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Hybrid working: organisational development
Hybrid working: organisational development

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3.2 The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015

Wales has some of the most contemporary legislation in the world, drawing on best practice from across the globe. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (Welsh Government, 2015) places a duty on all Welsh public bodies to put sustainability at the heart of all decision making. A Future Generations Commissioner acts as a ‘guardian of future generations’, refocusing decisions on the long-term impacts and reporting on progress (Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, no date).

‘The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 gives us the ambition, permission, and legal obligation to improve our social, cultural, environmental, and economic wellbeing.’

‘The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 requires public bodies in Wales to think about the long-term impact of their decisions, to work better with people, communities, and each other, and to prevent persistent problems such as poverty, health inequalities and climate change.’

‘The Act is unique to Wales attracting interest from countries across the world as it offers a huge opportunity to make a long-lasting, positive change to current and future generations.’

The Act is a legally binding common purpose centred around seven wellbeing goals that detail the ways in which specific public bodies must work and work together to improve the wellbeing of Wales. The Act is the most developed act of the four nations of the UK, aiming to improve social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing.

In the videos below Sophie Howe, The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, explains the Act and the impact it is has had for Wales, and Jane Davidson, Author of #futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country explains how the Act was created.

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SOPHIE HOWE
I’m Sophie Howe, and I’m the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. Wales is the only country in the world that is legislated to protect the interests of future generations through our ground-breaking Well-being of Future Generations Act. It does a number of things.
First of all, it requires all of the institutions covered by the act-- 44 public institutions, that’s our government, our local authorities, our health boards, and a range of other national institutions as well-- to demonstrate how, when they’re taking decisions, they are meeting today’s needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It then sets out seven long-term well-being goals, which are linked back to the United Nations sustainable development goals.
It sets out five ways of working, which requires our public bodies to demonstrate how they’ve considered the long-term impact of the things that they do, how they prevent problems from occurring or from getting worse, how they’re integrating and working in a holistic manner, how they’re working together, collaborating, and how they’re involving citizens. And it also establishes a Future Generations Commissioner-- that’s myself-- to oversee the implementation of the legislation.
So the Future Generations Act is having a fundamental impact on changes to public policy here in Wales, whether that’s cancelling of the M4 relief road, whether that’s a moratorium on all road building here in Wales, a new transport strategy, whether that’s significant shifts in spending on the climate emergency. We’re seeing a new curriculum being rolled out across all of our school age groups - a curriculum, which is future focused, which moves away from rote learning towards helping children and young people develop skills for the future.
A small anecdote, I spent some time with, three mums from my kids’ school, and two of those mums said that their daughters wanted whittling knives for their birthdays. Now, that’s an indication of those kids spending time in the new curriculum in Wales in forest school, connecting with nature. And the purpose of that curriculum is to help our young people understand their place and their roles and responsibilities in our planet.
But beyond that, we’re seeing preventative action being taken with a focus around young people’s mental health. We’re seeing changes to planning policy in Wales. We’re seeing the first government-backed pilot in the UK of a basic income. So there’s a huge amount to be proud of in terms of the Well-being of Future Generations Act but still a huge amount left to be done.
It’s really exciting that there’s a huge amount of international interest in the work that we’re doing here in Wales, being the first country to have legislated to protect the interests of future generations. But what we’re trying to do here, really, is a huge cultural change program. It’s one thing having rules and regulations that people need to follow. It’s another thing winning over their hearts and minds and getting them to act in completely different ways.
And we’re trying to unpick the bad habits of very many lifetimes, which are around short-term decision making, perhaps protecting your own budget within your own silo rather than, perhaps, spending it in a way that could prevent problems from occurring elsewhere, not thinking holistically across policy areas. So it is important that we do have people who are calling out the madness and holding politicians and others to account when they’re failing to act in the long term.
And the climate catastrophe is a prime example of that, and we’ve known for a long time. We’ve put more carbon into our atmosphere since Al Gore published his first Inconvenient Truth than at any other time during human history. And we’ve done that knowingly.
And so it’s absolutely right that governments must be held to account on how they are delivering against meeting their climate targets now. It’s also really important that we’re getting alongside some of our public institutions, helping them to collaborate with each other, finding connections to people to organisations who are doing good things that they can learn from because I think, when we work together and when we look at issues in a holistic manner, we come up with much better solutions.
