero tolerance of age discrimination. 

Analysing the barriers and developing inclusive policy solutions by using the best available data, and engagement, we will identify and work with the department to address the key age and intersectional issues. 

In BEIS, we know age is an issue as it is cited as one of the top two reasons for people experiencing discrimination in our recent People Surveys. We are preferentially recruiting younger workers. In 2018/19, 80% of recruitment was under 40. The Civil Services wants to be representative of the national demographic of the people we serve. The national demographic is for age is 52% under 40, in BEIS it is 63% under 40 with some directorates as high as 80% under 40. 

Jane Lovel, Jackie Walsh and Helen Baden invited the Centre for Ageing Better to collaborate with BEIS, DfT, DHSC and DIT to understand the barriers and opportunities for conducting age-positive recruitment campaigns, minimising age bias in recruitment processes. 

Many older workers say they want/need to work longer, especially women who have taken career breaks to have their children, so have a reduced pension pot plus the State Pension age is increasing to 67 by 2028. But development programmes target younger people aspiring to be SCSs, often at the expense of retaining more experienced workers.