Equality and Social Justice Committee

Prynhawn da. I'll ask them to introduce themselves, if that's okay.

Prynhawn da, everyone. I'm Heledd Morgan. I'm director of implementation and impact.

Hi. I'm Helen Nelson. I'm director of strategic planning, climate and nature.

Excellent. Thank you very much indeed. It's nearly 10 months since you published your five-year report, on the same day that the Auditor General for Wales also published a similar one. How well do you think you've made progress on this report in the last 10 months?

Thank you, Chair. Prynhawn da, bawb, and thank you for the opportunity to present our evidence to you today.

I think the first thing to say about the future generations report that was published last year is this is the first time the process is properly being followed as it was meant to be followed. When the last future generations report was produced, it was just at the point that COVID was happening, so it meant the world was looking in a different direction, and the way in which the whole process was meant to work wasn't able to happen in the same way.

This was published deliberately, just to remind the committee, one year before the Senedd elections, last year. Part of the idea is not just to give advice and an assessment of where we are at 10 years of the legislation, but to influence the political parties and the manifestos ahead of the Senedd elections. It really is a critical moment and a critical time to be presenting that report. We know future generations won't have a vote in May, but we can't leave them the problems that we can fix today, so we have to get on with it.

In terms of the report itself, we learnt some of the lessons from last time, and we had a much shorter, focused report. The report is linked to the five mission areas that I've identified in 'Cymru Can'. Without going into too much detail, we focused the 'Cymru Can' strategy into those five mission areas based on what the national indicators were telling us, what the people of Wales were telling us, what the data was telling us were the most important issues that we should be focusing on.

We asked public bodies to respond to the report by the end of October, and we've had nearly all of them respond. We would expect all of them to respond, but I think we've had all but four or five now respond to the report. Overwhelmingly, the responses have been positive—so, good commitments across the public sector to deliver on the recommendations that we've asked them to be committing to. But it will become a big part of—. Well, it's becoming a big part of my job, and the team's job, to make sure they deliver on those commitments, because there are so many reports that get produced with recommendations, and the recommendations get forgotten about and don't get delivered, and I'm determined that that won't be the result of this report.

Just to give you some highlights, perhaps, of some of the report recommendations—and there are 50 to go through, many of which are pointed to the Welsh Government—one of the highlights I would point to are the commitments around the real living wage. The reason we made a recommendation that all public bodies should become real living wage accredited employers is because we know what the long-term issues of poverty are for our population, and one way we can address that is through the real living wage.

We've had, I must say, quite a low base in Wales of real living wage accredited employers in the public sector compared, for example, to Scotland. We've already seen four public bodies, from a starting point of 13 out of 56, become real living wage accredited as a result of that recommendation. But we've got around 90 per cent who've said that they will commit to the recommendation—they've accepted it, adopted it, or accepted it in principle—which is a recommendation to have a plan in place by 2027 to deliver real living wage accreditation. So, we've got some way to go, but now we've got public commitments from those public bodies, which we can work with to deliver on what they've committed to doing.

I won’t go through all 50, but—

Please don't. [Laughter.]

—perhaps I'll touch on food as an area, because I know this is of particular interest to the Chair.

The food recommendations are an area of focus in the report. In some areas, we believe that there's a need for the Welsh Government to have a long-term food strategy, a resilience plan, and that hasn't happened. But we have seen some of our advice picked up in the community food strategy and through the 'Food Matters' document that the Welsh Government has produced. We can see, and we've been told by partners in the field such as Food Sense Wales, that the fact that we've given so much attention as an office to food is leading to action by our public bodies to think about the long-term implications of the food system.

Just in the last year, we've had three public bodies now commit to putting in place local food strategies, which was one of the recommendations in the report, and we will work with more of them to deliver on that recommendation too. As part of that, we put in place a toolkit to provide advice to public bodies on what a food resilience plan should look like. So, it's not just a recommendation, there's some guidance that comes alongside that as well. So, there's lots to go through.

We will publish, in the next two weeks or so, an overview of how public bodies have responded to the report, where the strongest responses have been and where the weakest responses have been. We are also adjusting our work programme to adapt to that. Where public bodies have said that they require more information about a particular recommendation, obviously we'll look to provide that further recommendation. The plan is to continue to convene public bodies around this report's recommendations for the rest of my term and to report on progress each year in terms of how we're delivering against the 50 recommendations.

I'll stop there, but there's a lot to say around the report and its impact. So far, we're pretty pleased with the response rate. Clearly, it could be better in some areas, but it remains a focus for our work.

Thank you for that. The most disturbing aspect of your report and that of the auditor general was the fact that health services hadn't really grasped the importance of prevention. I just wondered if they were some of the outliers who have yet to respond to your report—

No, not necessarily. There's a bit of a mix in terms of who hasn't responded; it's not just the health boards.

What progress, if any, have you managed to make to ensure that they understand this incredibly important aspect of how we obtain value for money in the way we spend our resources?

Prevention, as you say, was one of our big themes and was the auditor general's big theme. We're not spending enough time on prevention, and despite always advocating for prevention and it being one of the five ways of working, it clearly wasn't leading to as much impact as we've wanted over the last 10 years of a commissioner's office.

Part of the approach of 'Cymru Can' is to go beyond perhaps the usual suspects that we've been speaking to, and we've done that in terms of prevention. In the supplementary guidance to the legislation, there are something called the corporate areas of change, areas like finance and workforce planning and assets, as key levers to get change to happen. In the prevention space, we've decided, for the first time, to work with finance directors in particular around prevention and understanding prevention in terms of their budget setting: which of their budgets are helping with prevention, for want of a better term, and which budgets are not having an impact on prevention.

A few years before my time in this role, there was a framework of tiers of prevention that was agreed between my office and the Welsh Government, and the framework wasn't being used. There's no point having a document that's not being used. We are now applying that document with the finance directors of a number of public bodies to understand what proportion of their budgets is preventative, what's tertiary, secondary prevention and what is not preventive at all.

The lesson from that so far—it's an ongoing programme of work—is, first of all, the framework for prevention is the right one. It can work in the health sector, it can work in a local authority, it can work in a national body. We're pleased to get that confirmation. But what we're also seeing is that these public bodies are now taking a different view of their budget setting. That's yet to go through to the budget cycle, to be fair, but one local authority is now looking to set targets for each directorate about increasing the amount of their directorate spend that's on prevention.

Another national body that we've been working with has looked at some of their categories of spend and have just realised, I guess for the first time, that those categories of spend are not having any preventative impact. They're just dealing with the acute spending on consequences. They will now review that spending to see how they're using the same amount of money, or not much more money, in the next budget round, and can it be used with a more preventative focus.

I spent a little bit of time talking about that, because I think it illustrates the kind of approach we're trying to take with 'Cymru Can', which is working in a practical way with public bodies at the systems, at the root causes of some of these things, which will have wider consequences. So, that's some of the work we've done in the preventative area.

