The next item is item 7, the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee and the Equality and Social Justice Committee debate on the well-being of future generations Act 2015: scrutiny of implementation. I call on the Chair of the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee to move the motion—Mark Isherwood.

Motion NDM7841 Mark Isherwood, Jenny Rathbone

To propose that the Senedd:

Notes:

a) the Report of the Public Accounts Committee of the Fifth Senedd, Delivering for Future Generations: The story so far, laid in the Table Office 17 March 2021;

b) the Welsh Government response to the Committee’s Report, published on 5 October 2021;

c) the Auditor General for Wales’s response to the Committee’s Report, dated August 2021;

d) the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales’s response to the Committee’s Report dated 3 September 2021;

e) the Llywydd’s response to the Committee’s Report dated 22 September 2021;

f) the Welsh Government response to the Auditor General for Wales’s Report, So, what’s different? Findings from the Auditor General’s Sustainable Development Principle Examinations, dated 8 October 2021; and

g) the Welsh Government response to the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales’s Report, The Future Generations Report 2020, dated 8 October 2021.

Motion moved.

Well, I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak in this joint committee debate as Chair of the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee. Joint committee debates are uncommon and this debate highlights the importance of the Senedd taking a collaborative, non-partisan approach to scrutinising the well-being of future generations Act 2015. This aspirational flagship legislation cuts across all we do here in Wales to ensure that our public services deliver efficiently and sustainably for our future generations.

Several months ago, my predecessor stood in this Siambr and spoke about the findings of the then Public Accounts Committee's report on 'Delivering for Future Generations: The story so far'. The report found that inconsistent leadership and slow culture change were failing the aspirations of the Act, since it became law six years ago. It was the first time that a Senedd committee had conducted comprehensive scrutiny of implementation of the Act, with 97 organisations contributing to the inquiry. It was complex work that focused on looking at the bigger picture and what barriers to implementation were common to most, if not all, public services. It took a broad view on the fundamental problems lying behind everyone's efforts to implement the Act. Our predecessor committee's report made 14 recommendations mainly aimed at the Welsh Government.

On 5 October 2021, the Minister for Social Justice made a plenary statement on the well-being of future generations national implementation. The statement was broad, and while it made reference to the previous Public Accounts Committee report, it was not a response to the recommendations contained in it. At that time, the Welsh Government had still not published its responses to all three reports that had looked at the implementation of the Act, including the first statutory reports by the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales and the Auditor General for Wales, published in May 2020.

Responding to the Minister's statement, I expressed concern that it was not possible to have an adequate debate without all of the relevant responses being available, adding that a worrying precedent was being set in the way the Welsh Government responded to these reports and that this unusual approach must not happen again. I raised concerns about the Welsh Government's response of accepting in principle the majority of the recommendations in the committee's report, despite assertions we received previously that this practice would cease. It is the collective view of the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee that the use of 'accept in principle' must not be used in response to committee reports again and recommendations must be either accepted or rejected. When further work is required to implement a recommendation, or if a deadline for implementation cannot be met, this should be set out clearly in the detail of the response.

Since the Minister's statement, the Welsh Government has now published its responses to all three reports looking at the Act, and today, we have the opportunity to debate these fully. However, this has only been brought about by the proactive and pragmatic joint approach taken by myself and the Chair of the Equality and Social Justice Committee in requesting this joint debate. I hope that this signifies and sends out a clear message about the seriousness with which Senedd committees approach their scrutiny and discharge our duties of holding the Welsh Government to account.

Implementation of the Act depends on cultural change that needs to begin with awareness and understanding at all levels of public bodies.

Time and again, we've heard that not enough has been done to achieve this and bring about the shift to sustainable development across public services that the Act seeks to deliver. We can all appreciate that raising awareness and understanding and changing culture take time. However, the Act was passed nearly six years ago.

Although public bodies have had adequate time and the opportunity to take those vital steps towards embedding sustainable development in all public services, we are simply not seeing words translate into tangible action. It is still not clear what difference the Act has made to the way that public bodies operate. More work is needed to support public bodies charged with implementing the Act, to understand not only the seven well-being goals, but also the five ways of working set out in the Act.

