Thank you very much, Chair.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the work of the committee and to draw on our experience in Wales. We've had a devolved government in the UK since 1999, and sustainable development was established as a core principle of the Government of Wales Act 1998.
What I'm going to share with you is our experience over the last 17 years or so of trying to promote sustainable development in all our policies. That was the requirement of the Government of Wales Act as it was established in 1998. The evidence of our experience of implementing this duty, though, was very mixed. It was a fact that was highlighted by the Wales Audit Office, by independent evaluations, and by each of my independent annual reviews of performance across Welsh government. There were consistent criticisms of a lack of consistency, a lack of understanding of the concept of sustainable development, and a superficial approach to its implementation across government, with individual departments taking their own approaches and delivering effectively, sometimes, but always in silo operations as opposed to joined-up delivery across government.
There were significant weaknesses in our experience in delivering sustainable development, not least being the fact that the Government of Wales Act only applied to government and did not apply to the rest of the public sector in Wales. This led to the proposals in the manifesto of the Labour Party, which became the current government in 2012, to introduce a stronger and very much more specific legislation during its term of office. It was termed at that point the sustainable development bill. We had a four-year journey involving discussion papers and green papers. We had four different ministers lead the process of creating the legislation. We had a change of department lead. It began in the environment department, and it moved to be led by the social justice department. We had a change in the name of the legislation, as Catherine has mentioned already.
The minister at the time—I remember well—said that sustainable development doesn't mean anything to Mrs. Jones in Merthyr. We need to make a piece of legislation mean something to real people. She cares about her children and her grandchildren and the future generation, so let's use that as the basis for the legislation. It became known as the future generations bill and eventually became the well-being of future generations bill and now the Well-being of Future Generations Act.
It was influenced and shaped by a national conversation on “The Wales We Want”, which linked very much to the UN global conversation on “The World We Want“. I led that in my role as commissioner for sustainable futures. It helped to engage the wider community in designing and helping to shape the nature of the legislation. The legislation itself went through an intensive scrutiny and amendment process before the bill was passed by the National Assembly for Wales on March 17 last year, received royal assent on April 30 last year as the Well-being of Future Generations Act, and became law on April 1 this year. The legislation has been designed to align directly with the United Nations sustainable development goals, and indeed, it puts a specific requirement on the government to take into account the United Nations sustainable development goals.
The act itself sets very clearly what we mean by sustainable development. It sets out seven national goals that we want to achieve for “The Wales We Want”: a prosperous Wales, a more resilient Wales, a healthier Wales, a more equal Wales, a Wales of cohesive communities, a Wales with a vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language, and importantly, a globally responsible Wales. Those national goals are underpinned by a set of national measures of progress, a set of indicators, which the government consulted on and issued earlier this year—in fact, in March of this year.
We have a set of national goals underpinned by national indicators, and a requirement and a duty on all public bodies under the legislation to demonstrate their contribution to the achievement of these goals and their contribution to the improvement of performance against each of those indicators.
The act does set out very clearly the sustainable development principle in terms that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It tries to make that more practical by setting out our long-term purpose, a clear set of indicators, and critically, a set of operating principles in terms of how we do business in Wales. There are five operating principles that each public body is required to apply in its decision-making: focusing on preventative action, collaboration, integration, the involvement of people and communities in decision-making, and ensuring that decision-making is done in the interests of the long term.
The legislation sets out a clear long-term development path, measures of progress, and common working principles for how we do business in Wales and how the public sector operates. Ministers have begun to apply this act in preparation for its becoming law, in terms of how we set our budgets, how we procure, and how we invest in improving our health, environment, and economy. It will provide a framework for how the government operates and how we do business.
It also sets out a requirement for public bodies at a local level to come together to form public service boards, which can collaborate more effectively to provide integrated solutions to some of those more difficult long-term problems that we face in tackling poverty, inequalities, and climate change, and in improving biodiversity. There are common objectives now across those public bodies and a requirement for them to operate collaboratively at the local level.
We want to ensure that future generations are given the best possible start in life. I think that's a key point in the implementation of this legislation, in the sense of the importance of early years for the long term and the future generations. We have a scheme that is a sort of iconic scheme and is symbolic, I guess, in that we plant a tree in Wales and in Africa for every child born. It's an iconic, symbolic statement of the importance of future generations and our commitment to the environment.
The seventh goal that I've mentioned, a globally responsible Wales, is particularly important in terms of how the act is being implemented.
Obviously, alongside the act, we have very strong commitments to climate change and to the reduction of carbon emissions. Core to the implementation of the act as we go forward will be evidence of how government spends its money in terms of procurements and how it provides grants and support to business and to the third and voluntary sector, to ensure that all government money is spent in alignment with the principles of the act. I want to also highlight that we have a voluntary commitment or code of practice called a “sustainable development charter” for the business community to make their commitment to achieve the same goals and apply the same principles that the public sector has.
I want to end by introducing my successor. I've stepped out of my role, which I've played for the last 10 years and which was a non-statutory role. My successor, the future generations commissioner for Wales, has been appointed. She's taken up the post on April 1 in a new role established under the act. She has statutory powers and duties to ensure that the intent of the legislation is being applied in practice. The Wales Audit Office also now has powers and duties to ensure that the act is being applied in practice. There's a very close relationship between the new commissioner and the Wales Audit Office.
The new commissioner and the shape of that office have been influenced by the advice of the World Future Council. You've heard from Catherine on that today. It's an independent body providing a voice for future generations, holding ministers and the public bodies to account in terms of the delivery of the act.
I'm delighted to say that, when the bill became an act back in April of last year, we were able to host a gathering in Cardiff, which included representation from the United Nations, but also representation from your own commissioner. We were delighted to host Julie Gelfand here in Cardiff. I know Julie knows some of this experience in Wales, and I hope my presentation today has given you some context and some learning that might be applied to your work in Canada.