National Assembly for Wales

Bore da, pawb. Welcome to the Equality and Social Justice Committee. We have apologies from Mick Antoniw for this morning's session, but he will be joining us for this afternoon's session.

We are continuing our scrutiny of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. We're very pleased, in this session, to welcome Sophie Howe, the former Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, and Jane Davidson, the chair of Wales Net Zero 2035, who had also been involved in the shaping of the legislation at the very beginning.

So, I just wanted to start off by asking you how effective you think the Act has been, given that the Auditor General for Wales has, in his latest report, said that the Act is not driving the system-wide change that was intended. He's particularly concerned that the sustainable development principle is not being seen as a value-for-money issue in terms of shaping the way people spend the budgets they've been allocated. Jane, shall I come to you first?

Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to talk to the committee. If I may, Chair, I'd just like to go back to first principles, because, of course, I was the Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing in the coalition Government of Labour and Plaid Cymru in the period 2007 to 2011, and it is in that period that we proposed legislation to deliver, where previously we'd had legislation in the original Government of Wales Act 1998 that gave us a duty to promote sustainable development in everything we did. The point about moving from a duty to promote to a duty to deliver is there was actually advice to the civil service that indicated that the duty to promote effectively meant nothing in practice, it didn't change anything, and therefore was actually a contributory factor in terms of people having very different ideas of what sustainable development meant, what it should mean in practice and how it should govern the operation.

But if we go back to the original wording, it was about the duty to promote sustainable development in everything that the new National Assembly for Wales did. So, we all treated it as a constitutional framework. I think that's a point that didn't come up in listening to your contributions last time. A constitution values framework for ensuring that the decisions taken in the new National Assembly for Wales, in its progress into Welsh Government, would deliver for current and future generations according to the Brundtland principle.

So, I think that, in the context of how effective it's been in the 10 years, that principle has been not only strongly recognised across the world because the Act itself, by the very use of the United Nations sustainable development goals, by having Welsh Government accountable to the Act, by having the auditor general auditing the Act, alongside the future generations commissioner, all those aspects have meant that the legislation has been seen to be both the foremost piece of legislation in the world in terms of delivering on sustainable development, and in particular on the sustainable development goals, but also it reflects the learning from the decade previously in terms of what was difficult for the incumbents, both politicians and civil servants, in the delivery of the Act. 

So, I think that my initial reflection is that actually the Act is opening up imagination across many, many other countries in the world. It's influencing the UN, and Sophie can say a lot more about that because she was heavily involved.

Okay. We'll come onto that later. What I want to know is whether you think the Act passed in 2015 lacked the teeth that you expected—just being an exhortation as opposed to an obligation.

Of course, yes, I would argue that it's not an exhortation, it has a set of obligations within it that I strongly support: the statutory ways of working, the obligations for all public services including the Welsh Government on the seven goals. And of course the auditor general did also say in his report that this will be really helpful, if properly enacted and delivered—really helpful in terms of organisations in Wales delivering to that.

Personally, I have never advocated for there to be more penalties within the Act because I've always seen it as releasing the imagination, and have always assumed that the penalties would come in other Acts, because I cannot see how, if you have a total constitutional approach in a piece of legislation, which is how we saw this at the time, that actually you could have every penalty within that constitutional approach. They would have to be delivered in appropriate legislation, whether that was environmental, economic, health or otherwise.

Okay. Just turning to Sophie, during your term in office you spent a considerable amount of time supporting the Welsh Government on how to deliver on its own Act. I just wondered whether you want to reflect on how they were cascading out the learning needed by all the other public bodies under the Act.

Yes. I think—and bore da, committee, it's lovely to be back with you—the first thing I want to say is that it's completely unrealistic to think that one piece of legislation in its aspirations, which are as broad as the future generations Act, in a 10-year period—and it’s not actually a 10-year period; it didn't come into force until 2016, with a pandemic and all the rest of it in the middle of it—is going to transform the behaviours of the public sector in Wales, or indeed the public sector and government in any country in the world, in that period. If that were the case, we wouldn't be in 2025, having had an Equal Pay Act in 1970, still talking about unequal pay.

So, I think there's got to be a sense of realism in this, and I think Jane is absolutely right in terms of it providing this kind of constitutional framework and so on, and I think that there's lots that we can be really proud of. I can't envisage some of the policy changes that we have seen during these last nine years or so happening perhaps without the future generations Act. So, the big transformation in transport policy, a UBI pilot, the roll-out of free school meals, and then some of the smaller things that perhaps don't get the same sort of attention that are giving permission to these people you've often heard me describe as the frustrated champions in public bodies to do different things.

So, I think it has set an important framework for people to work within. I think the goals, as a kind of north star by which we dock our policies and our decisions, are critically important, and I think we've seen some fundamental transformations there. Have we done what we need to do? Absolutely not. Is the Government doing enough? No, it's not. And having had a look at the updated plan on the section 20 review that I did, which is looking at the Government's own approach to implementing and driving that within Welsh Government, but also in terms of their leadership role elsewhere, I'd say it's vanilla at best. And I'd also say in terms of budget and Treasury, I think we've made little leaps of progress, but I’m really disappointed, for example, to see that in their recent budget improvement plan they haven't got around to doing the work that they planned to do on prevention. Now, that's not good enough, and they really need to up their game there if they are going to set the framework throughout everything that they do for the rest of the public service to be able to deliver on the aspirations of the Act. There's a real balance, however, between saying, 'There's still lots of work to do', and saying, 'Actually, we have achieved quite a lot'.

I don't know if any of you saw breakfast television, but James Corden was on the television this morning, having come back from Los Angeles, talking about, 'If you could see from afar about the UK, what I see—'. And there are very many imperfect things about the UK, but, actually, when I go to countries across the world who are holding Wales up as an example and are absolutely in awe of (1), the infrastructure that we've got, and (2), some of the policy changes that have come from that, then I think there is a reality check there around the progress that we've made, the reality, and being realistic around how long this is going take to achieve, and really trying to strike that balance.

Okay. Thank you. Julie Morgan, you wanted to come in. 

Yes, thank you. Bore da, Sophie. I just wanted to follow up what you said about the UBI and free school meals, in particular. Are you saying that you don't think they would have happened if we hadn't had this Act?

I think it's really difficult to say one way or another, isn't it, because, in complex systems, particularly political systems, things change all the time. What I think the Act has done, however, is given this overarching framework for us to test our decisions against. And we're saying, 'Should we prioritise doing this thing or deprioritise doing those things in line with whether they help or hinder us achieving the well-being goals?' And it's clear to me that free school meals helps us to achieve those well-being goals, focuses on prevention, delivering long-term benefit. Even better, as is happening in some places—Carmarthenshire is a really good example—is where they're actually joining the dots, not just in delivering the free school meals, but actually doing that with local suppliers, looking at the carbon pipeline that comes from those free school meals, and so on. Now, I don't think you would get that if you did not have a future generations Act. But it's almost impossible to say because the politics, the budgetary climate, the framework of legislation, the political will and public pressure—all of those—feed in.

Okay. Sioned Williams.

Can I come back in there?

Yes, just briefly, please.

I think Sioned speaks to the point that I made in terms of it being a complex landscape that decisions are taken in. I could also, however, point to the decisions on the M4, on the revised transportation strategy, and some really difficult decisions there that have been politically very difficult to do, but those decisions have been taken in the context of achieving the future generations Act. Also, there's the way in which we could have been quite happy sitting on our laurels about us being the third best in the world in terms of our rates of recycling, but we haven't sat on our laurels there. We're saying, 'Actually, this framework requires us to go beyond recycling and move to a fully circular economy'. So, this is what I come back to: you can't necessarily say it was this one thing or that one thing. Do I think that the future generations Act is an important lever in many of the progressive things that have happened in Wales? Yes, I do.

Thank you. Jane Davidson, briefly, you wanted to come back in.

Yes. Just two points, really. The first one is that the Act contains within it a duty for all organisations, including the Welsh Government, to maximise their contribution to all the goals. One of the things, if you look at a list of areas where the Welsh Government, with input from other parties—as politics is, I think, the reality in this space—is that it shows very clearly a very different agenda to any other part of the United Kingdom, and that's one thing that really helps in advocating for the role of the Act. The Act was supported by the Liberal Democrats, by Plaid Cymru, and there's a lot of shared ideas about what needs to happen, and sometimes one party or other will feel that those are affordable or unaffordable in this space, and politics is really helpful in drawing that through. But when it comes through in the spirit of the Act, it's actually, I think, also partly the success of the Act as well as the politics, and that's something about the politics of Wales.

Okay. Thank you. I want us to move on now. Julie Morgan.

Thank you very much. I wanted to ask about developments elsewhere, which we've already touched on a bit, and I wondered what particular elements of the Act have you been proud of promoting? Which are those bits that you think have particularly struck a chord with the different countries that you've had dealings with? I don't know who will start with that. Sophie.

Yes, I can pick up on that. Well, I have to say I'm incredibly proud of the Act in Wales and, just going back to what I said earlier, many countries are in awe of what we've done and some of the policy choices and different decision-making frameworks that are coming from that. I suppose the biggest win, if you like, is that, last year, the United Nations passed the world's first declaration on future generations. Adam Day, who was the senior adviser to the United Nations Secretary General back during my term as commissioner, who we engaged with then, says very clearly that when he built into the secretary general's commitments through his manifesto, if you like—it's called 'Our Common Agenda'—that they will seek to pass a future generations declaration and appoint a special envoy, that was because—he uses the words—he basically pinched the Welsh ideas and put it in that document. So, Wales, as a nation of just over 3 million people who's not even a member state of the UN in its own right, is influencing global policy on that scale. I think we can be incredibly proud.

I just want to give you a flavour of some of the other things, because the UN declaration is up there—it really only matters in terms of how that's changing the decisions that are taken in the multilateral system, but, more importantly, how that is influencing what's happening in member states. So, starting, I suppose, with the next layer down, the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, from a centre-right party, has just been appointed the first intergenerational fairness commissioner for the EU, again drawing on the Welsh example, and are just in the process of producing their first intergenerational fairness strategy. There has been legislation in the Australian federal Parliament. The Kenyan senate are developing a committee for the future, drawing on some of the examples from Wales. Cameroon has become the first state to introduce the first indigenous populations commissioner—

Sophie, I—

I could go on and on.

No, don't. Why don't you focus a little closer to home about what's going on in Scotland and England.

Well, in Scotland, there's an interesting—. I don't know if I'd call it a race; it's a very slow race, between a Labour MSP and the Scottish Government, who have a commitment to have a sustainable development Act, and the Labour MSP has a similar Bill, but which is probably a bit more progressive. So, that is happening. Whether either of those come to fruition before the election, I think the jury's still out on that. There's been a Bill in the Irish Parliament. In the UK, I've just started re-engaging with a number of MPs who are interested in the scope of this, or the possibility of this, in terms of providing almost like a protective framework, if you like, to less progressive, populist politics, and I think there could be some interesting developments emerging there. It's very early days, but there we are. And then Norway, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Greece—discussions going on there around potential future generations Acts too.

Thanks very much for that. If I could ask Jane—. Do you want to come in on that, Jane?

