The Well-being of Future Generations Act is not driving the system-wide change that was intended, Audit Wales says.
Reflecting on 10 years since the Well-being of Future Generations Act received Royal Assent on April 29 2015, Audit Wales said it sees good examples but also instances where public bodies have given little or no explicit consideration to the Act.
In a new report, Audit Wales considers how Welsh public bodies are doing what the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 requires them to do at a time when the long-term sustainability and affordability of services and government policy commitments are being tested.
It said:
“We found variation in practice within organisations, and within and between sectors. The health system in particular has some way to go in applying future generations thinking across its planning and delivery.
“Accelerating progress under the Act starts with prioritising prevention. Without a more systematic shift towards prevention, budgets will be exhausted, and outcomes will likely be worse. Public bodies also need to improve the information they use to inform planning and decision-making, get a better grip on resource implications, and make sure they can understand impact. And there is still much to do to apply the Act to functions such as workforce planning, asset management, and financial planning.”
Delivering change will require action from all public bodies individually, Audit Wales said, but it also noted that there was action that government could take to create the conditions for progress.
In 2020, Audit Wales called for a review of the Act to explore how barriers to its implementation could be overcome and how Wales could remain at the forefront of actions to improve well-being.
Five years on, that recommendation “has not been acted on in the way we had hoped”, Audit Wales said.
It said that it had made recommendations to individual public bodies through the audit work that the new report builds on, with the new report making four further recommendations. These are strategic recommendations to the Welsh Government, designed with the wider conditions for progress in mind.
The recommendations call on the Welsh Government to minimise funding uncertainty to help bodies plan effectively and to encourage investment in prevention. They also call on it to take a fresh look at the assessment of performance and impact under the Act and to clearly set out a scope and timetable for its own evaluation of the Act in the context of wider scrutiny.
Auditor General Adrian Crompton said:
“Ten years on from its inception, I see energy and enthusiasm for the Act in various quarters and I see public bodies having different conversations, making decisions informed by the Act, and changes in practice. But for all the good examples, there are those that are not so good. The Act is not driving the system-wide change that was intended.
“Of course, driving change across often large, complex organisations is hard. But I urge public bodies to see the sustainable development principle as a value for money issue. We cannot afford to design solutions that do not meet people’s needs, burden future generations with avoidable higher costs, or miss opportunities to deliver more with the same or less.”
The Future Generations Commissioner Derek Walker is using the 10th anniversary to launch 50 recommendations on climate and nature, culture and the Welsh language, the well-being economy and health and well-being.
He said:
“Wales has led the way for the past 10 years with our collective vision for a Cymru that’s protecting future generations, but we’re not on target to meet our health, climate and nature goals that will get us there.
“Future generations will live with the consequences of every decision we take to improve people’s lives and with trust in public institutions in decline, we must listen more, engage meaningfully with people’s concerns, and involve them without delay.
“The challenges are significant but not insurmountable and we have to work fast to scale up the good examples of change, and create more benefits for everybody as we decarbonise, restore nature, improve public health and create local jobs and an economy that works for people and planet.”