I haven't heard you say that the health service has grasped this, though, because they get half the money that the taxpayer contributes to the Welsh budget, and health, above all, desperately needs a preventative lens, because otherwise we're just simply clearing up the mess afterwards. Is there anything positive you can say about change since you and the auditor general both identified this as a major concern?

One of the health boards is very involved in that work, and that is one of the areas where, hopefully, we're going to see some really positive changes to their budget setting, which will cascade to the other health boards. It will do that deliberately. I think the other area to reference, where we've been making the point very strongly, is around the Marmot nation commitment that the Welsh Government has now made. That was one of the recommendations in the future generations report.

We know in Gwent, for example, they're ahead of other areas in terms of thinking about the wider determinants of health. What that does is it ensures health boards are around the table in understanding the causes of ill health and playing their role alongside other public bodies in not just dealing with the consequences of ill health, but creating a healthier environment. It's not just their bag, it's something that they need to do with others. I think that will be very positive, and I'm hoping to be able to allocate some of the time of my staff to work with the Welsh Government on the Marmot work as well. So, there have some positive commitments in the last 10 months or so, but clearly we've got to keep pushing on this, yes.

Thank you very much. I'll hand over to Jane Dodds.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon to you all. I just want to ask you a question that follows on from Jenny's question about the Marmot nation. I've just looked it up, and it's been 15 years since Marmot completed that report, and here we are, thinking in Wales that it's time to focus on that and to change things. What, in your view, can we do to try and push forward that agenda, because everyone has been aware of that report for 15 years now? What, in your view, hasn't brought about the change that's needed?

Yes, it's a good question. I think the beauty of the Marmot approach is that it is tried and tested. This is one of the reasons why I've given it my backing, in that it's been rolled out in other parts of the UK and shown to be having an impact. I'm not sure why, before my time, it hasn't really been picked up, but, in the Gwent area, it has had some support, particularly from Torfaen and Gwent public bodies. I think the best way of taking it forward in my way is through the public services bodies and the regional partnership body frameworks, because that brings the right partners together who have the roles and the capacity and the interest to tackle this agenda.

I think there is a job to do in terms of aligning it to the well-being of future generations Act, because there's a lot in—. This may be at the heart of the answer, actually. It may be that what's happened in Wales is we haven't thought that we need to implement Marmot, because we've got the well-being of future generations Act, but the Marmot approach does have a lot of traction within the health sector in particular, I think, so I think bringing a Welsh Marmot approach to Wales is going to be the way forward. I'm positive that we've got to move from commitment to implementation, haven't we? So, we'll see in the next couple of weeks, I think, a launch from Welsh Government in terms of pilot areas that they're going to be working on to deliver Marmot, but it does also require resources, of course, and that needs to be properly funded.

So, there may be various historical reasons why it's not been taken forward, but I think it's been tried and tested, and, as a result, it's something we can take forward in Wales and have an impact without too much tweaking, hopefully.

Thank you very much for that. So, I just want to move on to the 'Cymru Can' strategy—I'm not sure what it is in Welsh—and your report as well. So, just to concentrate on what you've achieved in the years that you've been the commissioner, could you just tell us, as a sort of elevator pitch, if you know that phrase, or that one short sentence? [Laughter.] You have three minutes, or something like that, to tell us what exactly you've delivered during the time of the 'Cymru Can' strategy.

Yes, thank you. I might take more than three minutes, but I'll do my best. The whole approach of 'Cymru Can', as I was alluding to at the beginning, was to be more strategic in our work and focused on particular areas, to be much more focused on delivery and impact, to be positive about the framing, because that's what makes a difference: so, 'Cymru can'—we have done things; we've got more to do—as being helpful way to motivate people to act. And after two-and-a-bit years of the 'Cymru Can' strategy, I still think it's the right strategy, and it is working. We will review it at the halfway point, which is around about the turn of this calendar year, to see what changes we can make. But it has been the right thing to do.

I think in terms of—. I'll answer in two parts, really; secondly, in terms of specifics, but first, perhaps, in terms of the general thing that we've tried to do with 'Cymru Can'. So, what we've recognised with working with public bodies is we wanted to have a wider reach across public sector organisations. So, we've significantly increased our training offer, for example. We're doing a lot more advice and support. So, I've got a figure here for you—forgive me for using it. We gave out 540 pieces of advice and support last year; we're doing 825 in the first three quarters of this year. So, we're increasing our reach across the public sector, because too many people, unfortunately, don't understand the Act and how to apply it.

We've also done much more targeted engagement—so this is what I was touching on earlier on—so, moving beyond CEOs, which is where we've perhaps been before, but looking at finance directors and assets directors and HR directors to go in a more targeted way to those decision makers. And we've also had a deeper influence. So, because we've focused on the five mission areas, as a team—and Heledd and Helen can speak for themselves—we've become much more expert and knowledgeable and networked in those areas of work, which means that we're able to work in a deeper way with public bodies on the changes that we want to see in those particular areas, whether it be on water, whether it be on energy, whether it be on health or arts and culture. And I think that's working. We've had really positive feedback about the quality of our training and advice—very high levels of quality responses, good responses to the satisfaction levels. I mentioned in the briefing that I sent around an 86 per cent positive impression of the office. So, what we're doing there seems to be going down well: a six and a half out of seven satisfaction level on our training. So, what we're doing seems to be going down well.

The other part is that we really tried to focus on root causes—so, focus on systems issues, not just on pilot projects—although I did mention a pilot project earlier on, I realise now. But it's easy to call for a project and for something to happen and then it happens for a year and then it moves on. So, that's what we've tried to move against.

So, if you look at some of the areas where we've been able to make the most progress, I think it is in some of the areas that I've been talking about. So, we've put food and the sustainability of the food system on the map, and we're seeing more action on food than we've seen previously. We've seen more action in terms of the real living wage than we've seen previously, as I've just talked about, and clearly we've got more to do. In terms of climate and nature—and Helen, perhaps, could come in and talk a little bit about that—clearly, people think about climate and nature. When they think about future generations, it's the first issue that they perhaps think about. We've done a lot of advocacy and influencing around that. So, we've been pushing hard on nature targets, for example, and we're hopeful now that Welsh Government will commit to nature targets in secondary legislation around the environmental governance Bill. We've tried to push Welsh Government hard on water and giving more focus to water quality, because we know it's a real future generations issue and it matters to the people of Wales. So, as a result of our advocacy work, rather than looking at a few rivers and looking at one or two sources of pollutants of rivers, Welsh Government is now looking at all Welsh rivers and all sources of pollutants of Welsh rivers.

There are many other examples of working in the advocacy space where we've successfully seen changes. I mentioned the community food strategy; we've done work around the water reform Green Paper, the culture strategy of Welsh Government, where we've seen changes. So, there has been a lot of significant change in the areas that we focused on in the 'Cymru Can' missions, and we'll continue to push on that with the next Welsh Government.