In his statutory report, the auditor general states that public bodies must improve how they apply each of the five ways of working if they are going to effect genuine cultural change—the very essence of the Act. From his earlier 2018 report, the auditor general asked public bodies how their process for setting well-being objectives had differed from how they had set corporate objectives previously. Most said that it had been different, but often failed to give a detailed explanation of how, or give examples of how they had used all of the five ways of working.

Yet, a further three years on, we are still asking the same question. Without this shift in cultural change, we cannot overcome the barriers to implementing this Act. The five ways of working must take centre stage as we look to make real gains in sustainable development, including involvement and collaboration. As Building Communities Trust states, we must highlight the key role that communities and their organisations play in delivering the future generations Act's ambitions of improved well-being citizen involvement and collaboration. 

The auditor general is responsible for assessing the extent to which public bodies have adopted the sustainable development principle when setting and working towards their well-being objectives. In practice, this means that he is responsible for assessing whether bodies are adopting the five ways of working.

In response to the recommendations made to the auditor general in our predecessor committee's report, we welcome the updated guidance that he has issued to auditors, which raises expectations of audited bodies in adopting the sustainable development principle. We also welcome his statement that public bodies should ensure that the Act's principles are enshrined in their COVID recovery plans.

Recommendation 2 of our predecessor committee’s report called on the Welsh Government to review funding available to public services boards, or PSBs. In its response, the Welsh Government says that it considers

'on an annual basis, the package of funding and support we make available directly to PSBs and will be looking at how we can raise awareness of the range of funding sources available to them.'

The Welsh Government also states that it commits to working with PSBs to better understand how they are resourced. However, since PSBs are not directly funded by the Welsh Government, we seek clarification from the Minister on the approach that will be taken to consider the package of funding received by PSBs on an annual basis.

Recommendation 7 asked that consideration should be given to which bodies are covered by the Act, particularly as a number of new bodies have been subsequently established. The Welsh Government states that it will complete a review by summer 2022, engaging with Audit Wales as part of this work. However, we would expect the future generations commissioner to be fully involved in this review also, and note that no similar commitment to engage with the commissioner has been made that we are aware of.

In response to recommendation 8, we note that, following the Senedd elections in May, the Welsh Government has moved to term of Government remit letters, the remits of which will be applied from the current 2021-22 financial year. The response adds that the framework for the new remit letters includes a requirement to fully meet the well-being duty set out in the Act. This Act became law in 2015. So, my question to the Minister is why the decision has only been taken now to frame remit letters around the Act and how this will work in practice.

In summing up, it is clear implementation of the Act is being restrained by far too many barriers. The Welsh Government has committed to addressing these, but progress has been slow. There is no clear pathway to addressing these barriers, and we stress that implementation of all legislation requires monitoring, evaluation and a clear timetable for action. The Welsh Government needs to take the lead by setting a clear direction of travel, to enable us as a Senedd, and Wales as a country, to take collective responsibility for reshaping public services for the better.

Finally, there remains much work for us in the Senedd to do in monitoring implementation of the Act and undertaking post-legislative scrutiny. I welcome the response from the Senedd's Business Committee in accepting the recommendations directed at it, that consideration be given to how scrutiny of the Act should be taken forward. I'm pleased that in establishing the sixth Senedd committees, the remit of the Equality and Social Justice Committee includes this Act. The Business Committee also stated that this scrutiny should not be done in isolation from the work of the other committees, and I look forward to working collaboratively with the Equality and Social Justice Committee and ensuring that the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee will maintain a key role in this work. Diolch.

I call on the Chair of the Equality and Social Justice Committee, Jenny Rathbone.

Thank you. I'd like to use this opportunity to pay tribute to Nick Ramsay, who chaired the Public Accounts Committee, and this report he headed, and he said in his foreword that, ultimately, making the well-being of future generations Act work

'depends on everyone and every public body.'

Though, of course, it sits more heavily on some than others. It is our core duty as a Senedd to hold the Welsh Government and the other 43 bodies named in the Act to account, and it can be quite challenging to keep the five ways of working in mind as strategies for delivering all the seven well-being goals: prosperous, resilient, globally responsible, healthier, more equal and more cohesive communities, which have a vibrant culture, including a thriving Welsh language.

This morning on the radio, I was presciently reminded that

'The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored.'

