Our latest report, Progress, challenges and unleashing transformative potential, explores the impact of the Well-being of Future Generations Act to date and how we can best deliver its radical ambitions in the decade ahead.
The report follows an event the IWA held with Carnegie UK, the Centre for Welsh Politics and Society / WISERD and the Co-Production Network for Wales, which explored the above themes, aiming to hear people’s perspectives on the Act as well as ideas for how we can improve implementation going forward. This event forms the structure and key themes of this short paper.
Authored by IWA Co-Director Joe Rossiter, the report makes a set of recommendations for the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales and the next Welsh Government, including the below. For full, expanded recommendations, please see the end of the report.
The Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales should:
- Consider using the powers the Act has, namely conducting a Section 20 review
- Consider steps to review the delivery of the five ways of working, identifying and disseminating strong examples of delivery and examining where delivery has been poor. A specific focus on involvement and long-term thinking as priorities
- Consider publishing a summary of public bodies’ responses to the Commissioner’s reports, such as the Future Generations Report 2025 to demonstrate impact, best practice and ongoing challenges
- Create a digital repository of public bodies’ steps and wellbeing objectives set out as part of their corporate plans
- The Commissioner should provide a long-form reflection on the Act to the next Welsh Government, including:
- A summary of the purpose of the Act
- Detailing the wins and challenges of the Act so far
- A list of 5 tangible and realistic actions to ensure the next Welsh Government apply the Act in all of their work.
The next Welsh Government should:
- Recommit to the centrality of the Act and its goals as the long-term purpose of devolved government
- Ensure the Wellbeing of Wales report is a central document indicating our continued progress towards our shared long-term future
- Establish a Future Generations Innovation Fund – based on Welsh Government long-term challenges
- Increase funding to the Office to meet its ambitions, potentially to a fixed percentage of the overall budget to indicate long-term commitment
- Consider creating a preventative budget code for future Welsh Government budgets, with the expectation that the percentage of the budget allocated against it rises year on year
- Continue to call for reform to the Welsh Government’s budget arrangements, with more flexibility of funding arrangements to enable long-term policy making
- Consider taking steps to provide long-term certainty of public bodies’ budgets, where possible, to support them to make long-term policy decisions.
You can read the full report here.