Thank you very much. I just want to perhaps come back again on that and ask you two questions. The first of those questions is: what impact has it had on people in Wales—that is, what's changed for them on the ground? You mentioned food quite a bit, and we know the impact on that, but one other area I think—I'm not sure what the words for it are in Welsh—is AI. You've mentioned AI as well. So, could you just suggest to us what has changed for people here in Wales in your experience, and give the elevator pitch on that as well? And also a little bit about AI, please—could you tell us about that?

Yes. I'll perhaps bring Heledd in to talk about AI, because she's been leading our work in that area and it's mentioned in the 'Cymru Can' strategy document. It's absolutely the right question, and this has to matter for people today and it has to matter to future generations. The issues are often dismissed as being, perhaps, not of interest to the people of Wales, these issues, but, when we're looking at water and the need to clean the rivers and water system, it matters to people that Welsh Government are now focusing on the wider pollutants of rivers, the fact that we're now seeing enforcement by NRW increased in terms of agricultural pollution. So, that will start to make a difference in terms of water quality. We're yet to see the—. We saw the state of nature report come out just a couple of weeks ago; we're yet to see the improvement in river quality that we need to see. But, by taking these steps now, we are hopeful that that will make a difference to flooding and to water quality, which are issues that really matter to the people of Wales.

If we talk about the real living wage—as I keep coming back to as an example, but it's one of the easiest, more specific examples to give—we know how Cardiff paying the real living wage has led to better incomes for many people in the city, but also an economic impact on the city as a whole. So, these four new public bodies have only just now committed to the real living wage accreditation, but that's going to mean many more people being paid the real living wage, which means money in their pockets to respond to the cost-of-living crisis, and a multiplier impact, I would hope, on the local economy as well. So, right across the piece, these are issues that matter to the people of Wales and can be making a difference.

In your area, of course, we know that energy and energy infrastructure is a big issue that matters to the people of Wales. They want to know where the energy infrastructure's going to be placed and whether they're going to see a direct benefit, and whether it's going to harm their everyday lives. Helen has been working with the Welsh Government on the electricity grid infrastructure recommendations, and part of the line that we've been pushing is that people need to be much better involved in decisions around new energy infrastructure, and we need to see the benefits coming to those communities, rather than being syphoned off to big multinationals elsewhere. So, that has been reflected in the electricity grid infrastructure report, as result of that we've pushing on this, and it's a thing that matters to the people. So, perhaps if I bring Helen in on that to just talk about some of that work, and Heledd, if it's okay, on the AI stuff.

I know that time is short and we have to move on, but, yes, that would be good.

Sorry, I know that time is short, and I don't want to take up too much time, so go ahead.

Going back to 'Cymru Can', I think that what we hear from people all the time is that we're approaching our mission from a really holistic perspective, and that's what people appreciate; we're not going in there in a siloed way—that's what's caused the problems in the first place. So, even when we're collaborating with experts in the field, they really value the approach. So, we're thinking long term, we're looking at problems holistically. So, that's what I would say on 'Cymru Can'.

On the energy infrastructure side and what this means to Mrs Jones, we get tonnes of correspondence, with all sorts of issues, and people are glad to know that we are feeding these points in. We hear all the time people saying, 'Thank you for raising these issues. People haven't listened to us', and we can show that we're raising these issues to local authorities, to national Government, to try and elevate them in terms of improving things. On the grid issue, I met with you as part of the independent advisory group. It's really, really complex, as you know—very, very complex, but—

Well, look at the report, which said absolutely nothing. I mean, we could go on for ever on that, but we won't.

We could. So, the thing that we've said on that is we need a completely different approach to how we involve communities in energy infrastructure, and that's not happening at the moment.

Did you want to talk about AI? Just a little bit, please.

Of course. Thank you.

I suppose it has been a bit of a challenge for us, because there's only so much capacity in our office, and one of our areas of focus was artificial intelligence; as Derek's already said, another was food. And there was real energy and willingness in the system to go after food as an area of focus. On artificial intelligence, there's quite a lot of work happening already. So, our role was more, I suppose, around convening people who may not have come together in other circumstances, the way that we do normally across the national well-being goals of the Act. So, we've been collaborating with the Centre for Digital Public Services and with the Welsh Government to meet a recommendation we made that a specific resource had to be set up by Welsh Government to look at AI. That has now happened, as we know. The Office for Artificial Intelligence has been set up, and the Centre for Digital Public Services will be going into that new directorate very soon. They've set up a strategic AI leadership group that we sit on and help to advise, with other leading members of the public sector.

I think what's really important for us is that, in any approach we take in Wales, we recognise that we've got the well-being of future generations Act here, so that when we're making decisions around how we use the opportunities and recognise the risks of artificial intelligence, we balance those across the national well-being goals, thinking about our global responsibility and our environmental impact as well as thinking about the opportunities there are around AI and prosperity and bringing people together. So, that's been our work, to try and shape the guidance that's forthcoming from the Office for AI. Derek has just helped with an e-learning package that's going out to the public service, for example, about artificial intelligence, framing it around the Act. Diolch.

Thank you. I'm aware of the time.

Thank you. I think we'll have to move on at this point. Can I call Altaf Hussain to ask his questions? You're muted at the moment, Altaf.

Thank you. Thank you very much and good afternoon. Nice to see you. My question area is regarding the supported public bodies and public services boards. Now, I have a few questions. I’ll try to be brief. How effective has your new support strategy been? Have you adapted it further to meet rising demand? Additionally, since public bodies account for half of your requests, where does the remaining volume originate and how are you prioritising that support?

Thank you, Altaf. Yes, I think the approach is the right one. As a result of ‘Cymru Can’, but also as a result of some points made by the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee previously, we've given much more focus to the 55 public bodies as well as Welsh Government, so that we're providing our support and advice to more of them, hence the increase in numbers. So, I mentioned the advice and support, 825 pieces this year alone, when it was 500 last year. This is part of the impact, I think, of the reach that we are now having.

This type of thing can be really instrumental. We have to move beyond just awareness raising, ‘This is the Act and this is what it's about.’ The type of thing that this is meaning is working with Social Care Wales, for example, on their long-term strategic plan, understanding what the long-term projections are for social care, and understanding how they can play a role not just in the care sector, but maximising their contribution to the wider goals. We do that sort of thing with Vale of Glamorgan, Eryri National Park, as some most recent examples, on a regular basis. That work, led by Heledd and colleagues, is well valued, as I mentioned, with the feedback we're getting, and there's quite a lot of demand for that support.