And the quote, from Ina May Gaskin, operating in the most overmedicalised and wealthiest country in the world, where women's role in reproducing the human race is deemed so unimportant that it provides them with little to no financial or legal rights in law.

But this institution, and the Welsh Government, is not responsible, for example, for the constant erosion of child benefit by the UK Government at the other end of the M4. However, we obviously have a huge responsibility for ensuring any child born today has the best possible chance of being prosperous, resilient, healthy and globally responsible, as an active member of a cohesive, more equal, vibrant and at least bilingual country and citizen of the world. Given the unprecedented challenges occasioned by the pandemic, the economic upheavals of adjusting to a dysfunctional globalised economy that is no longer fit for purpose in the context of the climate emergency, if the well-being of future generations Act didn't exist, we would have to invent it. So, 'da iawn' and thank you so much, Carl Sargeant, and all the other people who were involved in creating this Act. It really does provide us with a crucial framework for providing our way through the complexities of the decisions we need to make with really very limited resources. We have no choice but to ask, 'What can we do differently in order to achieve the change I hope we can make on behalf of the people who elected us to do this job?'

In line with recommendation 13 and 14, the Business Committee has assigned to the Equality and Social Justice Committee the lead cross-cutting role of scrutinising this revolutionary Act, but that does not absolve members of other committees. We all have to take the Act just as seriously as the 44 public bodies we must scrutinise. Every committee must see it as their responsibility to incorporate the principles and aims of the Act in their day-to-day work.

So, just focusing a little bit on these legacy reports, obviously, the big report is the one that was produced in I think it was May 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. And the work of the committee—the Public Accounts Committee—which I was on, was, in turn, postponed because of the pandemic, quite rightly. So, I can see that, for new Members, it could be quite confusing to work out why are we discussing this now, when there's such a long tail to this story.

But I think that I want to have a look, in particular, at the role of public services boards, which really are a crucial driver in the changes we need to make. And looking at recommendation 2 and the reasons why we wrote it that way, some public services boards are much further along the journey of cultural change than others and they, in turn—PSBs are constantly on the move. We started with 22; at the time of the PAC report publication, we had 19; and now, with the radical amalgamation of five local authorities—Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen, Caerphilly, Monmouth and Newport—into Gwent PSB, I think we have both a very exciting leader on the role that PSBs can play, but also it tells you that they are very different. But I wonder if the Minister could say a little bit more on how the Government thinks PSBs should be nurtured to take forward their role. This is not about giving them budgets, because the whole point of PSBs is that they don't have budgets; it's about getting them to work together and deliver on the Act. But I think it really does merit further elaboration on how the Government sees the role of PSBs going forward and their near relation, the regional partnership boards.

I welcome this report, which represents a constructive and positive approach to making the well-being of future generations Act work better for the people of Wales. And like my colleague, who just spoke earlier about the people who took their time and effort—previous Members who participated in making the report—I appreciate their hard work and dedication, and also that of the clerks as well. Now, being a new member on the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee myself, I know that it really does take a village—also every single Member and not only that but all of the administrative team as well—to create a report like this as well.

This report specifically looks at the barriers to the implementation of the Act, as such, in both a timely and also a relevant manner. It is the first time a comprehensive review of the work carried out under the Act by the various bodies responsible for its implementation has indeed been carried out. But it does raise a number of issues. It is clear that there's a lack of public awareness about the Act and the shift that has taken place towards sustainable development in the governance and delivery of public services here in Wales. The report concludes that public bodies have not done enough to build awareness and understanding amongst their service users. They have not done enough to change the culture of their own organisations to align with the principles of the Act and are yet to take full advantage of the expertise and capacity within the third and private sectors to support their work under the Act.

We cannot look at the issue of implementation without examining the adequacy of funding. The Auditor General for Wales highlighted three main issues that present key barriers for organisations and the majority of witnesses mentioned at least one of them in their evidence. There is the short-term nature of some funding flows, which hamper the ability of public bodies to plan effectively for the long term; a lack of flexibility in how some parts of grant funding can be spent, and the fact that public bodies are only made aware of the availability of funding later on in the financial year. A significant proportion of the funding that public bodies receive from the Welsh Government is determined and awarded annually and it has been a long complaint that these short-term funding cycles are indeed a barrier for implementation. The report is sympathetic to the calls from public bodies for longer term funding cycles and makes the point that legislation that requires public bodies to plan for future generations is more difficult to implement properly if budgets are guaranteed for as little as one year at a time. 

