It is absolutely critical. As I mentioned, we went through “The Wales We Want” process, which was a 12-month process of engaging communities, businesses, and individuals around Wales in helping to inform and shape the act.
Some of our experience has been that we've had too much of a top-down approach, and we needed more of a bottom-up approach, and it's really important to get that balance.
It's really important, though, also to ensure that you have an informed approach so that people understand. One of the requirements of the new legislation is to produce a future trends report and to continue this national conversation, so that people understand what are the future trends, why it's so important to undertake some action. You really need that dialogue and that engagement to be a two-way process between information and knowledge about future trends, and allowing people to make more decisions at the local level.
From our experience, the greatest progress we've made is when we've been able to allow communities to mobilize, take action, and shape their own future. As part of “The Wales We Want”, we had communities take up that and say, okay, this is about the community that we want in our local area, and shape that for their future, understanding the priorities, the issues of climate change, and the need for jobs for young people, but really for communities to take greater ownership.
It doesn't work if it's simply a top-down process. It has to be owned and understood and involve people. That's why one of the core principles of the bill is involvement, the involvement of people in decision-making.