We can't go on like that. We would spend all our time doing that, so we’re having to be smarter and cleverer about how we provide advice and support, because if people just come through us, we're never going to have the capacity to do that. Heledd, I think, has mentioned the online e-learning tools that we've developed, so people don't have to come via us. But we're also now commissioning some train-the-trainer support, so that people can then do the work that we're doing, so that we don't have to be doing that.

Similarly, just as an aside, the future generations leadership academy, which is perhaps one of the things we might come on to later, is a young people's leadership programme. When I came into the role, I wanted every young person to have this opportunity. We’re working with 35. We've now worked with Bridgend College, so they're effectively running their own model for their students, and if we can see every college doing that, then we get more young people with this experience.

So, yes, rising demand, but I think the rising demand is because of our reach being broader. We're getting out to more people and then we're getting more interest and more action being taken. That would be my reading of it. How do we deal with the demand? Well, we prioritise public bodies. Public bodies would be our focus, always. Other areas of demand we get are from the third sector and the business sector. Sometimes we will get asked for pieces of advice about how a third sector organisation might apply the Act to its own work, and we will have to take a call on what level of resources we can offer that. Heledd and I were just talking, waiting to come in here, actually, and there is an organisation that isn't covered by the Act that wants us to provide training, and it may be, in that case, we will have to charge for that training. We won't make a profit on it, but we have to cover our costs, so that we're not diluting the resource that we put to the public bodies. That's how we manage the level of demand, considering public bodies as a focus and where we can make most impact.

Thank you very much. My next question today: how will the stakeholder survey results shape your future work, and are you considering any specific changes to your current strategy or priority areas?

Thank you. The stakeholder survey was the first time we'd ever done that in the 10 years of the office, and I felt it was an important thing to do. If we don't ask people how they view the office and how valuable they find the work or not, then we don't know whether we're doing a good job or not. I was encouraged by the results, I must say, and just for the sake of the record, I'm going to share some of them. Eighty six per cent had a positive outlook on the commissioner and the team; 75 per cent had a good awareness of our work—that's 25 per cent who don't; and 80 per cent have a good understanding of the well-being of future generations Act. This was a survey of people that were particularly within our reach, or within the reach of Cavendish Consulting, who carried out the report, so it's not the public as a whole, of course, it's the key stakeholders, but I think they were encouraging signs in terms of the response we got.

What it has led us to reflect on, and we will reflect further on it when we review the strategy at its mid point later on in the year, is that there were particular target groups, for example, that were less aware of our work and our advice covered by the well-being of future generations Act, with elected Members and town and community councils being two of those groups. So, we will look to understand how we can provide dedicated resources and targeted resources at those groups. We think the awareness-raising issue is an issue for us to address. We need more people to have a good awareness of the work of our office than 75 per cent. That's not something we should be satisfied with. We've talked about more online materials and finding other ways to reach people in the way that we haven't done previously. Those are a couple of the examples that the report has told us and how we're adjusting our work programme, and there are others too.

Thank you very much. And coming to the public bodies, regarding the eight new bodies now subject to the Act, how have you managed the additional resource demands and did their specialist support requirements differ from your standard approach?

That's a really good question, and perhaps I'll bring Heledd in a bit on this. The eight public bodies that came under the legislation, we didn't get any new resource to work with the additional eight, and this requires us to do the approach that I've just being talking about: how we can reach more people with fewer resources, or with the same resources, through online materials and the train-the-trainer approaches. What we've actually found with some of the new public bodies is that it can be—'easier' is probably not the right word—but embedding the Act at the very beginning of an organisation is clearly the best way to do it.

It was a bit of a shame that it took a while for some of these public bodies to come under the legislation, and that's why we're pushing on the new environmental governance body and the new water regulator, economic regulator, that they come under the Act straight away. But some of them were already adopting the legislation, even though they formally weren't under it, and by embedding it from the outset, organisations like Transport for Wales, you can see it's part of how they do things. It's part of their strategic approach.

So, yes, it's been a good experience, I think, working with the eight new public bodies, and good support, and good backing for the legislation, and good engagement with the team. Anything you want to add to that, Heledd?

I'd only add, Derek, that you haven’t mentioned yet the launch of Hwb Dyfodol last year, and how the Hwb Dyfodol has been of great support to those new eight public bodies. So, Hwb Dyfodol is a futures and foresight thinking hub that a member of our team has set up. We launched it last year and its membership has grown by 300 per cent. It's a bit of a first for Wales. We didn't have something like that before, and it's attracting international and global interest. So, Pep, in our team, is getting quite a lot of requests to work with other countries on this model. The way she set it up is that other organisations join the Hwb. It's a train-the-trainer approach in itself, and nearly all of those eight organisations have benefited from becoming members of the Hwb Dyfodol. So, they're using long-term and futures foresight in the development of their first well-being objectives and steps. And Derek mentioned we were supporting Social Care Wales, for example, on that just the other day. So, I think the Hwb has been a really good resource for us in that model. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Yes, you wanted to say something, Derek.

Yes, I said when we launched it, the Hwb, that it wasn't good enough, really, for us to have legislation and expect public bodies to implement it without giving them the skills and the tech tools, the techniques to do so. Thinking futures, there are all sorts of tools to do that. You need the data, which we're providing, but you need the tools and techniques and training to be able to think long term and apply it to a policy or a strategy. And we had some of the best academics in the country, if not in Europe, in Wales, but they weren't being linked into the Welsh public sector, particularly in Cardiff University, for example. So now, through the Hwb, there's this peer-to-peer learning programme where those who are thinking about applying foresight techniques and futures techniques to policy and strategy within the public sector are learning from each other, and hopefully improving the practice of doing this.

Thank you very much. And my last question is: how are you assisting PSBs with the upcoming well-being assessments, and what lessons from previous rounds are shaping your current approach? Additionally, what is the specific scope of the strengthening PSBs progress group, and which key area is it currently targeting?

Well, there's a lot in that. I’ll try and do that question justice. You know, the PSBs—and I've said this to the committee probably before—if we didn't have them, you'd want to invent them, because of the need for our public services to collaborate. But we know they're not all working to the best effect, and this is not often, usually or always down to them as PSBs themselves. I think Welsh Government should be giving them greater recognition as collaborative structures, and putting programmes and funding through the PSBs in a way that they haven't been doing before, or doing previously. I've mentioned points about partnership structures in the past, and it's in the future generations report. We have a cluttered partnership landscape that is getting in the way of delivery and someone's got to tidy this up. So, I make that recommendation in the report, and that would certainly help the PSBs in terms of their delivery.

We do a lot with the PSBs. We convened them just a couple of weeks ago in Newport to support them to learn from each other, and to give them advice on how they can make more progress. There are some really good examples that I’ll perhaps come on to in a second, but Heledd is involved in the national strengthening PSB progress group, which we're involved in, which is probably useful for her to share.

Thanks, Derek.

I had to read that.