Central to ensuring that sustainable development is at the front and centre of public services is the future generations commissioner. Feedback from public bodies and from wider stakeholders was that the commissioner's public profile was positive and that her office is doing an excellent job in promoting and raising awareness of the Act, which is all great to hear. However, some concerns were raised by public bodies about the lack of sufficient practical support that they received, the length of reports produced and the need to refocus the work of the commissioner's office to support them more effectively in their work. The report recommends that the future generations commissioner and Welsh public bodies work closely together to develop constructive relationships to maximise the impact of their collaboration.

Deputy Presiding Officer, it is good to see that the recommendations made to the Welsh Government in this report have been accepted or accepted in principle, but we all know, and so does the public, that seeing is believing, and the Welsh Government must not just pay lip service by accepting in principle, but ensure that these recommendations are indeed delivered. I believe that this report today indicates the clear determination of the Senedd to remove barriers to implementation of the Act and to ultimately encourage the structural changes and raising of awareness, which is vital in making it a reality. Thank you very much.

The well-being of future generations Act that passed through this Senedd has been hailed by many as world-leading legislation. I thank the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee for the opportunity to debate whether the reality of this legislation lives up to its reputation.

Although born from innovation and good faith, as the Act has unfolded over the past few years, it's clear it does not accomplish what it intended. Firstly, it's aspirational without being enforceable. Attempts to rely on the Act have been used in the judicial system on several occasions now, and have been thrown out of court every time for lack of enforceability. Its first attempted use was to challenge a school closure, but the case was dismissed in 2019 by High Court judge Mrs Justice Lambert, who said the Act could not trigger a judicial review. The QC bringing the case, Rhodri Williams, said:

'unless individuals can rely on these rights—if they feel they haven't been upheld—to challenge the decisions of public bodies, the act is virtually useless', despite it being filled with 'fantastic-sounding phrases'.

And doesn't it epitomise the problem? This Act isn't meant to be for the people and for it to empower communities to access the future they wish to see. This Act should have been a gift to communities across Wales, but instead it is toothless. It's clear that its mechanisms and influence need to be strengthened.

Another problem is that the Act isn't used or utilised correctly. The Wales Audit Office, who reviewed the impact of the Act in 2018, found that public bodies must show that they are applying the Act more systematically, prompting the future generations commissioner to call on public bodies to be more ambitious, adventurous and resourceful if the Act is to fulfil its potential. With a lack of capacity and resources to understand and analyse the implications of the Act, I fear public bodies view the Act as a tick-box exercise. One example is the sale of Trecadwgan farm in Pembrokeshire. The farm was put up for public auction in 2018 when the council's tenancy came to an end. Afraid that this would lead to a holiday cottage development, a group of local people planned to purchase the property as a community. Funds were raised and a business plan drawn up for an organic farm that would provide to its community healthy food, education and training in agricultural methods and a social and cultural hub. This would have met the well-being of future generations Act on its goals and principles. But, inevitably, without the council's buy-in to the well-being objectives, the property was sold to the highest bidder from outside Wales. The county council's reasoning for this was that by maximising profit from the sale to spend elsewhere, it was obtaining the best value for its constituents. The local people were powerless to challenge the decision and stuck with nothing but wasted potential and a result that did nothing to serve the local community.

In his evidence to the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee this week, the Rt Hon Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former chair of the Commission on Justice in Wales, stated that

'one of the problems with the future generations Act is that it is not specific and tight enough.'

It doesn't hold politicians sufficiently to account. I'm pleased that these comments are reiterated in the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee's report that we're discussing today. I completely agree with its recommendations that it's time for post-legislative scrutiny of the Act, and that Welsh Government should carry out a review of the public bodies subject to the Act, echoing the recommendations from the Auditor General for Wales. 

Also, key to all of this is also public engagement. To those who have engaged with the Act since its creation, such as the local group in Pembrokeshire, they saw some hope in the Act to work as a tool to help them build the community they wanted to see. We must empower and nurture that hope so that it isn't extinguished by the paralysis of the legislation. Diolch yn fawr.