Yes, because I think there are two key issues here. Sophie and I are in huge demand. I'm not sure the committee members realise. I'm doing at least three events a week from my little attic in which you see me now, and have been since my book came out in 2020, to countries, to policy makers, to Prime Minister's offices, around the well-being of future generations Act. The UK Government Foreign Office says that it is the biggest soft power that Wales has ever had, and it is regularly asked about, the well-being of future generations Act, I think somewhat to its irritation, because it can't say that it's doing that in England. But it does say, actually, as Sophie has outlined, that other parts of the UK are looking at it. I've worked very closely with the social change initiative in Northern Ireland on this as well.

I think the second point about it is that there is an immense pride among people who know about it that Wales has been ready to do this. But there is also the other side of that coin, in that there are many, many, many people in Wales who still don't even know that they have the legislation. So, when people know about it, they really like it. So, there's something very big about making this a major Welsh project, so people know they can slap it down virtually in front of MSs, civil servants, or local government and other officials to say, 'This is what needs to be done in the spirit of the Act', to make that much more a national conversation.

Thank you. And what about the UK? I know that there was a Bill proposed in the House of Lords, but that hasn't progressed any further, and I think you do comment about the Bill in your book. I don't know, do you have any information about what's happening in the UK and how the proposed Bill there was going to be different in any way from what we're doing here, and are there any prospects of this new Government bringing in any such legislation?

Jane.

Jane.

Well, once again, very quickly, there have been a number of presentations. Sophie has been more involved in that Bill. But, in terms of the dialogue with Parliament, there have been a number of requests for presentations, and there is an all-party group on future generations. I think one of the biggest, actually, wins that has come through the School of International Futures has been working with the Liaison Committee—the scrutiny committee that oversees the work of all the parliamentary committees—which has now put foresight and future generations into its term of reference. So, I think there are different ways of doing it, because there is always, otherwise, going to be debate about who is the commissioner of commissioners and those sorts of issues. But bringing the spirit of working within the bringing future generations and current generations together, I think, is really important, and is consistently and continuously being developed.

Okay. Sophie, I'm sure you want to comment too, and then we need to move on as to how well we're implementing this in Wales.

Sorry, comment on that, or on the—

Yes, if you need to—I'm just giving you the opportunity before we move on.

Right. Yes, it was just to say, as Jane said, the Liaison Committee of the House of Commons has made this part of the terms of reference and said that the House of Commons in the UK should be looking to what we did in Wales. There are discussions going on at Prime Minister's office around a long-term strategy for the UK, and there is this emerging interest in picking up Lord John Bird's Bill again amongst a number of cross-party MPs. So, I think, Julie, there's probably nothing solid to report at the moment, but a bit of 'watch this space'.

Thank you.

Thank you. Jane Dodds. 

Jane.

Thank you. Because I'm not a public body, I'm just a person who's more public than I expected to be at this point in my life, I'd just really like to pick up the areas that I think need some intervention. I think that the goals are very well described—the sustainable development goals. So, there's a really solid frame of reference in the context of those. I think that there does need to be some real work on the five ways of working. They are statutory, organisations are required to show that they are delivering on them, but my experience, in hearing both from the auditor general and from the current future generations commissioner, is that they are more recognised in terms of how organisations set their well-being goals rather than as overarching ways of working, common ways of working, as Peter Davies described them, which should be influencing everything that happens in every organisation. And that's what we mean when we're talking about the idea that this is a constitutional values framework, rather than a piece of legislation that should be competing with other pieces of legislation around meaning. 

Sophie has already referred to the fact that there are two pieces of legislation that use different definitions of 'well-being', for example: one in relation to social care in terms of the regional partnership boards, and this one in terms of the public services boards. So, I think that the committee could do a really, really important job in unpacking those sorts of elements, just to make sure that the intention of the Act is carried through in its major delivery mechanisms. 

The reason that I think that the ways of working are so important is that you could define 'prevention' in a number of ways, and it may need to be defined in a number of ways, but people should not be able to choose any definition of 'prevention', any definition of 'long term', any definition of 'integration'. So, I think there's something really helpful that the committee could do in terms of looking, in particular, at what the question of involvement and collaboration look like. Now, the auditor general has been very clear about this in his report, but the involvement issue is absolutely key. I mean, if we go back to 'The Wales We Want' discussions in 2014, a lot of members of the public felt alienated from politics in Wales, both at the UK level and at the Welsh level. Yet Wales is a small country, has the biggest opportunity, particularly in the mainland UK, of creating involvement mechanisms that can engage regularly with the public to build trust. And I think there's a very good example from Audrey Tang in Taiwan, promoted by the national citizenship project, where her book Plurality tells the story of how, initially an adviser and then a Minister, she was able through digital engagement to engage right across the population and build the trust in Government dramatically as a result, because it was real kinds of involvement.

Thank you. Sophie.

Perhaps I can answer this question, because I think this is what it comes back to, through the lens of what my daughter, who's just turned 11, or anyone's child, might be experiencing. So, we have a long way to go, but just giving you a flavour of some of the things that have changed. So, when she walks outside our house within, hopefully, the next year, when the work is completed, she will be walking along nature corridors, which are about to be installed through sustainable urban drainage. She'll be going to school with a revised curriculum, which is built around the future generations Act, and which does things that many curriculums across the world don't do: focuses on future skills, softer skills, focuses on placing health, physical and mental health, as a core part of the curriculum, and focuses on creating ethical and informed global citizens. She will be learning about black history as part of that curriculum. She might be, as they're doing in Monmouthshire, looking at a chickpea curry, which is all based on learning around deforestation and around being globally responsible. When she's older, she might be able to take part or achieve one of the jobs with some of our renewable energy providers who are basing their whole skills framework and approach to procurement around the future generations Act and the green job creation there, or she might be able to go to cyber security college in Ebbw Vale. When she needs to—. She may not need to buy fast fashion, because she might be able to get that repaired at the local repair cafe that's just opened up in my area as well. And hopefully, she will be able to continue walking and cycling, because her school street has been closed off to traffic, and because it's safer for her to do so in 20 mph zones.

Now, all of those things—. And I suppose I'm really trying to bring this back to your first question that you ask everyone, Jane: what is it that we're trying to do here? We're trying to make sure that Wales is better for your children and your grandchildren. So, all of those things stem from policies and new strategies that have been implemented, where the future generations Act has provided that framework. You know, again, I go back to the point that we can't necessarily say, because we had a future generations Act here, this thing automatically followed. But I think it does create a framework where those things are allowed to flourish.

Are things in some areas still really bad for kids in Wales? Yes, they are. We haven't nailed air pollution, but we have a plan for doing that, and those transport strategies are part of doing that. We still have challenges in terms of particularly this generation of our young people coming into the workforce and so on, making sure that they are well equipped for skills for the future. We still have massive challenges in terms of child poverty, and things like have happened—again, utilising the future generations Act—in Swansea bay health board, where there was reuse of hospital beds for kids living in bed poverty, that's not going to solve poverty for kids in Wales, but it might make things a little bit better.

I suppose what I'm saying is there are a number of things that are happening as a result of this future generations Act, and the politics and the framework and the ways that we believe in doing things in Wales, which are taking us on what, I would say, is the right trajectory, but we still have a lot of work to do, and there is a time period—. If I just give you an example on that time period, when we stop building roads in—. I'm paraphrasing. When we stop building roads, we drastically reduce the amount of money that we're spending on building roads and put that into public transport, because there's been a huge underinvestment in public transport infrastructure in Wales.

What we've just seen in this last quarter is Transport for Wales now having the fastest increase in passenger numbers of any transport body across the UK. Now, that hasn't happened overnight, and it's happened with a lot of pain. I still sat on a train on the weekend and was utterly frustrated by it. But we are on a journey here, we've got to hold our nerve, and I think the future generations Act is a really key part of that vision or of that destination that we're trying to reach.

Briefly, please, because we're in danger of running out of time.

Absolutely. So, I think that there's something here, isn't there, between the framework and the infrastructure, the legal infrastructure of the Act, the machinery of Government, the processes, the decision-making frameworks and so on, and then people, people who are in our public services. I have seen and continue to see a clear link between the people, these frustrated champions—champions, as I call them—who are using the future generations Act to challenge and to positively disrupt systems that don't work. We can see some brilliant examples across the board of that.

I still think that there are particular challenges in terms of some of the process and machinery, I will call it, of Government. So, I gave that example in terms of Treasury and in terms of the budget improvement plan—not good enough that, nine years on, we're still not doing better on prevention and that you dropped that from your budget improvement plan last year.

The section 20 review that I did, looking at the way in which Welsh Government was seeking to implement this—I'm quite disappointed by the most recent update in terms of what has happened as a result of that. I'll give credit in terms of changes to some of the training programmes, greater support amongst Welsh Government for understanding obligations under the future generations Act. But, nine years on, come on, guys, we'd expect a bit better than that.

The other thing that I want to say is that I see the Government's role, or primary role, as twofold: (1) showing real leadership—so, practising what it preaches. And it's preached the legislation, it's passed the legislation, so, in absolutely everything that it does, it should be communicating through the lens of the well-being goals, the five ways of working and so on. They need to stop reinventing the wheel, calling things slightly different things, because that confuses the system. And the thing they most need to stop doing is adding layers of complexity to an already complex system. Public services boards are a prime example of this. They have not been supported to succeed. I think there have been successes in terms of bringing them together, better collaboration, better understanding of the different issues that wasn't there before. But when you're a beleaguered public servant who's trying to manage more demand with limited resources and so on, you follow a line of least resistance and go to the places where it's clearer what your obligations are and where the money is, quite frankly. So, the introduction of corporate joint committees and regional partnership boards, where those things happen, have dissipated, I think, the ability of public services boards to do the more holistic work that they need to do in terms of joining the dots, and that is on Government. 

Government were told this by me. They've been told this by Derek Walker. What Government, if they're serious about this, need to say is, 'We're going to invest in the long term in making this infrastructure work, because it is the right infrastructure if we do that. That will take time, that will take a lot of commitment, that will take us going beyond just having a point of contact in those PSBs to giving someone in the Welsh Government the power to come and shake up the system where it’s interfering with PSBs doing good stuff, or where it needs to get out of the way of PSBs doing good stuff, or where it needs to resource and help PSBs doing good stuff. And I haven’t seen that yet. They’re doing the simple thing where, if they’ve got a problem, they set up another complex layer and that actually only adds to the problems.

I think what I’d like to do is just make a comparison with the education system, because I was the education Minister who introduced both the pilot of the baccalaureate and also the pilot about the foundation phase. And now, we see both of those incorporated—and I’m really delighted, by the way—in the statutory new system in 2022. One of the big moves in that, of course, was a move from subjects to areas of learning, and I think that what we think about in the context of Government is that one of the big criticisms of all Governments everywhere is that they are siloed. In the work that we did on Wales Net Zero 2035, it was absolutely clear that 90 per cent of our respondents believed that the Government operated in siloes; Ministers only operate in their own areas. In fact, what this whole agenda requires is a systemic approach to delivery—an area of learning approach, rather than a subject approach.

So, it’s about how this is a mindset change, a behaviour change and also a brave reallocation of responsibilities, making sure that there are collaborative ways in which those responsibilities can interact to deliver the greatest number of co-benefits. And I think that that has been one of the big challenges for the Welsh Government. They are still using very linear ways of delivery and old-fashioned ways of delivery in a world where content is easy to acquire, but the frame in which we make decisions is actually open now to what are the best delivery mechanisms in any particular country. There's a huge opportunity for them to make that change, particularly with an election coming up.