Yes, it's a mouthful. So, this national group, to give the committee a bit of context, has been brought together with us, with organisations like Public Health Wales, who are funded at the moment with the Shaping Places for Well-being in Wales programme aimed at public services boards, with organisations like the Co-production Network for Wales, who've got project Dewi at a national level. We have representatives of the PSBs and the co-ordinating teams themselves on that group, and we came together, really, to look at a lot of research—some that this committee had a hand in itself—on how public services boards and partnership structures in Wales can be most effective, and what we can do collectively to get us towards that.

So, as Derek's already mentioned, we had a conference, a get-together, a couple of weeks ago in Newport, and we are focusing at the moment on three strands of work. The first pertains to part of your question about the well-being assessments. It's been felt by public services boards and by some of those national bodies themselves that regional partnership boards and public services boards are undertaking their assessments on well-being and population need at the same time, and to much the same purpose. Some locally and regionally in the last round of assessments already did those in parallel or together. So, we are working, as a national group, on non-statutory guidance with the Welsh Government to try to align those processes as much as possible this time around, learning much from the twice before that we've done this.

The second part of the focus of that national group is what we are leading on, what the future generations commissioner's team is leading on, which is looking at how we monitor and show impact of public services boards. Of course, the legislation talks about public services boards having well-being plans, reporting annually on those, but we hear time and time again that the real value of partnership working isn't using the five ways of working—those relationships, that trust that gets built up. We saw it in COVID that people were able to react quickly at a collaborative level because in Wales we have those relationships. We're lucky—we're a small enough country to have those strong relationships and to have those mechanisms like PSBs in place. As Derek said, if they didn't exist, we'd invent them.

Thirdly, we're looking at sharing that good practice more effectively across Wales. The energy in the room in Newport the other week was brilliant, because people really like learning from each other, and more and more online that isn't happening as much anymore. So, that national group has that focus as well, as we're moving into this critical time, this new phase of well-being assessments and plans. Diolch.

Thank you very much. I wonder if we—[Interruption.] Very, very briefly, Helen Nelson.

I wanted to just add, if I may, about the work we're doing on climate adaptation through PSBs, because, at the moment—. We made a recommendation in the future generations report, because only half of the PSBs had a climate change risk assessment, that we wanted all of them to have a climate change risk assessment to feed into the well-being assessment. So, all of them now have either got one or are working on one. We are supporting that organisation, and PSBs are the perfect place for that collaboration. So, that data will feed into the well-being assessments.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Julie Morgan.

Thank you. Prynhawn da. I was going to ask you about working with the Welsh Government. You obviously have requests from the Welsh Government to work with them. Could you give us an assessment of what those requests are like, and how do they compare with requests from other bodies?

I'll give you a flavour of the type of requests that we get, and we do welcome them. We get early contact, for example, from teams to input into the development of legislation, the development of strategies or the development of policies. In terms of the environmental governance Bill that I've mentioned, we were involved at an early stage, before anything was published, to give our view on how that should be developed and considered. And there are many, many examples of that.

We work with the Welsh Government in terms of the budget-setting process, as another example. Perhaps this is an area that we've been most frustrated with, both me and my predecessor, but we seek to—. We advise them on how they apply the Act to the setting of budgets and how they implement the five ways of working as part of the budget-setting process. We sit on various groups around the budget process as that's being developed. And that happens either with us initiating it, or with the Welsh Government initiating it, and we do welcome it when the Welsh Government initiate it.

We also have a very collaborative working arrangement with the sustainable development team, which is our lead link department. We have independent roles, of course, but there are overlapping roles too in terms of support. With the development of the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act 2023, for example, who is going to go out there and support public bodies and trade unions around the new legislation and the new roles that respective partners have in the new legislation? It's important that we connect in with that team to make sure that we don't seek to do the same area of work, and whether they're going to lead or we're going to lead on providing that advice and guidance. Sometimes that's not always clear in the legislation, so it requires those conversations.

I meet regularly with Ministers, of course. I've sought to do a whole round of meetings with the Cabinet before the Senedd elections, and those meetings take place on a regular basis. Often, we do lots of public challenge, but we do lots of private challenge as well, where we're concerned about decisions or where the Act is not being applied and seek to make those changes.

I've probably missed something there, but the other big area, I guess, is that my predecessor undertook a section 20 review—the most formal power for the commissioner—into the Welsh Government's implementation of the legislation. As a result of that, there's a continuous learning improvement plan that the Welsh Government committed to delivering so they can better embed the well-being of future generations Act across the organisation. We meet with them regularly to scrutinise their delivery of that plan. We haven't just done the review, made the recommendations and left it at that; we continue to support them to deliver on the recommendations as they've gone through. Similarly, we did that with procurement.

Then, there are other examples as well. I'm meeting with the senior civil service tomorrow and the Permanent Secretary to talk about the future generations report and my expectations of the Welsh Government in terms of the delivery of that report, to reiterate that. So, yes, those are some of the things that we do.

When you talked about the budget setting, you said you were frustrated and so was your predecessor. Can you explain why you were frustrated?

Well, we're frustrated because, when you look at—. It's not just us saying this; when other organisations have looked at approaches to well-being around the world, Wales does really well in terms of having legislation, having and independent commissioner as part of the scrutiny, having a process whereby public bodies have to commit and put plans in place, action orientated, having national indicators. The key components of a well-being framework for a Government are mostly there, but when you look at budgets, we're not there. Others will say this as well. That's why there are a few things that I and my predecessor have been calling for. One is applying the five ways of working to the development of the budget and showing your workings. The Welsh Government do say they do it, but they don't always tell us and you can't see how that's taken place and what decision that's led to. So, we've said that. We've seen some improvement, to be fair, but it could be better.

On the alignment of the budget setting to the well-being objectives of the Welsh Government and to the national indicators, we're all meant to be working towards the goals and the indicators. How are the budgets aligning to the indicators? How are they delivering on our national goals? That isn't always set out in the legislation.

The other part—and it is one of the five ways of working, of course—is how you take a much longer term approach to budget setting, which I know is challenging for the Welsh Government, but I do think that we could've done more in that space. There's an opportunity now, with the Welsh spending review—and I met with them just a couple of weeks ago on this—to embed a longer term approach to budget setting through that process. So, those are the types of things that we've been arguing for. We say that to the Finance Committee in the Senedd, we say that to Ministers, we meet with the finance Minister before each budget, and, each year, there's an iterative change and improvement, but it's not the substantial change that we would like to see.

So, there's a lot to do there.

There's a lot to do there, yes.

And then, in terms of meeting with people and engaging with people, you said it was very important to engage with the First Minister, for example. What about your engagement with the First Minister?

I meet regularly with the First Minister once or twice a year. This First Minister and previous First Ministers have always been keen and happy to meet with me and my predecessor, as commissioners, and to hear from us about what we're finding and what we're recommending to the Welsh Government. So, it's been a positive relationship. One of the things that I seek to do in those meetings—and successive First Ministers could be better at this—is about really leading from the front about this legislation and owning it, being proud of it and talking about it. That does happen—it's unfair to say that it doesn't happen—but this needs to be led from the front and public bodies will also follow, and so I do encourage that in those meetings.

