BAB understanding the context report - For screen

The Bristol Ageing Better (BAB) programme began in 2015 during a time of significant demographic, social, economic, political and policy change. This report looks, not at the projects commissioned by BAB, but at the underlying context. Using research and policy reports, archive material, and interviews with people who played key roles in the BAB programme, it paints a picture of the factors at national and local level that influenced the outcomes. BAB began midway through a decade of austerity that cut funding to both statutory and voluntary services. This inevitably cast a shadow over the programme, but also opened up opportunities as organisations learnt to work in new and more collaborative ways.