As this is my first debate, since being elected, on the well-being of future generations Act, I'd like to start by thanking the many people who made this happen, especially many of those people behind the scenes, whose names we'll never probably know publicly, but who really did put their blood, sweat and tears into this trailblazing legislation. And I don't use that phrase lightly, because I really do believe the well-being of future generations Act is very much a labour of love and hope and determination to make a fairer, greener and happier Wales. And the beauty of the Act is that it forces us to look at our own point in history, this time right here and right now, not only as individuals, but as a species on this planet that we share with many others for a fraction of a time, because we have not always been the only humans here, but we are the only ones left.

And I think, as was starkly highlighted by many at COP26, including Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough, it is painfully obvious that some of our weaknesses as a species include being creatures of habit, resistant to change and relying on natural resources as if there is an endless supply. Our lives are busy and stressful, our population growing, and the gap between the poorest and the wealthiest in our society continues to grow. I believe the well-being of future generations Act is unique in forcing us to face these tendencies and issues together and think of the future, for not just ourselves, but others. It encapsulates the values of socialism: caring about strangers, people you'll never meet, people who aren't even born yet. As Jenny Rathbone just said, if it didn't exist, we would be trying to make it happen.

And you can very much see that reflected in the future generations commissioner's the 'Art of the Possible' programme of work partnership approach, shining a light on the great work that is improving well-being across Wales, encouraging people to set out a positive vision of the possible, of what Wales could look like if our public bodies respond to the opportunities that the legislation provides to make better decisions for future generations.

Furthermore, I think it is commendable to see that, with such a huge brief, with big goals and high expectations, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales's office is forging a path that incorporates the 17 sustainable development goals and aims to create an equal, prosperous, resilient and healthy Wales. This has been particularly relevant in the wake of COVID-19, and I'm pleased to see that our Welsh Government is considering the well-being of future generations Act in its recovery strategy to build a stronger, greener, fairer Wales, particularly in relation to the commissioner's 'A Fit for the Future Programme for Government', which includes specific ideas for investing in the decarbonisation of homes, the new nation transport strategy and the continuing development of skills policy.

But as well as sustainable goals, the Act is also about creating a Wales of cohesive communities with a vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language that is globally responsible and learns from others. We have very much seen these in the recommendations for universal basic income and a four-day work week by the commissioner, building on my colleague Jack Sargeant's campaigns for both. Both of these policies have been trialled in other countries and aim to provide people with more autonomy, time with loved ones, improved mental and physical well-being, as well as collective economic benefits. And now, in Wales, Welsh Government has committed to a two-year trial of UBI in both urban and rural areas across Wales, with many local authorities, like Rhondda Cynon Taf—not my own, but I know that they have—expressing an interest in holding the pilot. And recently as well, we had a big debate on the four-day work week, and the Deputy Minister, Hannah Blythyn, has committed to keeping an eye on the trials that are currently happening in Iceland and Scotland.

So, when it comes to the implementation of the Act, I believe the evidence demonstrates consistent, transparent and thorough scrutiny by Members of the Senedd, the future generations commissioner and the Auditor General for Wales. And I would like to pay tribute to the Members of the fifth Senedd and those in the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee. Along with my fellow members of the newly formed Equality and Social Justice Committee, chaired by Jenny Rathbone, I look forward to continuing this work to ensure that the well-being of future generations Act is achieving all that it is set out to do, in particular, recommendations 3, 4 and 11, which relate to strengthening relationships between the future generations commissioner and Welsh public bodies, as well as ensuring that the five ways of working are embedded in their plans for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, so that gains that have been made in the immediate response to the pandemic are not lost and that they shift their focus from day to day to long-term and prevention.

So, in conclusion, there is much that has been done in actually a very short amount of time with also a global pandemic happening, but there is still more that can be done and I welcome Welsh Government's continued commitment to demonstrating that the implementation of the well-being of future generations agenda is not an add-on activity and is being used to challenge, question and improve its current ways of working, so that more sustainable choices can always be considered.