I think Sophie's already given you hers, so can we hear from Jane?

I always use John Rawls from his 'A Theory of Justice':

'Do unto future generations what you would have had past generations do unto you.'

Thank you. Can I call Sioned Williams now?

As I say, because I'm here as an individual and I haven't done any systemic work as I would have done previously into that, I'm cautious about naming good practice. But I think that if you read Sophie's reports and the future generations commissioner's reports and the auditor general's reports, you see many examples of good practice. One of the best resources for people coming into this space from other countries is to use the future generations commissioner's website, in the context of resource.

But the fundamental proposition is that, if you're going to take a systemic approach to something, then you're always looking for co-benefits. And by doing the Wales Net Zero work in the way we did, by creating critical pathways that show you how to deliver an outcome, rather than recommendations where Government then has to work out how to deliver an outcome, by deliberately sitting down with experts across the world, testing them on people as well, in terms of how you deliver an outcome, over what kind of timeline, and who has to get involved in making those decisions, you can immediately see it's never one Minister. 

Often individual Ministers will tell you, privately if not publicly, that it's really hard when they want to do something that has an effect on all sorts of other ministries, and then it gets bogged down completely in how you have the decision-making process to get an outcome that is beneficial to all. So, I think there's a real opportunity, even if you keep individual ministries, to then also have a pre-Cabinet-type approach, when all those collaborative approaches are worked through, so what goes to Cabinet is one proposition, which might be for six Ministers. We have to find ways of making the system thinking lean. 

There is a complete control in the First Minister for how they set those arrangements up. So, in essence, you could have a think in the committee about how you might want to see a future First Minister set such arrangements in place. And I'm sure that, in the period of time before you finally deliver your verdict, those of us who are interested in this could find you some very good examples, maybe not in Government but in organisations, where it's the values framework that leads, the systems framework that drives and it's outcome focused. That's exactly what the auditor general says needs to happen.

I'll talk mostly about my experience as commissioner. What we found is that, in many cases, it did require some level of intervention from a commissioner to facilitate better long-term joined-up Government. You will have heard me in previous committees talk about making connections between the 20,000 affordable homes that we're going to build and the fact that we didn't have a green skills plan at the time, so how are we going to build those affordable low-carbon homes without the skills pipeline and so on. 

We have seen movement on some of those things. We do now have a green skills plan, for example. I think things like the transport strategy, which was originally going in one direction, and then there was that challenge and now the whole transport strategy is built around delivering the multiple co-benefits through the future generations Act, is another good example of that, but didn't come initially just on its own.

There are, however, some really good examples where things have come on their own, and I think the 'Beyond Recycling' strategy is a good example of that. But you might argue that that part of Government was already in a progressive zone, if you like, and they were able to shift to this not just delivering recycling or a zero-waste nation by 2050, but doing that whilst also trying to deliver these multiple other co-benefits.

So, there are some good examples there, but I still think there's this challenge in the machinery of Government in terms of how this happens in a really systematic way. That's exactly why I did the section 20 review. I'm slightly nervous about asking my successor to do things, or a Senedd committee—who am I to do that? But if there was one thing that you could both do, I think it would be to go back to that section 20 review on Government, because I really explored in depth there what needed to happen in this, what wasn't happening and what needed to happen in this system, and I'm not sure that there's been adequate follow-up on that, because we're still feeling those problems.

There were some really targeted recommendations there, and when I've read through, as I said, their latest report on that, I'm feeling a bit meh about it. So I think don't reinvent the wheel and do a whole new review on that. The answers are done. I would have Government in regularly, asking them how they are actually implementing those recommendations, really getting into the minutiae of what is happening in the system. Because when you go into the minutiae, you might see that ministerial submissions still have a reference to, 'We've considered the future generations Act’ and ticked a box and missed the point. And that, I think, is the kind of layer that the Senedd, its Members and indeed the current commissioner need to get into.

I think on that aspect it's really difficult, because we're not talking, are we, about—. You know, the legislative framework is there, isn't it? It's how it's enacted. It's the day-to-day interaction of the civil servants and Ministers and departments and so on. So the only thing, really, that I can suggest is just—and I know you do this—to be really robust on exploring—. In this collection of decisions, maybe you randomly pull them in: ‘We want the real minute detail of what was the policy-making process on this, how were different ministries involved, how were people involved in doing that’. I flushed a lot of this out in the section 20 review. That wasn't particularly easy, and there was some resistance to doing that. Ultimately, we did come up with a kind of joint action plan. But I think really opening, getting beneath a layer here of just answers that are given at committees; I think you perhaps need to go really much deeper into that, if you can find a way of doing that.

At the risk of labouring the point again, I see this as a constitutional framework, I don't see it as a law with the individual penalties in it. But I do think the section 20 reviews are underutilised. Sophie’s been very clear about underutilisation of the very important one that she did in that context. But I think that they need to be built regularly into the process.

The commissioner is a seven-year role; I could see, for example, the committee might be interested in saying there should be four section 20 reviews in that period of seven years, so they're carried out over a period of 18 months, they do different kinds of organisations, but therefore the messages from them apply to a very large number. And so literally, over one or perhaps even two commissioners, you can actually intervene on the key issues systemically for all the public sector in Wales that is answerable to the legislation, so it becomes a real opportunity.

There do need to also be occasions where there can be almost an emergency section 20 review. If you've done your bit of testing and challenging, and an organisation is really not going to play ball, then they need to be threatened that a section 20 review will expose that, and they will have to react to that publicly. But we hope there'll be fewer and fewer over time, whereas the planned ones, I think, are a real opportunity for learning to be done as a co-production between both the auditor general and the future generations commissioner.

Diolch. Just to add I agree with Jane there. I suppose the approach that I took always was to offer advice and support first. Sometimes, departments or organisations would take up that advice. Sometimes, they'd say they were taking up that advice, but they were really just pretending to do that, and other times they would refuse it. But always to make that offer first, then to see how that advice had been taken on board and what was actually happening. And then there were a number of occasions where if things weren't moving in the right direction, I threatened the use of section 20 review powers. It's not a huge threat, but then nobody really wants to go through the process of it and potentially be named and shamed for not doing what they should be doing. That was actually quite effective in a number of areas. So, the transport interventions, for example, that was a threat that I used, and then we saw the Government respond in a different way, and actually the outcomes were really good.

The final thing I wanted to say about section 20 reviews is that they are expensive. The commissioner has had his budget cut, and that's a problem. At one point, I was in an argument with the Government about having to go and ask them for money to undertake section 20 reviews, which is clearly absolutely bonkers. And I would support Derek, the current commissioner, in saying that maybe we need to look at resourcing directly from the Senedd rather than from the Government, and the extent to which the commissioner and members of committees of the Senedd could work in synchronisation, then, to undertake some of these reviews, using the different powers, capabilities and resources that you both have.

Thank you. Sioned, I think we need to move on now, so I want to call in Altaf Hussain.

Thank you, Chair. Right, my question is on monitoring and enforcement. What are your views on the provisions in the Act relating to monitoring and performance, in particular national indicators? And I know, Jane Davidson, in your book you say that embedding the sustainable development principle is not just about changing the culture of Government, it's also about ensuring that all the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are also changed to become the foundation of the new approach. How successful have the Welsh Government and other public bodies been in achieving this, and what further action is needed?

Jane, we'll start with you.

Thank you. Thank you for the question. Yes, I think we've picked up on some aspects of those in terms of talking about the section 20 reviews, for example. When, of course, the mechanisms were put in place in the Act, they'd never been tried before because the Act had never been tried before. So, this is a good opportunity to review what is fit for the purpose. I've always had a problem with the notion of the national indicators. As a Minister, I remember having these little booklets published every year, and it used to enrage me that a number of the indicators were not relevant to Wales. We didn't even have the species in Wales that were being counted as indicators, for example.

And I think that you have to, in a system that is actually about driving change for current and future generations, do something more dynamic that is outcome led. So, it may be that there is a small number of indicators, but they are capable of change as they need to change, rather than setting indicators, as it were, in stone, and having many years' arguments about what those indicators should be, which has been the history of that.

I think that if we do get definitions around the five ways of working, so that people are more comfortable understanding what's expected of them in that space, and we have the training opportunity of funded section 20 reviews, you start to create a simpler but more effective system, building on what we know, not least through Sophie's work, works. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you very much. I'll go to Sophie. How effective are section 20 reviews? I liked when Jane said they were underutilised. Based on your experience, do you believe there is scope to strengthen these powers, either through legislation or through guidance, and what specific options could be considered?

So, I've talked a little bit about the section 20—. I did two during my term on a procurement, which most of the recommendations on procurement were then taken forward in the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act 2023. There's a lag, if you like, there, because, okay, those recommendations were enacted, but we want to see what's actually happening now on the ground. Does that transform things? And I'm not sure that we've got that evidence yet, because the Act has not long come in. So, again, I would say that, there, putting in place the review led to putting in place new mechanisms that were addressing some of the issues that I was raising, and we would hope that those new mechanisms are now going to lead to change. 

I think in terms of—. There are a couple of factors I think that are really important from my perspective in terms of section 20 reviews. I think they do give the ability to the commissioner, which might not always be in the gift or the time limitations of a Senedd committee, for example, to really get underneath the skin of things. So, I was asking to see ministerial submissions and the intricacies of the decision-making framework and policy-making tools that Welsh Government were using and so on, and so on. Those things, I think, are really, really important. This is where I say that there might be some interesting things in terms of this kind of twin-track approach between the commissioner working very closely with Senedd committees on those sorts of reviews or inquiries. They cost money. There is something—.

I think one thing that I would be interested in, and I'm slightly, again, nervous about saying this, because I haven't given it a huge amount of thought, but my gut says that some sort of requirement around a follow-up of those reviews could be really useful. Because we all know many reviews are published, aren't they, and they become a document and people, or Government, responds to them and says we accept or reject recommendations and so on and so on, and then they kind of get forgotten. I feel a bit, with the section 20 review that I did into Government—. And I'll hold my hands up here in terms of timing—it was in the latter part of my term. Had I had a longer amount of time, I would've definitely been following that up. But I suppose my question is: what happens to that review? Because the work has been done. I know there are regular fairly low-level meetings between the commissioner's office and officials in Welsh Government, but I'm not feeling that it's really being robustly actioned and monitored. Maybe there's something around a requirement to do that. So, the commissioner has a requirement to do that and the Government knows that, in two or three years' time, there's going to be another spotlight on, okay, what actually happened as a result of that? But I do think they're a useful tool, but there's probably a bit more building that we need to do.

Thank you very much. Now, one of the biggest criticisms of the Act is a perceived lack of enforcement mechanisms. What are your views on this, and how can the balance be struck between encouraging public bodies to implement the Act whilst holding them to account?

Shall we start with Jane and come back to you, Sophie?

Yes, sure.