Right. Thank you. Finally from me, I think you said you were quite happy for the responsibility of the Act being split across different areas, but now you're under one Cabinet Minister, so I wondered what you felt about that.

Well, I always have said that the responsibility should sit with the First Minister, and that remains my view. This is the vision and direction for our country, it covers every area of work and it should sit with the First Minister. At the moment, it mainly sits with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, who has a long-standing commitment to the legislation and an interest in the legislation. So, we meet, I think, six monthly to talk about progress and for me to feed back on the work of Welsh Government, and that's a strong, constructive relationship. At the last meeting, I talked about the Welsh Government's response to the future generations report. Frankly, I thought it could've been stronger, and we went through some of the points with the Cabinet Secretary at that meeting and, as a result, she agreed to review some of the specific responses that we'd had from the Welsh Government, and it was agreed that we would—and this is ongoing—look at the whole response from the Welsh Government to strengthen it. So, yes, it's a regular positive relationship.

Okay. Thank you.

Can I ask Mick Antoniw to come in?

Thank you, Chair. Just as you talked about advising departments in terms of the Government on legislation and budgets, equally so, the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee made a recommendation, which I think you've been supportive of, which is that, in setting your own budgets and operation, you need some degree of certainty in terms of future planning, and so on. That was a recommendation I think you've accepted. I'm just wondering how the budget process has impacted on your ability to be able to plan your office and the work of the future generations committee. Has that form of support materialised or are there still difficulties?

It's not quite materialised in the way that I would like it.

How has it materialised, then?

We have the opportunity to put forward a statutory estimate for what we believe we need in order to do the work of the office. This will be common to the rest of the public sector, so I'm not saying it isn't, but what we believe we need to do the job exceeds what we get in terms of an agreement, but the statutory estimate process doesn't always feel like an effective one. What we're putting together in terms of the statutory estimate is often having to be submitted quite late in the day when the Welsh Government have already come to draft conclusions about what the budget should look like. It's usually difficult to see changes that have been made to the budget as a result of what we put in our statutory estimate, if that makes sense. We're getting a standard 2 per cent increase in line with everyone else, not in line with where we've said, 'We've got a particular issue here, and this justifies a different settlement this time.' I think there can be improvements, certainly, in how the statutory estimate process takes place.

We are lucky, I guess, compared with other commissioners, in that we're able to seek funding from elsewhere. We can't make a profit, but we can draw in income from elsewhere. Because we've got a very broad remit, everything is in scope of the well-being of future generations Act, it gives us opportunity to draw in income from elsewhere. I'm frantically looking for the figure here, but over the last number of years—. We've brought in £2.9 million over the last nine years in addition to our core income. Some of this is to do with the future generations leadership academy, which enables us to do more because we're able to draw in this additional income. That helps with our budget, because we're able to, I guess, be entrepreneurial a bit in the sense of where we can bring money in from to deliver on this work.

I'm not so much concerned about the amount. There's always an argument in terms of needing more and so on. I understand the pressures that are there. But, of course, the point PAPAC was making was about the certainty of being able to plan ahead, which means needing to know what you're going to get this year, potentially indications of what you'll get the following year, rather than working from budget to budget. What you seem to be describing is that not much has changed.

I think that's right. It's still a budget-to-budget decision-making process. That's exactly right. That hasn't changed.

Okay, so very little progress on that particular aspect. You jumped ahead to something I want to ask about, which is the additional funding that you are able to raise. Averaged out, it amounts to about £0.25 million a year—not insignificant, but not groundbreaking. What are your perspectives on this issue of raising money? Firstly, where has it come from? Has it just diverted work that you are doing into other areas to be able to raise money, or is it still part of your core work? How do you see this aspect developing? Because it's an interesting concept for a commissioner, isn't it, to be actually fundraising around, potentially, I suppose, offering your services in certain areas. Can you perhaps just let us have a little bit more information about precisely how that has worked and what it amounts to?

I take your point. It's not easy to even bring in that income. We'd love for it to be bigger than that, but that's not a small amount of money. I guess there are a few points I would make on that. Firstly, it allows us to do additional things, so it has to be used for additional things. Running the future generations leadership academy is the main way in which this income is raised. Some of our team who are funded from core funding are supporting that initiative, running the finances and the HR and so forth, but basically we're asking for a sponsorship fee for people to fund either a staff member or someone else to go on our future generations leadership academy.

That comes from some public bodies and some outside. We get generous support from the Principality Building Society. They had a three-year commitment, and I think that amounts to £40,000 a year to contribute to the future generations leadership academy. We have others such as the Pobl Group—I think they're the Codi Group now—a housing association that supported two places last year. But then some public bodies like NRW, Public Health Wales and the Welsh Government also fund places on the programme. That gives us additional funding to run the programme. We do get additional funding—

Just on that programme, to what extent does that programme really fit in with the remit you have as a commissioner? I can understand it raises money, and I know there are concerns about the nature of leadership academies and what they actually are—almost an institutionalisation of leadership, politics or whatever. But to what extent is that a core area of work, or is it just something that you do because you can get some funding for it? Is it not a distraction from your core work?

No, it's absolutely not a distraction, first of all. This is additional funding that enables us to continue the focus of the office without drawing heavily on the core funding of the office. It's also in line with the responsibilities of the commissioner. I've talked about the training that we provide to the wider public sector; this is a leadership training offer to many people who are able then to take action within their public bodies and in private and third sector organisations. It's in line with the type of work we're doing anyway, so it's not something completely different from that.

I think the bigger point is that there are opportunities—and this is something we're looking at now—for us to grow this, potentially. In response to Altaf's questions, we do get a lot of interest and demand from others outside of the public sector. As we've said, we always prioritise public sector support, but should others not be able to provide it—and we could charge for providing this, so it would give us additional resources—that might be something for me to consider.

We are going to take this to my risk and audit committee in April, I think, to discuss the risks and opportunities for doing so, but I think it's definitely worth exploring. People are interested in the well-being of future generations Act; they're wanting to work with that. Why don't we capitalise on that for wider public benefit?

I understand—

Hang on a minute, Mick. I think Helen Nelson wanted to add something.

I just wanted to reinforce everything Derek just said. Change happens in lots of different ways in an organisation; it doesn't always happen linear, top-down. The creativity and the energy you get from 200 young people now in the alumni of that academy—. The energy and the creativity they bring to making change happen in their own organisations is really fantastic to see. We need that energy in the system, because peers listen to peers. If you want young people coming through to act on this, you need the young people showing them the way to do it. I think it's a huge asset to our offer.