So my hopes for Wales in 2050 is that we will have adapted sufficiently to the climate crisis but also we will have mitigated and prevented, played our part in preventing those global temperature rises. I would like everyone in Wales to be able to live in leafy suburbs, not just those who are affluent. I would like every children who enters primary school to be going into an education career which is equipping them with skills, not just for a pointless job but for a life well lived.
I would like all of us to understand our environmental impact on the planet and changing our own behaviors. And I would like to see a universal basic income rolled out across Wales to really get a grip of the intergenerational poverty that we’ve never really tackled. And I think, if we could do those things alongside building good quality net zero homes and communities, then I think we will have done a good job for future generations.
So please do have a look at our website www.futuregenerations.wales. There is a huge amount of resources on the website, from frameworks to help you think about how you should consider the long term, how you might be able to contribute towards our seven wellbeing goals, some practical ideas from simple changes that you can make in your life or in your organisation to help us get towards those long-term goals to things that would be really adventurous and ambitious.
And we all need to change the way that we work. We need to make sure that we’re considering the impact of the things that we do on the planet, of the things that we do in terms of how they play out for future generations. And that’s why it’s so important that we are using this framework of this ground-breaking legislation that we have uniquely in Wales to help us think and act in a different way.
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JANE DAVIDSON
My name is Jane Davidson. And I’m the author of #futuregen-- Lessons from a Small Country, which is the story of why Wales has a Well-being of Future Generations Act, the only country in the world we understand to have legislation to deliver on the sustainable development goals.
Previously, I was privileged to be a Welsh Government minister. And I had the environment and sustainability responsibility from 2007 to 2011. And through both those portfolios, I was particularly keen on how Wales could deliver on its duty to promote sustainable development in everything that the National Assembly did.
And one of the reasons that we now have a Well-being of Future Generations Act is it became very clear while I was exercising my responsibility in the portfolios that to promote was not enough. We needed a duty to deliver. And I proposed the duty to deliver. And now one administration later, I’m delighted that the new members of the National Assembly decided to support the legislation, the Well-being of Future Generations Act, which passed into law in 2015.
The Well-being of Future Generations Act essentially gives the Welsh Government a duty to deliver on sustainable development, to make sure that in all its decisions it delivers outcomes across society, the economy, environment, and the culture of Wales. And in doing so, it delivers on the Brundtland definition of sustainable development, to ensure that future generations needs are not compromised by decisions taken today.
Essentially, the act does two things. It has a set of goals, seven goals, linked to the 17 sustainable development goals. And those seven goals are what the Welsh Government and now the Welsh Parliament wants to achieve in Wales. And it wants to achieve it both for itself but also all the public sector organisations, which are in its responsibility.
But exercising that principle as a duty to promote did not require any organisation to change practice. What the Well-being of Future Generations Act does is puts in place both a process five ways of working. Organisations have to think long-term.
They have to think preventatively. They have to collaborate with each other. They have to involve people about whom decisions are being made. And they have to integrate outcomes.
And that process requirement is now married with a set of seven goals that ensure that organisations accountable to the Welsh Government for this delivery have to demonstrate how they will deliver prosperity in a low carbon way, making sure that they understand the implications of climate change, that they don’t just maintain but they enhance biodiversity, that in terms of health, it’s not just counting ambulance pick-ups or anything like that. But it’s how you create the conditions for good health. So you can already see that this is about upstream approaches to big policy conundrums.
When we think about what cohesive communities should look like, they need to be attractive. They need to be viable. They need to be well connected.
If we think about what culture and language looks like applied long term in the interests of future generations, this is part of a country’s national identity, how to ensure that identity, heritage, language are ensured places for the future. And, very importantly, of course, equality, particularly in Wales as the poorest country in the United Kingdom, the act focuses on social justice to make sure that whatever circumstances people come from, they should be given the chance to ensure that they are able to have the best opportunities.
And this act is framed as well in Wales’ relationship with the world. And that is in the context of global responsibility. On one hand, you could say what it means is that Wales cannot offshore any of its emissions so that it can be globally responsible, and it must behave away from Wales in the same way as it behaves in Wales.
So the essence of the Well-being of Future Generations Act is that the decisions in Wales will be taken for the long term. They will be preventative. They will be collaborative. They will integrate outcomes. They will involve people about whom decisions are being made.
They will factor in climate. They will factor in social justice. They will change the definition of prosperity to low carbon. They will tackle issues around ill health. They will tackle issues around inequality. They will support Welsh heritage and identity. And they’ll make absolutely sure that the communities here are viable. So it’s a completely new framework for how a government does business.
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The seven well-being goals

To ensure that Wales is working towards the same shared purpose and vision, the act has seven well-being goals that all public bodies must work to achieve. These are explained in Table 1.