Personally, my view is, as I said at the outset, that if you think about the breadth of the Act, then you could not possibly have enough enforcement mechanisms in terms of literally every single area of responsibility of whoever and whichever party is going to be in Government in Wales. So, you'd almost end up with a situation where people are always going to want to add new enforcement mechanisms for the thing that they were most interested in. That's something that came through very much in the net-zero work, and is part of the reason that the new future generations commissioner is doing some specific work on food, because there hasn't been an overarching public agenda around food in Wales. So, you can imagine that it would always be the Act that people wanted to add some kind of enforcement mechanism into, which would potentially remove its absolute foundation, which is the constitutional foundation of being the way of working in Wales that is as a result of the Welsh devolution project. It was the original proposal to put sustainable development into only the Welsh devolution agreement in the first Government of Wales Act. It was an agreement between Plaid Cymru and Labour in Parliament to make the proposal of the duty to promote sustainable development in everything that the National Assembly did, and the duty to deliver is using the same sort of constitutional framework.

So, I see, as in the discussion we've just had, the section 20 reviews as being very important, definitions being absolutely clear, and not having a set of committee, what has been described to me as 'messes' at the moment in terms of the interrelationship between a range of committees that have different powers and different functions in terms of influencing the Act. So, there's some very easy tidying that can be done that will actually preserve the Act more effectively as the constitutional framework, whereby we all sign up to the idea that we look after both current and future generations in everything that we do.

Thank you very much. And before coming to the last question, how will the enforcement and compliance be considered during the development of the Act, Jane?

Well, I think Jane has probably answered that already. Let's ask that question of Sophie.

So, specifically, Altaf, on that question, in terms of the development of the Act—and obviously, this was before I was commissioner—actually, I think it was the Senedd that added in the section 20 review powers and the powers around monitoring and assessing, which I think was a good addition, and possibly they could go further. In fact, we provided some advice to Lord John Bird in the development of his legislation at a UK level, where we suggested adding in an additional power around making an application to the court. So, if the commissioner had undertaken a review or an investigation and issued recommendations, which the public body was then not complying with, then the court could make an order for that public body to comply. 

So, I think that would be a useful addition. Is that a panacea? Absolutely not, because I do go back to what Jane said, which I think is critically important: this is a framework for ways of being, doing and behaving, if you like, and enforcement mechanisms tend to be on very specific, often black or white things. So, taking that example of the section 20 review, would I take the Government to court to say, 'You need to revise the way that you do your policy-making assessment to better embed holistically the goals in the future generations Act and the ways of working'? Well, possibly, but that doesn't stop them, then, just still ticking the box in a more effective way and still missing the point.

So, those enforcement powers don't necessarily get to this cultural behavioural shift and ways of being and doing and thinking that the Act is really designed to achieve, and I think that if I had to leave you with one thing, it would be that we have to hold our nerve on this development of this cultural change around the Act. We have to try and get into the weeds of some of the irritations, the blockers, those sorts of things that perhaps aren't working. But we also can't over-process it, because that would, I think, defeat the whole purpose of it.

My last—

I think we've got to move on, really, because otherwise we're not going to get to the last section.

That's fine.

So, Sioned Williams.

Do you want me to pick up on that? So, I think, initially, I did talk quite a lot around some challenges with the 'a resilient Wales' goal in terms of levels of understanding. I can remember in one of my first meetings with the First Minister during my term coming in to the Welsh Government offices in Cathays Park, seeing posters of all the goals, and the 'a resilient Wales' goals had pictures of firefighters and police officers. It was talking about that sort of resilience. And there is the challenge, isn't it, in a way? Have we moved on from that? I think that we probably have. I think that there is a better understanding now, and that 'resilient' word, now, is probably more understood, that actually we're talking about ecological resilience, not other types of resilience.

In a way, whichever word you pick, there are always challenges around levels of understanding. So, I don't think that the issue is around changing the words or the goals, if you like, I think that the issue is around the constant reinforcement: leadership from Ministers; building in to everything that the Government does, from its new strategy on x, y and z, how is that framed around delivering the goal of a prosperous Wales and what that actually means, how is that framed around delivering the goal of a resilient Wales and what that actually means, and so on; and, again, in terms of the decisions that are coming out in terms of budget and so on. I think that, if we continue to reinforce that, that is the best mechanism for bringing clarity, alongside dealing with the complex landscape and certainly not adding to it. I think that that would be most effective, rather than tweaking the words of the legislation, if you like. 

I absolutely agree about not tweaking the legislation on the face of the Act, but there are all sorts of Acts in our lives where we never use the language of the Act. Just a couple of words to give an example. Words like 'cohesive' and 'communities' are great, but actually if we called them 'strong communities', people would understand that more. Resilience is great, but if we called it 'the nature goal'—. So, I think that there is something about, while the Act remains as it is, we do need words that are common parlance with the people of Wales to describe the goals, because otherwise language is one of those things that absolutely separates people. It's a classic technocratic view of the world, to use legislative terms that then don't mean something to people in their lives, or immediately separate you because you're speaking in restricted codes. So, I think that there is something quite exciting—I've often thought that I'd like to get the young people of Wales to actually look and find words that would appeal to them and then for those to be adopted, as it were, in terms of describing what the goals do, whereas in law, what all of the organisations have to do is clearly spelled out on the face of the Act. 

I think that we are ahead of the game on the direction of travel towards 2030. The criticisms of the SDGs are that there are too many, they operate in silos and they don't make the connections between each of them, and there are many reasons why they're not being delivered. They also miss culture, actually. There's no reference to culture, heritage, language and so on, which we do in Wales. So, I think, and there's a lot of interest around this internationally, that the way in which we took those 17 SDGs, we had them there but started the conversations at a local level—what is it that's important to you; what is the Wales that you want to leave behind to your children, your grandchildren and future generations to come; what does that look and feel like in Wales, iterated through seven well-being goals, critically with the five ways of working attached to that, so 'this is how you deliver or you get towards delivering that'. I think that that's something that—. I'll just park the multilateral crisis that we're in at the moment and the difficulties that the UN are having in doing anything, but I think that, if they were able to do anything and move, I think that it would actually be towards the direction that we've already set in Wales: smaller in number, more focused on delivery, more focused on joining the dots and picking up some of the things that are, perhaps, absent from them. So, if I was a Welsh politician, I would be saying, and I do say this, 'Look at Wales. We have part of the solution for what the rest of the world should be doing.'

I think, Sioned, the key thing here is I know you've looked at alternatives, but there's nothing similar to what we've done in Wales, because we have the durability of the law and then the commissioner is consequent on the law, whereas in other initiatives there have been commissioners without actually having a law that guides other organisations, including Government, in a country.

We know from dialogue with the general secretary's office in the UN and others that part of the reason that people keep looking to Wales is because we've made this intelligible through this Act. People can see seven goals linked to the 17 SDGs. They can see five ways of working, which, as Peter Davies points out in his evidence, are absolutely critical for any organisation that is delivering for current and future generations.

It enables Wales to stay a front runner if part of the work that you and others do through the committee and the response to the committee from Government ends up being tweaking the things that are not working so well, and celebrating the things that have given us the greatest soft power we've ever had. That is an extraordinary situation for us at the moment.

Is it all right if we extend this by five minutes? I know Jane wants to come in, and I also have a question. Jane.

I'm increasingly liking this idea of this parallel working between commissioner and Senedd committees in terms of deep investigations. Do you need to amend the legislation to do that? No, probably not. It's, I suppose, a procedural thing, or perhaps a new way of working. But I think it's different to getting the commissioner to come along and give evidence to a Senedd committee. It's a much deeper sense of collaborative working, which would have to be thrashed through.

I think, potentially, the addition of an application to the court, in terms of compliance, could be an interesting thing to see how that played out. But as I said, it's definitely not a panacea. And then something around the follow-up of reviews, perhaps something on does that happen in two years' time, and what does that look like, so that they don't just sit on the shelf.

I personally think that anything that is a critical analysis that can help others is important. So, I'm really interested in building section 20 reviews into the process and the expectation of both the commissioner and the auditor general. Oddly enough, what we've not talked about at all is young people, and I'm not going to start this a minute before the end, but I think that there needs to be some real thought. Of course, you've got opportunities of engagement with a range of young people's organisations, not least the Youth Parliament, to think about how more to involve young people in thinking for the future. Those who've read my book will see that young people's contributions have been fantastic. Sophie wrote the foreword to that.

On the definition on the five ways of working, particularly around involvement, it might be useful to collect evidence from the national citizenship project. So, looking at what some regular, long-term involvement mechanism could look like, for example, rather than ad hoc mechanisms in different places.

My final point, in some sense, is a political one. This is, Jane, another answer to your question, by the way, on the single sentence. When somebody asked me, when first the Act was passed, about what I would expect to see if the Act was successful, I said that the cutting of leisure facilities and libraries would be the last thing local government did, not the first. And I really believed that, because I believe that Government has to look after its people, and those people who need community facilities need to be looked after most. I started my political life in terms of responding to cuts in youth work, as a teacher and a youth worker, and I think it's those sorts of issues. It's got to be real in people's lives, and therefore it's got to be something that enables people to meet and benefit and celebrate community, which is right at the heart of the Act.

I will throw in what I hope is not too large a subject, which is the issue of prevention in relation to health. The health of the nation is really poor. We spend almost none of the allocation of the health budget on prevention. And yet it obviously all falls onto this increased demand because of being a sick nation. Wes Streeting started to tentatively talk about it this weekend, saying, 'Oh, it's costing us billions of pounds to deal with the fact that the food industry just wants to make us all eat food that's killing us', but he didn't present any really credible solution other than begging them to do the right thing. I'm not sure how that's going to work out. So, how do we get the well-being of future generations Act to focus ourselves on the well-being of our populations so that we are a less sick nation? What has gone wrong here?

Can I start on that very quickly? I'm absolutely delighted that Wales is going to become a Marmot nation. Back in 2003, Michael Marmot worked with us all on the very importance of the preventative nature of good public health. Good public health initiatives, 'do no harm', are absolutely in line with a constitutional commitment to sustainable development. 

I think that the whole point of the health goal, of course, is not about how many doctors, how many nurses, it's about what are the conditions for good health, both physical and mental health. I think that that is an area that needs to be addressed in every single ministry in Government. We found, through our net zero work, that concentrating on the four big emission reduction areas of food, buildings, energy and transport, health figured hugely in every single one of them, but not the health service. So, I think that if you translate the 'do no harm' into the core element of the well-being of future generations Act, the opportunity to use this and a definition of prevention as one of the five ways of working is enormous in terms of driving this agenda forward.

Thank you for that, Jane. Sophie, is there anything you want to add?

What I would say is that this is one of the reasons why I'm so disappointed that the budget improvement plan work hasn't got towards advancing the prevention work. Because back in, I want to say it was probably about 2019, we worked with Mark Drakeford in his capacity as finance Minister then to develop a definition of preventative spend, and there were some tentative steps to start mapping that and then that sort of fell off—you know, we went into COVID and so on, and it wasn't picked back up. Again, I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel there, perhaps in terms of definitions, at least in terms of spend, but I would like to see that there's real scrutiny of Treasury around, 'So, what are you actually doing on that? And how are you really assessing departmental spending bids and so on around prevention?'