Thank you for that. I will move on to two other areas that tie together. One is in respect of legislation. Again, one of the recommendations from PAPAC was that, with legislation, there should be some form of impact assessment on your remit. That obviously partly goes over in terms of ensuring that you're funded to be able to carry out your functions with new legislation, but also in terms of the nature and implementation of legislation. I've never been completely clear about what was being recommended, but it seemed to me that, more comprehensively, you're talking about when there is legislation, there should be some sort of future generations impact assessment. What are your thoughts on that?

Do you mean of the public bodies' delivery, an impact assessment of their delivery of the future generations Act, or of my office?

I'm thinking in terms of legislation that is passed and how it's implemented, and what the impact of it then is on those public bodies that have to implement, but also the impact it has, because obviously you then have a responsibility to oversee that and to monitor it.

I think I'm clear now. One of the recommendations that we've made is for the next Welsh Government to undertake a post-legislative review of the legislation to consider its impact robustly over the last 10 or so years, in the way that you've done so as a committee, and understand, hopefully drawing on recommendations that you'll soon make, and then make further changes to help the legislation work more effectively in the decades to come. That was the recommendation that we made.

In terms of my office, I just wanted to say this, because it's worth sharing this with you: one of the recommendations that you made to me when I did my hearing before I was appointed was that we need to have a better monitoring framework for the work of my office. That hadn't been in place previously. We now have that key performance indicator framework in place, so that we know, and you know, how well we're doing against the performance indicators we have as an office. We report that in our annual report. It's not a perfect exercise, but it's there to be much more open and transparent about the impact that we're having in a way that we weren't able to do before.

Thank you for that. That actually brought me to the final point I was going to ask about. In terms of those metrics, how successful have you been? You've mentioned a number of the successes. You mentioned the living wage and so on. And of course, in the past, we've had similar sorts of things, such as Investors in People and things, which were sort of attempting to badge and create standards in the private and public sectors. How have you performed against the metrics and what do you think are the areas where you feel that maybe you haven't succeeded as you should have, or have failed, in fact?

I'll bring Helen in, because she did the lead work on the development of this. It's a complicated picture, isn't it, but we've developed a framework of three tiers, and the first tier is rooting our progress against the national indicators. In terms of an area where we could see better progress, it's delivery against our milestones and national indicators. The top tier is that we're always thinking about how our work can support public bodies to deliver on the goals that the Welsh Government has set itself and the indicators that it has set itself. And then we have two other layers. We don't want to spend all our time doing monitoring and assessment of ourselves, so we tried to make it as smart as possible. The second layer looks at the future generations report recommendations and whether they're being implemented, because that's a bit more of a black and white exercise. The third level is more outputs rather than outcomes, so the quality of our training and advice, what stakeholders are telling us, the amount of training and support we're offering. Sorry, I've probably given the answer now, haven't I, Helen? I was going to bring you in to say that. You go, Helen.

Thank you. It was important to us to have those KPIs to look at our own performance in terms of outputs and number of trainings, to track all of that, but then to sort of link that to the bigger picture of where we're trying to get to in Wales, which is the goals, the indicators, and then looking at the outcomes that public bodies themselves are achieving through the future generations report recommendations. So, we've got the three-tier approach. It's still bedding in. I think, ultimately, our main measures of success are: are public bodies are using the well-being of future generations Act—we can track that through the indicators, we can track that through the FG report recommendations; are the 'Cymru Can' missions influencing what public bodies do—again, we can track that through the future generations report and training et cetera; and are people using our tools and resources. Because we're tracking and we're using those three main measures of success—we have got some secondary measures of success, but they're the three main ones—I think we can start to have a bit more of an understanding of not just our progress as an organisation but public bodies' progress and Wales's progress towards the vision encompassed in the well-being of future generations Act. So, it's not a perfect system, but I think it's a better system than we had before.

Thank you for that, Chair. That ends my questions.

Thank you very much. Sioned Williams, would you like to come in?

Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. Looking towards the future, one of the things that we haven't discussed this afternoon is section 20 reviews. You've told us previously that you're expecting to announce a section 20 review soon. when can we expect this, and how might this be different to previous section 20 reviews?

Thank you for the question. We will announce it after the Welsh Government elections, probably in May or June, because we have a number of options, but we have a favoured option, which we're going to consider and look at, probably. But we don't want to finalise what that looks like until we see the new programme for government, because that might help us to understand is something already being committed to, is there an opportunity for us to provide advice on something that the new Government is looking to put into place. So, we'll revise it in that way. And that's why we're waiting. Because if we announced it now, and then things change radically, then we would have start again, potentially.

The two differences, I would say, about the next section 20 review is, firstly, the previous ones have been very important and impactful. And I'm really not wanting to criticise them at all, because they've made a difference, but this will be much more around a policy area than it will be around a process. So, it will be looking at a particular policy area, and I'm really keen, to go back to Jane's earlier question, that this is on a subject that matters to the people of Wales, that they think, 'Thank goodness the commissioner is looking at this issue, because it's clearly a long-term issue for our country that we need to get right.' So, that's part of the criteria. There are more detailed criteria than that, but it's a policy area rather than looking at a public body or a process kind of issue.

The other area, learning from the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, and the other approach that's going to be different, is that we are going to do a better involvement process before we finalise the subject matters. So, as well as looking at what the Welsh Government programme for government is, this area of work, without giving too much away, is a big topic area. It could absorb all our time for years to come. We will ask key stakeholders and the public where they think we should give our focus to in this broader topic area, so that we properly understand where the opportunities for influence are, and where we can make the most difference, before precisely designing the scope of the section 20 review.

Thank you. You mentioned there the importance of choosing a topic that's important to the people of Wales. How will you get that input? What sort of mechanism are you hoping to get in order to decide what is important to the people of Wales?

Well, partly, that will be done on the basis of the process that I've just talked about, but we're also drawing on a particular area that we get a lot of correspondence on, a lot of contact on. We know—. We get a lot of correspondence generally, people often contacting the office for advice and raising concerns, and one of the sources of information is what the public is raising with us. It's also based on—. This has got to be helpful to public bodies, and this is an issue that public bodies are raising with us—leaders, others in public organisations—all the time, and asking for advice, and have been encouraging us to intervene. So, there are a number of reasons why we're justifying it, but those are part of the justifications and why we know it's going to be an issue that matters.

Thank you. And in looking forward to this election, you mentioned at the beginning that you'd published your report to influence parties' manifestos, and that it comes at a critical time, you said, in a critical period. What do you therefore feel is the one key ask of the next Welsh Government in relation to the legislation?

I struggle to give you one. We've been—. Just to give you a sense of how these conversations have been going, the report is there, it's neutral, and it's for all political parties, and we've sought to engage with all political parties around what the recommendations are saying. Let's not be in a position where we're having to retrofit a programme for government that hasn't considered the long-term implications of policies, and then I'm having to sort of argue or put the point when the new Government is in place.

