Marking #FutureGens10 – a Decade of Welsh Action for Future Generations

Ten years after Wales’ Future Generations Act launched in 2015, it has increased prominence but is not yet driving the system-wide change that was intended, according to recent assessment by Audit Wales.

This report is about how Welsh public bodies are thinking and acting for the long term. Specifically, it is about how public bodies are doing what the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 requires them to do at a time when the long-term sustainability and affordability of services and government policy commitments are being tested.

Over the 10 years since the Act has been in place the pressures on public services have grown. If the Act is Wales’ answer to meeting the big challenges, it needs to be implemented well. The Act should touch all aspects of public bodies’ work. It is about driving a change in what public bodies do and how they do it.

We found variation in practice within organisations, and within and between sectors. The health system in particular has some way to go in applying future generations thinking across its planning and delivery.

Accelerating progress under the Act starts with prioritising prevention. Without a more systematic shift towards prevention, budgets will be exhausted, and outcomes will likely be worse. Public bodies also need to improve the information they use to inform planning and decision-making, get a better grip on resource implications, and make sure they can understand impact. And there is still much to do to apply the Act to functions such as workforce planning, asset management, and financial planning.

Delivering change will require action from all public bodies individually. But that will not be enough. They are working in an environment that does not always promote that change. There is action that government could take to create the conditions for progress.

In 2020, we called for a review of the Act to explore how barriers to its implementation could be overcome and how Wales could remain at the forefront of actions to improve well-being. Five years on, that recommendation has not been acted on in the way we had hoped.

We have made recommendations to individual public bodies through the audit work that this report builds on. This report makes four further recommendations. They are strategic recommendations to the Welsh Government, designed with the wider conditions for progress in mind. They call on the government to minimise funding uncertainty to help bodies plan effectively and to encourage investment in prevention. They also call on government to take a fresh look at the assessment of performance and impact under the Act and to clearly set out a scope and timetable for its own evaluation of the Act in the context of wider scrutiny.

We hope that this report can contribute to a wider conversation about how public bodies apply the Act to make a real and lasting impact. All those in positions of scrutiny must play their part in recognising good practice and calling out where bodies are falling short.

Auditor General, Adrian Crompton said: 

“Ten years on from its inception, I see energy and enthusiasm for the Act in various quarters; and I see public bodies having different conversations, making decisions informed by the Act, and changes in practice. But for all the good examples, there are those that are not so good. The Act is not driving the system-wide change that was intended.

Of course, driving change across often large, complex organisations is hard. But I urge public bodies to see the sustainable development principle as a value for money issue. We cannot afford to design solutions that do not meet people’s needs, burden future generations with avoidable higher costs, or miss opportunities to deliver more with the same or less.”