That said, I do think that there are some really interesting things that we are doing in Wales. Transport policy is preventative policy in terms of health, the new ways that we're doing that. Likewise, the reformed 'Planning Policy Wales'. Likewise, the new curriculum. They are all preventative interventions. We do have to find a way of mapping those things as well, and that we're not just seeing it as, 'Oh, it's an interesting, good thing that we're doing over here', or 'We're not doing enough on prevention because the NHS budget isn't shifting that way'. We are doing some really good things on prevention. I think the challenge is, the base that we're starting with is a very poor-health nation—that will take generations to turn around—and I think that there are some things in terms of the spending priorities.

The final thing that I would just say—sorry, two final things that I would say. Poverty, of course, is the biggest determinant of people's health and well-being, and, obviously, that is not—. Well, in terms of the main levers, they're non-devolved, and so things like—. I think the First Minister is absolutely right to call out the cuts to disability benefits, and I'm pleased to see some concessions coming through, albeit I don't think they go far enough. But she's absolutely right to be calling that out. And we need to be really forceful on that, I think. Should there never be any changes to welfare in those regards? I'm not saying that, but, actually, we all need to be working collectively together to get the mechanisms in place to, for example, be really supporting disabled people to be able to work and so on. I don't think those mechanisms are in place at the moment.

And then, the final thing I would say is about the Marmot nation. I'm also really excited by that, but, please, let's not reinvent the wheel and say, 'The Marmot nation now is a whole new thing that we're doing, which is different to the future generations Act.' The Marmot principles are absolutely core to the future generations Act. Let's just do the future generations Act, and then we'll have a Marmot nation.

One small thing, sorry, Jenny, if I can, on the future generations leadership academy. I just want to pick up on the point on young people. One hundred and fifty young people, young leaders in Wales, when I started it back in 2020 or thereabouts, actually, now many of those young people have moved on to middle-management level in organisations in Wales and, indeed, across the world. They are a really brilliant cohort of young people who we want to be the next leaders of Wales. And I think there's potentially something that the Senedd could do with that cohort of young leaders, or the committee could do with that cohort of young leaders, in terms of using them as a sounding board, as a real test and challenge alongside the work that you do.

Thank you very much.

Jenny, can I just add one other very small point, which is that you may also wish to consider that this review is done every 10 years? Because this is so countercultural, it's never going to be finished, as it were. It's going to need a consistent looking at how to deliver it in the context and framing of what society, Government and communities are doing around it. So, something that accepts this always needs to be dynamic and may need to be amended to actually take account of that would, I think, also be an important demonstration.

Thank you very much. Thank you, both, very much for your really stimulating evidence. We will obviously send you a transcript so that you can correct any inaccuracies. Otherwise, we're very grateful for your time in providing us with such rich evidence.

The committee will now break until our next scrutiny session with the auditor general and others, which starts at 13:30. So, I wondered if Members could be back in good time by about 25 past, so we can start that on time. Thank you. 

Welcome back to the Equality and Social Justice Committee. We're continuing our post-legislative scrutiny of the future generations Act. We are a bilingual institution and there is instant translation available if people are giving evidence in Welsh.

I'm very pleased to welcome the Auditor General for Wales, Adrian Crompton, who is of course mentioned in the Act. I wondered if you could just introduce your officials and mention the specific role they play in relation to this.

Certainly. I'll allow them to do that themselves. They’ll do a better job. Catryn.

Excellent.

Hello, I'm Catryn Holzinger, I'm an audit manager and I lead on the work that we do under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

I'm Martin Peters, I'm the head of law and ethics, and I help with things like legal queries in relation to the Act.

Thank you very much indeed. Auditor general, we’re very pleased to welcome you today because obviously your report, which came out at the same time as the five-year review of the current commissioner, gives us some clear indicators about some of the things that need to change.

I suppose one of the most concerning things about your report is that the Welsh Government didn't act on your 2020 report. Now, I appreciate there was another event going on, namely COVID, and that's probably the reason why that was never picked up. But obviously there are some quite significant messages in your report about the way in which public bodies are using the sustainable development principle to focus on value for money. So, I wondered if I could just quickly ask you why that isn't happening, despite the levers that you have, and the Welsh Government has, as well as the commissioner for future generations.

Thank you, Jenny. You quickly ask me, but I suspect it might take a little longer through the course of the evidence session. I'm sure we'll get into more detail.

I think, fundamentally, it's important to recognise that what we're talking about here is a fairly fundamental shift in the internal operating culture of public sector organisations, and culture change for any organisation is a difficult thing to shift and takes a lot of time. You'll see from our most recent statutory report that we continue to see positive signs and positive examples where organisations are acting in the way that the Act envisages, but that is still a very patchy position. There’s lots of variation within and between organisations, within and between different sectors. We also see on occasion some examples where organisations are simply not paying explicit attention to the requirements of the Act. So, that is what led us to our overall conclusion that we reported, that it's not achieving that system-wide shift.

You'll see, too, in that report that our recommendations that flowed from that were targeted primarily at the Welsh Government, and that's not because we don't think there are things that individual organisations need to do, but because in the best part of 200 pieces of individual audit work that we've undertaken that form the bedrock for that report, we've made recommendations in all of those to the participating organisations. And so what we wanted to do in that most recent national piece was really focus on the primary areas, we felt, for the Welsh Government in setting the wider environment in which the public sector operates, which continues to have a number of important obstacles and barriers to full implementation of the Act.

Okay. So, what do you think needs to change? Is it that you need more powers? Does the Welsh Government need to pay more attention to this? Because it's a cultural issue as much as specific legal obligations. What do you think are the main ways in which we can drive forward the sustainable development principle in everything that public bodies are doing? 

There are one or two specific areas in relation to the role of the auditor general and the office that we would like to see change. But those, in and of themselves, are not the things that will fundamentally change the results on the ground. The barriers that exist that we continue to see, and that we reported five years ago in our first statutory report, remain very similar. They are around funding arrangements, the continuity and predictability of funding arrangements. They're around the embracing and genuine demonstration of preventative action, which we see as perhaps the single most important area that needs to be addressed. They're about the complexity of the public service landscape, which continues to be a practical limitation on some of the actions and capacity for participating organisations. So, those are all things that are, as it were, in the wider environment in which the public service is operating, as well as some specific issues for individual organisations.

One of the key themes that we draw attention to in our most recent report in that space is around the embedding of the principles of the Act in some of the core corporate functions for an organisation, so, in its financial management, in its asset management, in its corporate planning structures, and so on. We continue to see some real weaknesses in that area. And it's not the most exciting, sexy space, but if we're talking about fundamentally changing the way in which the public service operates, it's in that sort of area that we really need to see some change. 

We made one amendment to the well-being of future generations Act in the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act 2023. Is there something specific that might need to be amended? I don't know if Martin Peters, as your head of law, had anything specific that we could be putting into our recommendations.

I think in terms of our functions, what would be particularly helpful would be a slight broadening and simplification of our examination duty. At the moment, we're restricted to looking at the extent to which public bodies are adhering to the sustainable development principle when setting well-being objectives and taking steps to meet them. That means that we're really only looking at how they are setting objectives. We think it would be helpful if we could go a bit wider than that to look more broadly at how public bodies are meeting the legislation.

Okay. If there was something you wanted to put in writing after this, that would be helpful.

We'll certainly do that, Jenny, but it is a really important point, from our perspective at least. So, those two areas that we need to examine at the moment—the setting of objectives and the steps that organisations are taking—we're seeing through this second round of examinations, on the first in particular, around the setting of objectives, I'm not sure there's a huge amount of value that's delivered from every one of those pieces of work, because, of course, not every organisation is setting their objectives neatly in that time frame, but we're required to do it.

A broader expectation on the auditor general to examine the extent to which the Act is being applied would give us a lot more flexibility, I think, to look at the steps that organisations are taking, but it would also enable us to look across organisations and take a sectoral view, rather than being tied into specific organisations. But when we submit written evidence, we're very happy to expand on that, if that would be helpful.

Okay. I think Mick just wanted to follow up on this as the legal expert on our committee. Mick. 

Can I just say: isn't what you're really saying on this that the way in which organisations at the moment deal with their obligations basically consists of a paragraph that says, 'We've looked at and we've applied and we've considered' et cetera, but there's never any real detail as to how that is being done, why it is being done and what the choices were to make—basically the detail as to how the obligation has been applied and what is actually changing in practice as a result of the obligations? Because it seems to me that what you're being asked to do is to evaluate something that really doesn't have any detail that enables you to evaluate it. I mean, is that a fair assessment?

I'm not sure it is, Mick. I'll ask Catryn to come in shortly, because we have gone to a lot of effort to try to develop an approach to audit that goes a little beyond what you're describing, I think, to get into the behaviours and actions that organisations are taking, rather than just a sort of compliance checklist. But, Catryn, would you like to expand on the approach we take?

Yes, of course. I think it is very difficult to give a definitive assessment of whether a public body has applied or not applied the sustainable development principle, but the five ways of working that are part of the sustainable development principle give us more of an in. Our assessment framework is, really, based around the extent to which public bodies are applying each of those ways of working in different contexts. So, we look at how public bodies are using data to understand demand and how they're looking at future trends to understand how that demand is changing. We look at who they're collaborating with and whether they are involving the diversity of the public in the decisions that affect them. And, obviously, we tailor that slightly differently, depending on what we're looking at and which organisation we're focusing on. But that gives us a little bit more granularity to get into how public bodies are applying the SD principle and also allows us to weave it into our value-for-money assessments.

Can I just ask: how do you then assess outcomes as a result of the decision on that? Or are you able to, do you think, assess that there has been a very specific sort of outcome or directional outcome as a consequence?

I think, in most of our examinations, we will tend to give a balanced view of where a public body could go further in applying the ways of working, and where it might have done that well. So, we try to cover off different elements of that. But our duty doesn't focus on the extent to which public bodies are achieving their objectives, which actually sits with the commissioner. So, the assessment of the SD principle is very much focused on the 'how', which I think of as the inputs of decision making, rather than the outcomes, and that is a bit of an oddity, really, in the separation of those things.

And that's—. Part of our thinking in potentially requesting a reframing of our duty to this broader one that I described is partly to address that point precisely, so that we're not just looking at how organisations are applying the SD principle, and the steps they're taking, but we can look in a more rounded way at what impact that is having as well.

That's helpful. Thank you very much.

Okay. Before we move on, I just wondered if—. We heard very clearly from Sophie Howe and Jane Davidson in our earlier session this morning that there could be a role for the Senedd, particularly in the next Senedd, when there will be 96 Members rather than 60, for much greater scrutiny of how well public bodies are implementing the Act, even working with the commissioner on a joint section 20 review, or something like that. I just wondered if you think that would cross some boundaries or whether that would be a helpful approach. 

You'll have a view on this, I know.

Well, it's a big question, and I've not really given that any consideration.

Forgive me if I put you on the spot. So, if you ask me if I feel as though there ought to be a bigger role for the Senedd, undeniably, I would say 'yes', if only as being at the pinnacle of the accountability framework. Audit Wales has generated a huge volume of outputs over the last five years that comment, in different ways, on the application of the Act. Only a small fraction of that can then be acted upon by the Senedd through its various structures, and that's, in large part, through the capacity issues that you're all very familiar with. So, I would certainly hope that there is capacity in an enlarged Senedd to address this area more explicitly and thoroughly than has been possible to date. 

