Sally Greengross, Baroness Greengross

Sally Greengross, Baroness Greengross, OBE^[1] (born 29 June 1935) is a British politician. Awarded an OBE in the 1993 New Year's Honours,^[2] Sally Greengross was raised to the peerage as Baroness Greengross, of Notting Hill in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the year 2000.^[3][4]

Early life

Greengross was born Sally Ralea Rosengarten on 29 June 1935. She was educated at Brighton and Hove High School, a girls independent school in Brighton and Hove. She went on to study at the London School of Economics and Political Science.^[5]

Career

She was Director General of Age Concern England from 1987 until 2000; also until 2000, she was joint Chair of the Age Concern Institute of Gerontology at King's College London, and Secretary General of Eurolink Age.^[6]

Her appointments include that of Chair of the Advisory Groups for the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and the New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA); and Chief Executive of the International Longevity Centre - UK, President of the Pensions Policy Institute and Honorary Vice President of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health.

Political career

She has been an independent crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2000 and chairs three All-Party Parliamentary Groups: Corporate Social Responsibility, Intergenerational Futures: Old & Young Together and Continence Care. She is the Vice Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia and Ageing and Older People, and is Treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Equalities. In December 2006, it was announced that she would be a Commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Whilst Chair of the Association of Retirement Housing Managers, Baroness Greengross made the following statement in the House of Lords on 23 April 2012:

“It is difficult, not least for the providers of schemes, who are dealing with people who are often prepared to spend 12 or more hours a day focusing on those issues and who can make amazing barrack-room lawyers – I do not want to be insulting – because they have so much time to concentrate on that. So it is a difficult as well as an important issue. Housing designed for older people whose needs change as they age faces an almost built-in conflict of interest. They need more services as they age, so the costs are going to rise as more care is provided. Their income tends to be less over the years. They wish to reduce the cost but they need more services. Older and frailer residents are more costly, so when residents manage the schemes themselves they may wish to sell to active, fit and therefore younger people.”

Personal life

In 1959, she married Sir Alan Greengross; they have three daughters and one son.^[7]

Honours

She holds honorary doctorates from a number of British universities. She has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) degree by the University of Ulster in 1994, Brunel University in 2002, University of Keele in 2004. She was awarded a Doctor of the University (DUniv) degree by the Kingston University in 1996, the Open University and Leeds Metropolitan University in 2002. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) by the University of Exeter in 2000.^[5]

References