I call on the Minister for Social Justice, Jane Hutt.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'd like to start by thanking the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee and the Equality and Social Justice Committee for their joint work in bringing forward this debate. The essential role that this Senedd, the Welsh Parliament, has in the well-being of future generations framework is one of the key features of the Welsh approach to sustainable development, and I do welcome the focus of the debate being on scrutiny of implementation. If we look across the world, parliaments are playing a key role in scrutinising action on the sustainable development agenda, but of course, we have a unique opportunity to debate this in light of our well-being of future generations legislation, which reached its five-year milestone last year. And the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales herself has reminded us that Wales is the only country to legislate in this way, using a long-term approach to look at root causes of problems in a law that's admired globally.

So, the Act, we believe—and I think it's been expressed today in this Chamber—is permeating and driving continuous improvement in how Government and public bodies work, so that future generations can expect a better quality of life on a healthy planet. The debate gives me the opportunity to show how the key duties in the Act have been implemented and recognise the efforts by all in making it work. So, public bodies have set their well-being objectives, published well-being statements about their contribution to the goals, and they are reporting each year on what they're doing. Public services boards have been established and assessments of local well-being have been completed; local well-being plans are in place and progress on them is being reported annually.

But I would like to respond to and thank Jenny Rathbone, the Chair of the Equality and Social Justice Committee, for her particular point and question about public services boards, because they are an essential part of localising Wales's well-being goals and they bring key partners together in partnership, and they do steer places on a more sustainable path and they are approaching their work differently, as you say, Jenny. They're becoming more targeted in focusing their efforts, they're identifying areas where collective action can have the biggest impact. And there is excellent work being done by PSBs in response to the recovery, such as Monmouthshire—and I'm sure Peter Fox is aware of that, as the former leader; the PSBs' collaborative project on active citizenship; and also the Cwm Taf work on adverse childhood experiences as well. So, PSBs have an important role and they've been galvanised, in fact, in terms of responding to the recovery of communities following COVID-19. This isn't additional work for PSBs; it's actually a continuation of their core work in improving the well-being of their areas.

And I think also, I would like to thank Natasha Asghar for her contribution today as well, and just reassure her that, in terms of funding cycles, it's been our aspiration, of course, to provide longer term budgets when possible. We haven't had that time frame available to us in terms of our own budget settlements, so we now have the certainty that we have in terms of three-year spending plans as part of the UK spending review delivering those multi-year settlements. We can't rule out the risk in terms of future prospects, but it does mean that we have the chance now to ensure that there is that funding cycle surety that is going to be with us with the spending review.

Just looking at some of the ways in which, as I said, the Act is being implemented: those community and town councils caught by the Act are taking steps towards their local well-being objectives. Because implementation of the Act is now about delivery, and this means public bodies delivering their well-being objectives, public services boards delivering their well-being plans, community and town councils taking action, but is also about getting better in the way that bodies act in accordance with the sustainable development principle, and ensuring that those five ways of working are working.

I do recognise what the Chair, Mark Isherwood, has said in terms of the five ways—that we need that cultural shift. When people grasp the five ways of working, it actually helps them with their planning and decision making. We are, rightly, today debating the extent to which the sustainable development principle is being applied, whether objectives are being delivered, and what the Act asks. That's what the Act is asking of us, and what the auditor and commissioner are reporting on. But we know this isn't straightforward in terms of the path to well-being goals. They are drivers, and there are drivers that are out of our control, and we need to be resilient to them. But also we need innovation and different choices to be considered in terms of making progress.

The strength of the Act is its focus on ways of working that enable much more sustainable choices to be identified. There will be the views, of course, including those on the commission, on whether decisions by public bodies or Government should be different. Of course, there are improvements to be made. I recognise obviously from Peredur Griffiths's contribution that there have been questions about, 'Is it strong enough? Do we need post-legislative reviews of it?' Obviously, we want to keep that position under review, but we don't want to divert efforts at this stage from the progress that's been made with the well-being of future generations legislation. We think that we are on a path to progress, which is very important, but as I said, we keep the position under review. But we are committed to a review of the public bodies subject to the Act, and I think that's going to be important, and that will allow us to review this part of the legislation and address the recommendations from the former Public Accounts Committee.

So, just in terms of my concluding remarks, we need to improve awareness of the legislation. We have our stakeholder forum, which is now being set up, the national stakeholder forum, and they'll be discussing this later this week. I'm looking forward to hearing their views. But what is emerging in our favour is that there are organisations and groups who don't have to comply at this stage, but are volunteering to comply. Transport for Wales is developing a sustainable development plan shaped by the future generations approach, detailing how they're looking to the future, joining up railroad and active travel. The Football Association of Wales earlier this month committed to creating a sustainability strategy fully aligned with our well-being of future generations legislation. Community groups like Bronllys Well-being Park in Brecon are shaping their vision for their local park in terms of a well-being of current and future generations approach. That's crucial.

