Osman has worked in broadcasting for 28 years, presenting bulletins on BBC World and reporting for ITN News. She fronted the Bristol-based Points West on BBC One for 14 years, but now has been hired to take over a leading programme in China.

She says that her age has become an insurmountable barrier in Britain, and has accepted a job hosting a prime-time breakfast show on China Radio International and is moving to Beijing.

Ms Osman said: “There seems to be a culture of ageism in broadcasting in this country, and it particularly affects women.” She attended a series of auditions for BBC jobs and been told she was “marvellous”. But she was consistently overlooked, without explanation.

She says that British women face ageism in broadcasting when they reached their 40s, but that their longevity is an asset in Asia. “In China they revere experience,” she said. “The older you are the better. I got the impression that my future boss actually wanted me to be older when I finally told him my age during the interview.”

She added: “I’ve had so many female colleagues who have dropped out in their early forties, which is a shame because an older woman can bring wisdom and empathy. There don’t seem to be many places for older women in broadcasting in this country.”

A BBC spokesman said: “Broadcasting, especially presenting, is an extremely competitive industry and the nature of it is such that many broadcasters are freelance artists on contracts of specific durations,” he said. “Ageism has nothing to do with it.”

The BBC was involved in an ageism row when Arlene Phillips, 66, was replaced as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing by Alesha Dixon, 31, a decision criticised by a government minister.

An estimated 540‚000 pensioner households will see their income increase by an average of £4 a week1 from November‚ after the Government changed the way income from savings is worked out for benefit purposes following an announcement in the Budget 2009. Some people with savings over £6‚000 who currently just miss out on benefits might also be brought into entitlement by the change and will need to make a claim.

Under the current system‚ when the Department for Work and Pensions checks someone’s entitlement for pension credit (or the local authority works out housing benefits or council tax benefit)‚ instead of including actual income from savings an ‘assumed income’ is taken into account. The first £6‚000 is ignored and after that every £500 over the £6‚000 level is counted as producing an extra £1-a-week income.

The new Budget provisions coming into force on 2 November will lift the so called ‘capital disregard’ limit from £6‚000 to £10‚000. For people with savings above £6‚000 in receipt of pension credit this means that the benefit money paid to them weekly will increase by up to £8 (see table below). The higher capital disregard will also apply to people aged 60 or over who receive council tax or housing benefit but not pension credit.

Although half a million pensioners will benefit from this change‚ up to £5.4 billion worth of means-tested benefits is still going unclaimed by older people each year.

Andrew Harrop‚ Head of Policy at Age Concern and Help the Aged‚ said:

“The changes to the way income from savings is worked out are good news for hundreds of thousands of older people who can certainly do with a small top-up to their weekly income.

“The fact that savings up to £10‚000 will be ignored for the purposes of working out benefit entitlements should encourage more older people on modest incomes to check whether they might be missing out on financial help which is rightfully theirs.

“This small improvement‚ though‚ won’t hide the fact that the means-tested system is failing to help many of the older people who most need its help. Up to £5 billion goes unclaimed by older people each year and one in three entitled pensioners aren’t claiming pension credit. This is why it is so important to move to a system of paying older people their entitlements automatically‚ rather than relying on them to claim”

Christian Aid  is due to make around 70 redundancies in efforts to save £6m over the next two years, and Catholic agency Cafod is planning job losses. More could follow at Oxfam as aid organisations suffer from the effects of the recession and the weak value of the pound

Cafod is also planning job losses and some could follow at Oxfam as aid organisations suffer from the effects of the recession and the weak value of the pound.

Christian Aid, which employs about 750 people and had an annual income of £83m in 2008/09, said that declining  donations and the weak value of the pound have hit the charity’s international programme.

“The biggest single factor was a £3m shortfall in target income during Christian Aid week in May,” said John Davison, of Christian Aid. He added the charity aimed to save £3m this year and at least £3m next year.

Cafod also confirmed it will announce job cuts to staff this week but declined to say how many.

A spokeswoman for Oxfam said the charity was “looking into a restructure next year”, and said that this might include some job losses.