As to more direct involvement of the Senedd or a Senedd committee in our work, I think I'd feel uncomfortable with that, because it would be blurring the independence and accountability of the office a little too much. But, absolutely, I see the principal audience for much of our, certainly, nationally focused work as being the Senedd, and the more that that can be utilised and acted upon, the better. 

Thank you. If we can now move on, Sioned Williams, would you like to come in?

If you take its original aim as being to fundamentally change the way in which the public service in Wales operates, as I say in my most recent national report, it's not yet achieving that. We're seeing pockets of good practice, yes, undeniably, we're seeing it talked about much more, we see it influencing decisions and conversations across the public service, but is it fundamentally altering the way that we operate? No, it isn't.

Yes, that's a really good question that we've been debating ourselves this morning. The Act is crucial, obviously, but it is only a single piece of legislation. From my perspective, what this legislation does is create an overarching framework for the public service, and, indeed, other pieces of legislation and policy that the Welsh Government and the Senedd take forward, and sets an expectation that should be reflected in the actions of the public service and in all those other building blocks. So, we can make recommendations for changing the wording of this piece of legislation, such as the one that we've described in relation to our own functions, which are important and would make a difference, but would those go to the heart of the question and, with a click of the fingers, change the situation? No, I don't think they would. So, it is that much broader piece that needs to be addressed, and it's something that I talk about repeatedly. It's seeing the principles of the Act reflected time and again in the legislation that comes through this institution, in the spending and policy decisions that the Welsh Government takes, so that they are complementary and build towards the delivery of the Act, rather than cutting across. 

To give you one example of that, if you look at the NHS, the NHS is captured by the Act and needs to be doing all of the things that the Act envisages, but separately you will see a performance framework and a set of expectations that, in some ways, is militating against that: so, a focus on much shorter time frames; as we said in our recent report on cancer services, the absence of a truly strategic approach to prevention in an important area of public health provision. So, it's aligning all parts of the system with the Act that, ultimately, I think, will give it far more chance of success, rather than important, but ultimately relatively minor, tinkering of the Act itself.

May I come back to the question again as well? I think we're talking a lot about the objectives of the Act. I think, if you go back to the explanatory memorandum that was provided with the Bill, the aims of it were much more grounded and modest, I think, in that there wasn't a promise to change the way everybody thinks. It was more about strengthening governance arrangements, and, if we compare what the governance arrangements were in relation to sustainable development before the Act, they were much less well-developed and really so underdeveloped, I would say, that it was hard to see that very much was being done. This Act hasn't changed things overnight, but it has established a framework that is taken much more seriously across public bodies than what was there before. The key features of the Act, like establishing the wellbeing goals and requiring wellbeing objectives and establishing the future, that has all been achieved. Yes, you've got to wait for the big outcomes still, but that will take time.

Catryn, are you happy?

Yes. I think there are some good practice examples in 'No time to lose', but it isn't full of them. There are far more in the commissioner's report, and that's probably because the commissioner has that role in identifying and sharing best practice, whereas we tend to look at things because we think they're important, they're high-spend areas, or because we identify a particular risk there. So, we don't necessarily have a huge stock of examples that really typify what good application of the SD principle looks like. However, in some of our recent reports, we have identified where the Welsh Government has given a clear consideration of the Act, so a recent report on the Wales infrastructure investment strategy set out how that strategy has been built with the Act in mind, and has been really designed to deliver on those wider aspects of wellbeing. However, it also found that, in practice, those things aren't often being driven through the system through business cases and evaluation. So, there's always that balance in most of the reports that we've published.

Before I move on to—

Do you want to, or shall I—?

I'm happy for you to, and then I can come in.

Again, so many aspects to that question, I think, Sioned. Undoubtedly, some of this will come down to leadership in different organisations or parts of organisations. If you look at our work in councils, for instance, we will see variation between local authorities in their appetite to embrace the legislation and drive forward its principles, and, in others, far less so. Similarly, in the health service, parts of the health service are undoubtedly trying to apply the legislation in earnest. Other parts, understandably, perhaps, are so focused on operational issues in the here and now that it makes it extremely challenging for them to make the kind of shift in focus that the Act envisages. But, Catryn, anything to add?

Yes, just to add that another aspect of a more flexible duty and how that would help us is that, at the moment, we have to focus on discrete things, so we have to look at the setting of objectives and steps to meet them, rather than taking that overview of how effectively an organisation is implementing the legislation. If we had a broader duty, that might be something that we would look to do.

In local government, we have done a couple of pieces of work under our wider powers that have given us that insight into a couple of councils. For example, how they're embedding the Act in their training development, how they're embedding it in their project management tools, their governance arrangements and so forth, which is quite useful as a backdrop to how they're actually implementing it in the context of different steps.

Julie Morgan, did you want to come in?

Yes, quickly. I know, Martin, you said in your response—and that's been a bit of a theme to what we've listened to—that it takes time, it's a relatively short time, and we've had COVID in the middle and lots of things like that. But how long does it take? When would you feel that it would be appropriate to say you think it should be operating on a wide scale that you can measure? Have you got any response to that?

Unusually for us, Martin's in the slightly more optimistic, positive camp than I am. I think I'd be slightly more critical, because I would say 10 years is a short space of time if you're looking for that massive fundamental transformation. However, you ought to be seeing, I would say, more significant signs of progress. So, Catryn's closer to this than I am, but, five years ago, when we were reporting for the first time, we were pointing to examples of good practice and embracing of the Act, but there was a long way to travel. The message from our report is quite similar still, so I personally would feel as though we should be seeing more significant change by this stage. But, Catryn and Martin, you might have a different take.

I think it obviously is very difficult to apply this across all services and functions in large, complex organisations, and, once again, because we are required to take that segmented view, we don't necessarily get that full breadth of understanding of how an organisation is implementing it. But I think there are some examples, in 'No time to lose', that are quite prominent examples that show that the Act hasn't been considered. Our work on cancer services, for example, which found that there isn't a strategic, overarching approach to preventing cancer and other major conditions, would be one that we would probably point to.

Not all of this is about the Welsh Government. There are 56 organisations and structures captured by the Act, but the Welsh Government is the system leader in this conversation, and in fairness to the Welsh Government, you will see some serious attempts to model and implement the principles of the Act in decisions that they are taking and the way that they're working. But at the same time, we see some quite significant flaws as well. Catryn mentioned the work around cancer services. The report that we are required to write at the start of the term on how the Welsh Government itself sets its own well-being objectives was very critical of it, because we didn't feel that it was following through what the Act requires of the Welsh Government, for arguably understandable reasons, but that nonetheless was my conclusion. So, even within the system leader, we're seeing that patchiness of performance, and the rest of the public service, understandably, will take a degree of lead from that. 

So, in five years' time, there's not much significant progress. Would you feel that this Act has failed?

Could I come in, because I think it's important to recognise that it isn't actually our duty to assess progress. We are assessing progress in terms of the way people are thinking—engagement, prevention. And in some respects, there's good progress in terms of integration and that kind of thing, but also, as we've pointed out, there's more to be done in terms of prevention, and there is a need for Government to think about how it can help promote more prevention in the activities of public bodies.

A question for me would be—. The Act itself, like any piece of legislation, comes with consequences and costs. It enshrines some credible, sensible principles into how public organisations ought to operate. And we’ve increasingly tried to use that as a lens to assess value for money more generally. So, those are all good, largely unarguable things, but if this approach, through legislation, is having limited impact, then I think we need to question whether it’s the right approach, so not ditch the aspirations that we’re trying to achieve, but question ourselves as to whether legislating in this way is having the desired effect, because it does come with some significant cost and capacity implications. But as Martin said, as things stand at the moment, in five years’ time, the auditor general will be reporting in a similar way on how organisations have gone about setting their well-being objectives and the steps they’ve taken to deliver them. We will not be delivering an overall assessment of whether the Act is being delivered, which is, in principle, what we would like to be able to do.

Could I just add—? We definitely have seen some really good examples, particularly in the corporate planning space, where public bodies have really set out to apply the ways of working and use that to help them develop their well-being objectives. They’ve done really extensive engagement with the public as part of that, they’ve thought about how they’re going to work with partners and so on and so forth. But it’s probably worth saying that, over time, we’ve deliberately become more challenging in our examinations and in the messages that we’re putting to public bodies, and I think that’s probably evident in this report versus the report that we published in 2020.

Thank you. Could I now call in Jane Dodds?

Forgive me, Jane, you're asking where our priority focus would be if we wanted to see some improvement in the application of the Act. Is that, in a nutshell, what—? 

Yes. If you were to see changes in terms of delivery of results for individuals, what would that actually look like? Because it feels like you've got significant influence, in terms of being an impartial body, to be able to really drive forward recommendations that you could make in that area?

Sure. Thank you. Okay. Shall I kick off, Martin? Yes. Firstly, I'm flattered by the degree of influence you think we have. We do have influence in some quarters, but not all of our recommendations necessarily are acted upon in the way that we'd like. Ultimately, and perhaps this straddles both your questions, our focus is often about the internal machinery of an organisation and how it goes about its functions. But those things only matter if they translate into better service on the ground for patients or stakeholders and local populations, and so that is where, ultimately, you ought to be to be looking to see whether delivery is being achieved.

One of the recommendations that we made in our report was around the outcome measurements that flow from the Act. So, I think it's fair to say, at the moment, there remains too much focus on inputs and not enough focus on the 'So, what?'—what actually changes in terms of service provision as a result of the approach that the Act is intended to drive. But, Martin, do you want to—?

No. That covers—. 

Catryn. 

Just to add, really, that involvement is obviously one of the ways of working. It's a big focus in our work. In, I would say, probably, many, many of the examinations that we've done on the setting of well-being objectives, we've made recommendations for public bodies to better involve the public and to make sure that they're reaching the diversity of the population in doing that. And also, through other work, we've made recommendations not just about strengthening outcomes, but on taking account of the service user perspective as part of that performance information, so understanding people's experiences of services and using that to understand their performance and how effectively they're delivering.

I'll ask Catryn to expand—she's more expert than I am—but, in principle, absolutely. We think there is value in a common framework of measurement, and, in particular, the gap that I think we see is the connection between the activities of individual organisations and the delivery of national level indicators, and that connection is one that is missing at the moment. I wouldn't want to see a straight-jacketed approach to, 'These are the measures that you must follow', but strengthening the linkages between the activities of individual organisations and the national goals is important. Catryn. 

Yes, absolutely. I've made a recommendation relating to that connection between the contribution that local organisations are making and what we are using to measure the well-being of Wales at a national level. Also, it's set against the backdrop that we are often seeing that public bodies aren't being clear about the measures that they're going to use to assess their performance against their own well-being objectives, and where they are, they aren't necessarily focused on outcomes. We've also made some points in 'No time to lose' about national performance measures and the extent to which they promote the aims of the Act, the extent to which they promote prevention and collaboration, for example.

I'm not sure this is one for the Act itself, necessarily, but you'll have seen one of the four recommendations I made was absolutely in that space. A shift towards preventative action is not a source of huge argument; virtually everybody sees the sense in it. However, it's extremely difficult to achieve, it would seem.

