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The Social Justice and Social Security Committee is examining the causes of pensioner poverty. It also wants to understand what actions need to be taken to mitigate or overcome these issues.

The Committee held a roundtable evidence session on pensioner poverty on 6 February 2025. The session covered:

• pension age income trends
• cost of living issues
• pensioner poverty for different groups
• demographic change and working age policies

Digital Exclusion

Following the roundtable, the Committee decided to hold an evidence session focusing specifically on the impact of digital exclusion on pensioner poverty.

The session will explore whether:

• public policy has helped older people to access public services that are moving online
• alternative ‘offline’ alternatives are available for older people who are not, or cannot be online

sets out how Connecting Scotland promotes digital inclusion by helping people get online. That strategy is being refreshed in 2025.

In August 2024, Audit Scotland published a .

The Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee considered this report on 5 September 2024. It then wrote to several Scottish Parliament committees, highlighting 'the risk posed to people’s human rights by an inability to access public services due to digital exclusion.'