There are many recommendations that have piqued interest amongst the political parties, and some political parties are more interested in some areas than others. But if I were to choose two themes, perhaps the general themes of my report and the future generations report—they're things that the Chair has mentioned already. One is around prevention. Generally, we can't afford to keep ignoring prevention. And the second one is around involvement, involving the people of Wales in the decisions that are affecting them. We see growing pushback, don't we, right across the piece, whether it be on energy, infrastructure or 20 mph, or whatever it might be, some of the initiatives that are clearly aligned to sustainable development and long-term thinking, and people not seeing the benefit to them, and not feeling that they're properly heard in the decision-making process. We know—and I know you will all be familiar with it—that public trust in politicians is not in a strong place. So, we have to be better at hearing and listening to people when we're taking decisions that affect them. When you see it happen well, we get to better decisions and we get to buy-in and we get to swifter implementation. But we're not doing that consistently across the public sector at the moment.

Thank you. You mentioned there that you've had discussions with the political parties and, of course, published your report in good time, as you mentioned at the beginning. Is there anything else that your office is doing to prepare for the Senedd elections and a new Government?

Yes, so we are planning a number of things. We've had contact with the Senedd secretariat recently about making sure we provide briefing materials to the new elected MSs, when they come into the role. We're hoping to do that in collaboration. Clearly, we can do that directly ourselves when the new politicians are elected. So, we don't want to start from scratch. With a lot of new MSs coming in, some of them won't be familiar with the legislation. Wales can't afford to wait for the new intake to get up to speed with the legislation. So, we have to go in early with good advice and information about what the Act is about, why it's important, why it's making a difference, and how they have a role in the delivery of this. Their job, in terms of scrutinising the next Welsh Government, if they're not in the Welsh Government, to deliver on this, is critical. One of the proposals that I'll be asking for them to consider is a committee like this on future generations, so that, as well as me, there's a standing committee, like they have in Finland, that is constantly scrutinising the delivery of Welsh Government in terms of the well-being of future generations Act. Because, clearly, this is a big part of your role, but it's not the only part of your role, and it's fundamental that this prism is added to decision making in Wales. So, I think that would be something we definitely need to consider in the next Senedd.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Just a couple of things from me. I'm glad you mentioned involvement. I wondered what assessment you may have made of the Llais consultation with people who use health services, and the manifesto they came up with, which, in English, is called, I think, 'We Want', and I can't remember what the Welsh version is. But I imagine you may be familiar with that, are you?

I am familiar with it, but not very familiar with it. I'm actually doing some stuff with Llais next week. So, in terms of the recommendations, I'm not up to speed in the way, perhaps, I should be about what they've called for. But I do know—. I think they called it a national conversation, didn't they, as part of their manifesto development, and I haven't looked at the ins and outs of the practical way in which they did that. But the intention to involve people broadly across Wales in their manifesto development seems to be a very positive thing, yes.

Yes, okay. I thought their recommendations were very straightforward for all political parties: the fact you've got to have collaborative arrangements, that people don't have to spend their whole life repeating their stories, and things like that.

Lastly, just to go back to your office and efficiency and effectiveness, productivity is a big challenge for Wales, and I wondered if you could just tell us about the previous work you've done on having an optional shorter working week in your office, and whether that's something that you think would enable you to increase your efficiency and effectiveness, as well as the well-being of your staff.

Yes, we believe it does. We undertook a review of the shorter working week when I came in, because it wasn't working quite as well as it might have done, because we were finding a situation where some people were able to use it, and other people were not able to use it. That causes tension, and that's clearly unfair. So, rather than—. We have a shorter working week, which is now, if you're a full-time worker, over four and a half days rather than five days. It's very flexible, on both sides, so many staff are often not taking those—. They're having to work longer than that. But it's clearly well viewed by the staff team. We have a high retention rate for our team. I'm very lucky to have a very talented and hard-working team, more generally. When we review this, and we ask the staff team, it's one of the key reasons why they are keen to work with us, and they think it's very good for their productivity.

But it's not just us saying this. We, in line with other public bodies, have an internal audit function; they undertake, I think, four internal audits per year with us. We get 'substantial' or 'reasonably' rated—'reasonably rated' doesn't sound too good, does it, but it's quite a good rating—each time. So, they tell us how we can improve our efficiencies and effectiveness. They're looking at one in terms of line management and performance management at the moment. When they make recommendations, where possible, we seek to implement them, as a way of improving our operational effectiveness. Similarly—I know this is more in the finance space—we've always, in my time, had a clean audit from Audit Wales as well. So, the external assurance that I get from internal and external audit about the effectiveness and the quality of the work of my team has been very high.

Thank you very much. Jane, you wanted—

Yes. Just one more question.

I'll do it in English, to make it faster. There's probably going to be a change in Government in May. How are you going to make sure that we don't lose time in terms of your priorities? So, if you went to the new First Minister, or a First Minister, what would be your three messages, three priorities, that you would want to give to that First Minister to take forward? You've touched on a few of them, but I'm just—. Again, it's the elevator pitch—it's trying to say what you are actually going to expect them to take on, and what you want to say to them.

It's a really good question. I'll be making this pitch to senior civil servants, to some extent, tomorrow. It's their responsibility to deliver, as the First Minister, on the well-being of future generations Act. I'm there to support and advise and so forth, but it's the responsibility of our public bodies, led by the next Welsh Government First Minister, to deliver on this ambitious programme, and they need to lead it from the front. This is also an agenda that's not just been set by Welsh Government. We had 'The Wales We Want' conversation, where the public were involved in putting together this ambition, so the public expects them to deliver on this legislation.

The second point I would say is we've got to close the gap between the ambition and the implementation. It's all very well to talk about having great legislation, but it's not enough if it's not delivering for the people of Wales, now and tomorrow. So, look at the national indicators—these are your measures of success. If we're not improving our performance against some of these national indicators, then we will be failing.

I guess the third issue, which is perhaps easier to say during an election campaign, less easy to do when you're in office, is this involvement in prevention point. They are fundamental to getting this right, to turning around some of our areas of performance in this country, and to bringing people with us on the journey that we need to take. So, give attention in particular to those areas.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Your timing is immaculate. [Laughter.] Thank you very much indeed.

Diolch yn fawr.

We'll obviously send you a transcript for you to review and make sure that it's accurate. Otherwise, thank you very much indeed for the accuracy and precision of your answers. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And I should say at the end, 'Thank you very much to the committee.' I guess this will be the last time we meet in the course of this Senedd term. Thank you, in particular to the Chair, but also to you as committee members. It's been a very positive and constructive relationship and we’ve very much valued your input, advice, constructive criticism to the work of our office, and the way in which you've also received our reports and our recommendations. So, diolch yn fawr and good luck for the future. Thank you.

That's what we’re here for. Thank you very much.