From our perspective, at a very basic level, there are questions of definition. What does preventative spend entail? How much are we spending at the moment? If we can establish some sort of baseline, that will make our lives easier to begin with. But we need too, to go back to the earlier part of your question, to be able to link that to the outcomes that are achieved. So, our focus as auditors are primarily, I think, probably in those two spaces: identifying the levels of spend, but also the outcomes that are being delivered for that money. Catryn.

Just to add, I think that goes to the heart of the recommendations we've made, really. The duty is one thing, but it's how you change the supporting environment, systems and processes to deliver on that aspiration, really.

So, again, it goes to, I guess—. The Welsh Government has a really important role in this space, and our recommendation was framed to encourage the Government to work with other bodies to try to identify ways to incentivise and protect preventative spend. And when money is tight, I think it's all too easy for the Welsh Government or other organisations to take resource out of those kind of areas and address the burning pressures of the day. But, unfortunately, unless we find a way to break that circle, we're just going to be having these conversations forever—with outcomes that are not improving at all; they're worsening. So, the longer we delay, the worse things are going to get.

Catryn was the principal author of the report, so I'll let her come in. That report was built on the 200 or so specific pieces of audit work that we'd undertaken over the last five years that were relevant to the Act. By and large, those will be pieces of work that have examined the objective setting and the actions of the bodies captured by the Act. Some of those may, through the course of that work, have engaged the voices of young people and other constituent groups, but we wouldn't have gone out explicitly to young people or any other client group to get their views. Catryn, anything to add on that?

Not much to add to that, other than, within our individual examinations, we would have looked at the extent to which public bodies have engaged young people as part of that work, and other protected characteristic groups as well.

I think the point is, and there's one sentence that already exists that really gives it—it's in section 5 of the Act, section 5.1—about acting

'in a manner which seeks to ensure that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.'

That's huge. That's a big shift in the way public bodies think. As I say, it'll take a long time for that to be fully ingrained, but you've got to start somewhere. 

I think I would go with driving good decisions, so we have a Wales that we all want to live in today, and for the longer term.

They're both better at this than I am, I'm afraid. I'd agree with Martin—that is fundamentally what the Act is about, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future. But, for me, I suppose, specifically through the lens of being auditor general, this is also about the good governance of our public services. And that's not quite as catchy a goal, but I think it's crucial. If we have a public service that is genuinely applying the ways of working that are enshrined in the Act, that will lead to better outcomes, ultimately, for all the people of Wales.

Thank you. Could I now ask Mick Antoniw to come in, please? 

Thank you. As is almost inevitable in legislation like this, and in the questions you've had, most of the areas have overlapped and have been covered in terms of what I wanted to ask you about, particularly around duties. So, perhaps just as much as anything, this is for the record and for our clarity later on when we consider this. You were talking very much about the need for, or that it would be helpful to have, additional clarity over the duties that you have as set out under the Act at the moment. And you made the point: is the Act being delivered? Perhaps I could just ask you, then, if you could just set out very succinctly what your view is as to the duties that you currently have, and what the change would be that would make a difference in being able, I suppose, to complete that second part that you were referring to—is the Act being delivered—that is, the interlink with outcomes.

The two principal duties we have at the moment are, firstly, to examine the extent to which public bodies are applying the SD principle in the setting of their well-being objectives, and, secondly, in the steps that they're taking to meet those objectives. So, those are two quite discrete areas for us to focus on. They have their value, the second around steps in particular. But, as I touched on earlier, the work around the setting of objectives is not always as fruitful as we would like it to be if organisations are just not working on that kind of time frame.

We would like to move to a more flexible expectation on the auditor general, still with a duty to report to the Senedd at the end of the five-year term, but with more flexibility about how we go about examining the implementation of the Act. That would still enable us to look at objective setting where we felt that was important, but we could probably see a shift into more of the steps work and some of the outcome assessment work that we've touched on. Hopefully, I think it would lighten the load on some of the smaller bodies that are captured by the Act so that we could, for instance, pick up coverage of those organisations in work that had a more sectoral or multi-agency focus. So, broadening out that duty on the auditor general to report in that way would enable us to deliver what we feel would be more useful work to you and to public bodies, but we could also do it, we would hope, more efficiently than we're able to do at the moment. Is that fair?

I think it's also worth noting that, several times, Catryn has mentioned how we use our other functions to make up for things that we can't do under the Act. Now, that's all well and good in terms of local government and the NHS because we have a duty—the auditor general has a duty—to be satisfied as to arrangements for securing economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Effectiveness is very much affected by the requirements of the Act. Now, that duty doesn't apply in central Government, and it certainly doesn't apply in relation to some of the bodies that are now being added to the coverage of the Act, such as Transport for Wales, which we don't actually audit the accounts of. So, there is a significant group of public bodies where we can't actually go further in the way that we've gone further in local government. That's another reason for having that broader definition of what we do.

Thank you. That has been really, really helpful. Just one final short question. Of course, after May 2026, we should have a very different Senedd in terms of size and we'll also be moving, as you've noted in your report, to a four-year cycle that will have an impact on the speed and the way in which the Senedd has to work, obviously, with increased numbers. What impact might that have on your ability to do the work that you are currently doing? What are the things we need to be focused on in terms of understanding what impact that has on your role and your carrying out of your duties? 

At a very basic level, of course, it condenses the same quantum of work into a shorter period of time. So, no sooner had we produced the 'No time to lose' report, we had started the objective-setting cycle for organisations once again. So, at a very practical level, that is the impact we're feeling already. And, to go back to the previous response, that is, in large part, why we'd love to see a more flexible duty on us. Catryn, you're much closer to the ground. What difference are you feeling already?

I think that compression of the reporting period does mean that we have more work to do in less time, and now we have more bodies as well. So, we've moved from 44 bodies in a five-year period to 56 bodies in a four-year period, hence the request, really, for a little bit more flexibility, which would allow us to be more economic and, I think, effective in how we carry out our work.

And Martin referenced an important point from our perspective, which is that we have very different lines of sight and familiarity with the various bodies that are captured by the Act—the Welsh Government, local authorities, the NHS. We do a large volume of work in those organisations already. We audit their accounts but we do a lot of performance audit work there as well, so we are very familiar with those organisations. Other sectors and bodies, and some of the newer bodies, like Transport for Wales, that have been added into the coverage of the Act, we don't audit their accounts, and we do very little, if any, performance audit work. So, we're having to go and undertake our duties under the WFG legislation into organisations where we don't have that same degree of familiarity.

Thank you very much. That's been very helpful.

Julie Morgan. 

Diolch. I was going to ask you about your relationship with the commissioner because, obviously, it's interesting and we have had comments that there can be confusion and overlap; I think that was from the commissioner. So, I wondered if you could comment on the Act's provision in relation to your role and responsibilities compared to those of the commissioner. Do you think the roles are sufficiently clear? 

Let's start at the beginning, Julie. So, I'm the auditor of the future generations commissioner as well, so there is always that potential tension in the air. But, at a practical level, we have a memorandum of understanding between our two offices. We work very well and collaboratively at an operational level through Catryn and her counterparts in the commissioner's office. So, I don't have concerns at an operational level about our relationship at all. Some of that is very much designed to avoid duplication of effort or burden on organisations. I think, if I'm honest, our concerns about duplication and overlap are rather more at a theoretical level in terms of what the Act expects of us both, rather than the reality of how we operate in practice. Catryn.

Yes, I would definitely echo that. We've got really positive, constructive relationships with everyone at the office, and we work together on a regular basis, and that includes things like them coming to provide training for us, or us sharing our audit frameworks and asking them for comments and seeking their advice on those kinds of things. We've maintained really good communication in the production of our latest reports as well.

But at a theoretical level, it is potentially confusing. I must admit that when we put the first MOU together in 2017-18, I think it was, it was quite hard work, working through the distinction between our examinations, the potential section 20 reviews by the commissioner, the difference between the commissioner's role in monitoring and assessing progress towards well-being objectives versus our work on examinations. I think we bottomed all of that out in the way that we've designed those processes, but there's always that potential that, with changes at the commissioner's office, or changes in the auditor general, we wouldn't be able to work our way through that. So, if you were starting with a blank sheet of paper, you wouldn't necessarily, I think, design the duties as they are.

Right. So, potential confusion and overlap, but you've got a good working relationship as it is.

But a different commissioner or a different auditor general could act in a way that was more disruptive. But, Martin, do you—?

I think also there's perhaps scope for confusion on the part of public bodies in seeing who is actually here to monitor the compliance with the Act. We avoid the word 'compliance', of course. But, yes, we're looking at the way bodies are setting objectives and pursuing them. The future generations commissioner has more of a role in terms of looking at progress, I would say, in terms of his review. So, it's not an obvious divide, say, as might be between review and advice. Now, clearly, the future generations commissioner has a very strong advisory role in all this; that's not so much in our case. But, of course, to an extent, we do end up, one way or another, not providing advice, but we make recommendations. So, there is a sort of advisory element to that. I think that divide, because of the close definition of what we do—it's quite narrowly defined—makes it, I think, a bit harder for public bodies to understand why things are cut the way they are. Because it does seem a bit arbitrary in some senses, I think.

So, do you think there could be changes to the Act that would improve that situation? Would it be by changing the Act?

It could be. I certainly don't want to be making a power grab to take functions away from the future generations commissioner, because I have absolutely no concerns about how we operate on the ground at the moment. When you see him, I would ask him how he feels about the dual roles that his office have to undertake, to champion and support and advise on how best to take forward the Act, whilst at the same time carrying some monitoring and assessment duties, which also reside in me. If we were to have that broadening of the power that sits with the auditor general, it would very much overlap. So, it might be that you could achieve a clearer separation between the respective roles by some minor change to the Act, yes.

Thank you.

Very good. Could I call Altaf Hussain now?

Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. My area is really enforcement and evaluation. A perceived lack of enforcement mechanism is often cited as a criticism of the Act. What are your views on this, and how can the balance be struck between encouraging and promoting public bodies to implement the Act whilst holding them to account?

Thanks, Altaf. I guess I'd start by saying that, of course, there are one or two aspects of the Act that are justiciable, as it were. So, the basic setting of the objectives—if an organisation were not to do that, then I'm sure that action could be taken. But in terms of the broader implementation of the Act, from my perspective, I don't feel as though hard-edged sanctions within the framework of the Act would be the right way to go. We've talked a lot about how this takes time, this is about changing the way that organisations operate and think. It's also an area fraught with debate. You can have many differing views on how well ways of working are being applied or how well objectives are being delivered. So, I would say that it is better, within the framework of this Act, to keep the focus on aspiration and driving change in that way.

Now, that's not to say that you can't have some levers of enforceability. Most obviously, we are required to do what we do and, over the last five years, we've made a raft of recommendations for improvement to individual organisations, many of which have been acted upon and have driven positive change. You'll have seen through our most national report, 'No time to lose', but also if you look at many of the specific reports that underpin that, that we've not backed away from giving some very critical messages where we feel that organisations are not operating fully as the Act would envisage. So, personally, I would keep the focus on that accountability framework. One of the recommendations we've made is around the performance and accountability framework that exists, which we touched on earlier. Jenny mentioned the potential for increased scrutiny by the Senedd as well. So, that, from my perspective, would be where I think we should focus attention, rather than building in sanctions or a much tougher approach to enforcement, which would change the whole balance and feel of the Act, I don't think for the better. 