So, I think we are in a position where we are promoting the importance of legislation for the future. I'm so grateful to Sarah Murphy for her contribution today, because I think it does inspire people when they say, 'We are looking to the well-being of future generations.' The UK Parliament, Lord John Bird and Simon Fell MP co-sponsoring a well-being of future generations Bill through the UK Parliament, modelled on our legislation. Scotland, they're committed to future generations legislation. And further afield we have the United Nations making substantial commitments to bring in a future generations approach into the UN system, committing to a special envoy for future generations, future reports and events.

So, that's what leadership on this agenda looks like: influencing, inspiring, improving Wales, leading the way at the forefront of the agenda. So, the reports we are being asked to note today are a critical part of the learning journey. We're shaping our action now. They'll shape the journey over the next five years, and of course we'll shortly be publishing our national milestones and an update on our well-being indicator framework.

So, Deputy Llywydd, I'm in my few final remarks. Can I just say how I thank the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee for their engagement, and look forward to working with the Equality and Social Justice Committee to accelerate action? I do believe that we can be proud of the shift towards a well-being of future generations approach in everything we do, and I wholeheartedly welcome this debate. Diolch.

I call on Jenny Rathbone to reply to the debate. 

Thank you very much. Natasha Asghar, I think, made some very succinct points that were really helpful, which the Minister has picked up. I don't think the public is ever going to be particularly aware of the Act. People are not going to read the Act, but they do need to know about the principles underpinning all the public bodies who are named in the Act. I don't think that we can be blaming the Act for public bodies who haven't sufficiently engaged with the citizens that are affected by a particular measure. I think it's good to hear that the Minister has given some reassurances about increased flexibilities on how funding can be spent, and to give public bodies longer term funding so that they can meet that objective, rather than always having to have yearly cycles.  

Shorter reports, absolutely. I think that point's been made. This tome, it has got lots of stuff in it, but few people will have read it from cover to cover. But I think the future generations commissioner has heard us on that, and she produced a really, really succinct report very recently on how we approach retrofitting, which is a really challenging subject. It's full of facts and figures, and it's only about 16 pages long. So, well done. It's going to be a really useful tool for working out how we approach that really important matter.

Peredur, obviously glass half full as far as you're concerned. You think that the Act should have been the gift that communities need to ensure that they feel more consulted and more involved in decisions that affect their lives. Obviously, involving citizens cannot be a tick-box exercise, but I do think that the Act does actually give them more clout than you give it credit for. It was never intended to be a mechanism by which we would hold up change, because no change is absolutely not an option. It is about ensuring, though, that we've got the right change and that all the stakeholders are involved in having their say on that change, and ensuring that public bodies who are tasked with that particular thing are actually making the right decisions within the framework of the Act. I hesitate to disagree with the venerable judge that the Act is not fit for purpose, but the Act cannot rectify the shortcomings of public bodies. It's public bodies themselves who have to address that.

We need to have a can-do attitude to this, and I'd like to quote the chief executive of Natural Resources Wales, who told the committee it's no use moaning about funding,

'moaning about funding is not going to help anybody. We're in a really difficult situation and we have to make the best of what we've got.'

Absolutely. We all need to do that. And so, we really do need to, I think, use the tools that the Act provides us to find the path forward in the difficult situation we all face. It was great to hear Sarah Murphy having the approach to the Act that I hope will be very, very useful in the way that the Equality and Social Justice Committee does its work.

So, Jane Hutt is absolutely right to praise the role of Sophie Howe, who's been really successful in showcasing the importance of the Act, both with the House of Lords and the United Nations. Clearly, PSBs must have a role in bringing people together, and the work that you mentioned about active citizenship in Monmouthshire and adverse childhood experiences in Cwm Taf. We seriously need to look at all the things that we have to do in the context of the Act. There's so much richness in the Act, and we need to come back to this regularly as a way of ensuring that we are meeting the demands of the Act in everything we do. 

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? There is no objection. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.