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Figure 9: Well-being goals
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A diagram showing the silhouette of Wales in the centre of a circle, which comprises seven segments. Each segment has one of the wellbeing goals noted within it: A Prosperous Wales; A Resilient Wales; A Healthier Wales; A More Equal Wales; A Wales of Cohesive Communities; A Wales of Vibrant Culture and Thriving Welsh language; A Globally Responsible Wales.

Figure 9: Well-being goals
Table 1

A Prosperous Wales

An innovative, productive, and low carbon society that recognises the limits of the global environment and therefore uses resources efficiently and proportionately (including acting on climate change); and which develops a skilled and well-educated population in an economy that generates wealth and provides employment opportunities, allowing people to take advantage of the wealth generated through securing decent work.

A Resilient Wales

A nation which maintains and enhances a biodiverse natural environment with healthy functioning ecosystems that support social, economic and ecological resilience and the capacity to adapt to change.

A More Equal Wales

A society that enables people to fulfil their potential no matter what their background or circumstances (including their socio-economic circumstances).

A Healthier Wales

A society in which people’s physical and mental wellbeing is maximised and in which choices and behaviours that benefit future health are understood.

A Wales of Cohesive Communities

Attractive, safe, viable and well-connected.

A Wales of Vibrant Culture and Thriving Welsh Language

A society that promotes and protects culture, heritage, and the Welsh language, and which encourages people to participate in the arts, and sports and recreation.

A Globally Responsible Wales

A nation which, when doing anything to improve the economic, social, environmental and cultural wellbeing of Wales, takes account of whether doing such a thing may make a positive contribution to global wellbeing.
Source: https://www.futuregenerations.wales/ about-us/ future-generations-act/

The Act has a strong focus on how the goals will be achieved by encouraging public bodies and organisations to use sustainable development principles of long term, prevention, integration, collaboration, and involvement, as depicted in the Five Ways of Working table below.

Table 2 Five Ways of Working

Long-term: The importance of balancing short-term needs with the needs to safeguard the ability to also meet long-term needs.

Integration: Considering how the public body’s wellbeing objectives may impact upon each of the wellbeing goals, on their objectives, or on the objectives of other public bodies.

Involvement: The importance of involving people with an interest in achieving the wellbeing goals, and ensuring that those people reflect the diversity of the area which the body serves.

Collaboration: Acting in collaboration with any other person (or different parts of the body itself) that could help the body to meet its wellbeing objectives.

Prevention: How acting to prevent problems occurring or getting worse may help public bodies meet their objectives.

The architecture of the Act links to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and framework. The image below provides a clear overview of how its impact will be measured.

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Figure 10: A sustainable Wales – architecture of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015
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Image shows ‘A sustainable Wales: architecture’. The content is set up as a table with descriptors in the left column and definitions or comments completing the rows. Reading down the table from top to bottom, row by row: What (World) (left); Sustainable Development Goals, with numbers 1 to 17 in individual boxes set across the row under the text (right). What (A sustainable Wales) (left); Well-being goals for Wales with double-ended arrows pointing up to the row above and down to the goals listed in individual boxes set across the row under the text, reading A prosperous Wales, A resilient Wales, A healthier Wales, A more equal Wales, A Wales of cohesive communities, A Wales of vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language, A globally responsible Wales (right). Progress (left); National Indicators and Milestones (right). Making it happen (left); Sustainable development and well-being duty on public bodies (well-being objectives) (right). Who (left); Individual well-being duty: 44 Public Bodies and Collective well-being duty: Public Services Boards in separate boxes (right). How (left); Sustainable Development Principle spanning five separate boxes below: Long term, Prevention, Integration, Collaboration, Involvement (right). Greater Transparency (left); Better information (right). Examinations (left); Auditor General for Wales: Examination (right). Supporting the change (left); Future Generations Commissioner for Wales spanning six separate boxes below: Long-term, Advice, Review, Monitor, Future Generations Report, Advisory Panel (right).

Figure 10: A sustainable Wales – architecture of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015

Activity 6: Familiarise yourself

Timing: 20 minutes

Start to familiarise yourself with the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] website.

As organisations operate in an uncertain climate, wellbeing and sustainability is critically important, and it is essential to embed this in organisational development activities and the development of employees’ understanding and capabilities.

Throughout the Supporting Hybrid Working and Digital Transformation collection, you will be referred to the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales website, which contains not only the full act, but also numerous resources that explain it in simple terms, practical tips and case studies of how an organisation can improve wellbeing and support its local community.

It is recommended that you read the Well-being Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 essential guide available on the main page that provides access to the full Act and an overview of the approach Wales has taken, and then as you have time outside of the time allocated for studying this course, engage with website further.