There are some more minor things that I think would help to strengthen our arm a little. We can certainly flesh those out in our written submission to you, but Martin, do you want to talk about public interest reports, perhaps?

Yes. I think it would be useful to consider amending the legislation that's in the Government of Wales Act 2006 relating to the auditor general's power to make public interest reports, which is currently confined to, essentially, matters that arise during the audit of accounts or in the course of value-for-money examinations or studies. Extending that to the work that we do under the future generations Act would, I think, have two benefits in terms of raising the profile of the Act itself. We've heard people talk about how our work under the Act is secondary to our finance work; well, that would put it on a more even keel in that respect. 

It would also, very usefully, I think, provide us with a way of essentially providing highlight reports. When the auditor general produces a public interest report, it's because something serious needs public attention, a public interest report. So, it's out of the run-of-the-mill reporting. So, we wouldn't be doing lots of them, but where bodies were particularly backsliding on requirements, we would, to use the phrase, name and shame, essentially.

Altaf, could I just ask Catryn to come in as well, please?

Thank you. I just wanted to add that we don't have a duty to report on our examinations to individual public bodies, but we do report after each and every one of those pieces of work, and we ask each public body to produce what we call a management response form that sets out what they're going to do in relation to our recommendations, and we review that, and then the report and the management response form are tabled at their audit committees, and we would expect the audit committee to track those recommendations, and then we follow up on those recommendations. And there are examples of where we have seen recommendations that haven't been acted on in the way that we would have envisaged, and we've done further work on those things.

Thank you very much. And now the second question: what are your views on the commissioner's section 20 power under the Act, and how it has been used to date? Is there scope to strengthen this power either through legislation or through guidance?

Could I just clarify, is that the section 20—?

Yes.

Right, thank you. Well, it's a possibility that one could strengthen that with a requirement to respond, and we've seen in Lord Bird's Act that there is a whole mechanism there to bring lack of response into the courts, but I think we go back to the overall issue of to what extent do we really want to be going to court, rather than taking perhaps more co-operative, and, dare I say, more economical actions to get public bodies to change. I think it's a policy question. I don't think we could say one is more preferable than the other, really, at the end of the day, but we see there's considerable merit in not judicialising those reports.

I think section 20, as well, is an area where there is some overlap between the commissioner's powers and my own, so I urge a degree of caution in going down a path that builds too heavily on section 20 as an enforcement route, notwithstanding what Martin has just said, because I think the previous commissioner undertook two studies under section 20. They are much more resource-intensive than other areas of their work, so they're not entered into lightly, and it is an area where we have a particular focus to make sure that we're not duplicating effort between our two offices. So, absolutely, it's a potential route to go down, but I'd urge a degree of caution.

Thank you, Adrian. Now, we understand the Welsh Government is preparing to undertake an evaluation of the Act. I received on the weekend over 500 pages of consultation responses in reference to future generations scrutiny, which I have skimmed through, and the majority say that the Act is great, but failing in practice. The Royal College of General Practitioners state the Act and the commissioner need reform, but are essential to their preventative healthcare agenda, as you rightly earlier mentioned. Taking into account today's discussions, what key areas would you suggest this needs to consider?

Just so I'm clear, Altaf, the Welsh Government's evaluation of the Act—where would I urge them to focus? I think on exactly the territory that you've covered as a committee here and that we've outlined in 'No time to lose'. There are some valuable changes that could be made to the Act, as we've discussed, but I think more fundamentally for me, I'd urge the Welsh Government to be looking at the recommendations that I made in my report about streamlining the funding arrangements for participating bodies, and giving them more certainty about their financial position for a longer period, making that shift towards prevention, simplifying the landscape and ensuring that coherence of all that the Welsh Government does and all of the signals that it sends to the rest of the public service. Those are the things, in my view, that would drive big change. Catryn, anything more?

No.

Yes. Thank you very much. Thanks, Chair.

Thank you. I just want to have a look at your four recommendations. I think, on the first one, there is evidence that the Welsh Government is looking at that recommendation closely. The second one rather depends on the Treasury taking a five-ways-of-working approach, and that may be rather a long-term ambition. Promoting prevention, though, is clearly something that the Welsh Government has a role in, and where the example you gave about cancer prevention clearly indicates that, in how we use half the budget, certainly, prevention is rarely even mentioned. So, what do you expect to see in terms of—? Ring-fencing funding is one key way in which we ensure that that budget isn't always raided, but what are the ways in which the Welsh Government needs to get all public bodies under the Act to understand that this is a massive value-for-money issue, which is obviously your domain?

Yes, sure. Forgive me, Jenny, just before I answer that, if I go to the second point in which you mentioned about funding certainties, yes, I absolutely get the point that much of that depends on the certainty that the Welsh Government has at a block level, but there are still some things that are more within the Welsh Government's control that would still be valuable. So, we see, for instance, late delivery of pockets of hypothecated funding, we see capital spend announcements that don't have corresponding support on the revenue side that make it extremely difficult for public bodies to make good use of that money. So, there are things that are very definitely more in the gift of the Welsh Government to influence and that was, in part, the focus of that recommendation.

On prevention, one key thing for me would be how do we break out of the siloed, organisation-specific focus that the current accountability and performance arrangements drive. So, the health service is not the single most important driver of public health. It deals with the consequences, but we should be just as focused on the actions of local government, good housing, good education et cetera et cetera. So, at the moment, I don't think we're doing enough to drive that sort of cross-organisation and cross-sectoral thinking.

So, at a practical level you could look at making pots of funding available across organisations or sectors that would have the intended outcomes in mind and put the onus on participating bodies then to make best use of those to achieve desired outcomes. Whereas at the moment, all too often, what you're asking an individual public body to do is to spend its resources and use its capacity to help another part of the system deliver its objectives. Understandably, that is extremely challenging when resources are so tight. So, I think breaking out in quite a bold way from some of the funding approaches we take at the moment would have value. Catryn, anything to add? 

Just to add that we've deliberately not been prescriptive in framing the recommendation, because it is challenging and will require quite a lot of innovation and, potentially, bravery as well to do something different. We think that the onus should be on the Government to work with public bodies to find a way through that, really, because there are lots of different funding streams, lots of different outcomes that will need to be considered in the mix. But, ultimately, it's about thinking about funding across a system rather than in a linear way.

All of this connects with the point I keep hammering away at, about coherence of the signals and arrangements that we have in place. So, if I'm an NHS chief executive, I have to deliver the performance targets that the Welsh Government and my board are setting; I have to come in financially, in theory, at least, with a break-even budget over the three-year period. So, we’re sending lots of signals through the system to drive accountability that aren’t always consistent and coherent with the broader thrust towards WFG and prevention in particular. So, we need to find ways to incentivise different approaches.

So, the Welsh Government recently announced its aspiration for us to become a Marmot nation. Do you think that that is one of the ways in which the Welsh Government might drive forward joining up some of the dots? Because, clearly, Marmot isn't specifically about x or y health condition, it's about the well-being of the nation and, you know, living a good life.

Absolutely. But it’s one thing to make that announcement and aspiration—what are the practical mechanisms that sit underneath that that actually are going to make it deliverable?

We can pursue that, obviously, when we get to see the Welsh Government on this.

Did you want to come in on this? No. Fine, okay. So, you mention in your report that public bodies, where they do talk about the five ways of working, tend to relate to collaboration, involvement or integration, but I haven't heard much from public bodies suggesting that they might want to integrate. There are some good examples of public services boards integrating with adjacent bodies, but one of the aspirations that we discussed when we did this legislation was that it might be a way of encouraging public bodies to be integrating their activities a lot more in order to be more cost effective. So, although they mention it, how much do they actually do it?

Correct me if I’m wrong, Catryn, but integration in the context of the Act means something slightly different. I think that’s within bodies and achievement of other organisations’ objectives, yes?

More in the context of maximising their contribution to the well-being goals and the connections between their objectives and those of other public bodies, yes.

But if you’re thinking, Jenny, specifically about the PSBs, I think our reflection there—. Well, No. 1, we don't—we’re not required to and we don’t—do specific work around the PSBs—

So, that's the role of the commissioner.

I'm not sure they have—

They have a strong advisory role—

A stronger role.

—but not so much in terms of the assessments that we do in terms of public bodies.

Okay. So, that ought to be, then, the job of the Senedd, in that case.

But I think our observation would be that the PSBs vary enormously in their approach and effectiveness. Some have chosen to come together on a bigger footprint, and, in principle, that, I would say, is a positive thing. The concern for me would be less around the PSBs per se, but more about the general complexity of the partnership landscape. So, PSBs are not the only show in town, and so they will not always match up neatly with the RPBs or the CJC areas or whatever. And we certainly hear frustrations from public bodies about the consequences of that, just in terms of stretched capacity. So, not just in the context of WFG, but more generally, I’ve repeatedly called for simplification of that partnership landscape.

That said, Catryn was making the point earlier, when we were discussing today's session, that, in principle, around the table at PSBs, you have the chief executives, you have the leaders, you have people in those organisations who ought to have the levers and influence to take decisions, to pool budgets and take collective action. So, potentially, they can deliver great value; performance I would say is probably patchy and, for me, it's that more general confusion and busyness of the partnership landscape that's a concern, rather than the PSBs per se. 

Yes. The alphabet soup continues to grow. I think, lastly, at the launch of the commissioner's five-year plan, which also, I think, coincided with your report, you both put a lot of emphasis on the importance of the public's involvement. But, obviously, in your report, you point out that involving the public appropriately, and ensuring that it isn't just those who shout loudest, is a time-consuming and therefore quite a costly investment, and in the context of continuing budgetary demands—the budget versus the demands on all services—it's difficult to see how we can invest more in involving the public more in something that isn't the most immediate thing—it's not one question, is it—and therefore it's complicated, but it's very important, in the sense that Jane Davidson pointed out, that, in 2014, the public were saying they didn't think they were sufficiently involved, and there's plenty of evidence that that's still being thought of in that regard today.

I think I'd push back a little on an argument that said we can't afford to do more public engagement or more involvement, because, increasingly, we are trying to use the future generations Act as a lens to focus our work around value for money. So, how can organisations genuinely be aspiring to deliver value for money unless they have confidence that the steps they're taking are actually the ones that the public feel they need and that they've had some involvement in shaping them? Similarly, how can they be delivering value for money if they've not used the right sorts of sets of data to look for the long-term impact and so forth? How can they be delivering value for money if they've not collaborated with a whole raft of partners? I don't think they can. So, this is not an 'extra', this is an 'instead of'. This is a different approach to how we design delivery of services and policies that, in my view, has more chance of delivering good value for money.

Thank you. I can't see anybody with any further questions. Thank you very much indeed for your evidence. We'll send you a transcript for you to correct if there's anything that we've misheard or misrecorded. 

Diolch. We will submit some written evidence as well. We're very happy to work with your team to make sure that we pick up any themes that are important to the committee through our evidence or anything else you're hearing. 

Thank you very much indeed. 

There are two papers to note. Unless any Members wish to raise any issues arising from them, I wondered if I could ask you to agree that we now move into private session for the rest of the meeting. Sioned Williams.

Okay. My understanding is that the Children, Young People and Education Committee has agreed that we should write a joint letter. So, we can obviously discuss that in private session. Thank you.  

I see no disagreement. We now move into private session.