Scotland Performs

Working wellbeing into the heart of Government

Martyn Evans, Co-Chair of the Carnegie Roundtable on Measuring Wellbeing in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland has topped UK tables for self-reported wellbeing, featuring in four out of the five happiest places in the UK. But behind this headline, challenges remain. Recently released figures show that 12,000 people visited Northern Ireland’s emergency departments last year due to self-harm or suicidal thoughts, and that there were 2,112 water pollution incidents in Northern Ireland in 2013.

The above figures show that in order for the Northern Ireland Executive to assess how Northern Ireland is progressing, it needs to consider not just its economic performance, but also how the lives of its citizens are improving, if, in fact, they are. That is not to say that the economy is not important – participants in the focus groups commissioned by the Carnegie Roundtable on Measuring Wellbeing in Northern Ireland told us that unemployment is a priority for communities in Northern Ireland. But, equally, so are addressing social isolation and mental health issues, according to their feedback. What is wellbeing

This is why in its new report the Carnegie Roundtable has called for the Executive to develop a wellbeing framework, Continue reading “Working wellbeing into the heart of Government”

Wellbeing Exhibition: Engaging with Policymakers

From 24-26 February 2015 we took over a small space in the members’ lobby at the Scottish Parliament to showcase the work from our recent Wellbeing Programme. The exhibition brought together the findings from our six funded programmes and provided a way of engaging in discussions with MSPs and Government officials. The programme was seeking to address three broad questions:

What influences individual and societal wellbeing?
How best to measure wellbeing and what influences it to help shape and guide policy and practice?
How best to promote and embed improved wellbeing?

The objective of the initiative was to make a contribution to the development of policy and practice in Scotland and elsewhere, including the development of Scotland’s National Performance Framework, ‘Scotland Performs’.

A wellbeing approach attempts to take a balanced look across social, economic and environmental dimensions at understanding what influences the wellbeing of citizens and society at large, and measuring progress. It’s not about any one factor such as health or income, it’s about a range of influences – Charlie Woods, Director SUII

Continue reading “Wellbeing Exhibition: Engaging with Policymakers”

Wellbeing: No laughing matter

SUII Director Charlie Woods sets out the aims and wider context of our wellbeing programme.

The term wellbeing can conjure up different images depending on your perspective. A consequence of this is that taking a wellbeing approach to assessing the progress of society can at first sight appear to some to be a bit ‘happy clappy’. However, it is a much more serious endeavour, with some well-established antecedents. As David Hume wrote:

“The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators.”

In a similar vein in 1913 Andrew Carnegie gave his UK Trust the remit of the “improvement of the wellbeing of the masses of the people of Great Britain and Ireland”.

A broader wellbeing framework is being adopted by many countries and by the OECD as a whole through its ‘Better Life’ work. Such an approach attempts to take a more balanced look at understanding what influences the wellbeing of citizens and measuring progress. In some places subjective surveys of happiness or life satisfaction are used, although they usually only form part of the picture alongside more objective measures of social, environmental and economic progress.

Scotland is recognised as being one of the leading countries in developing a wellbeing approach through its National Performance Framework. The SUII programme of work was in part aimed at looking at how this could be further developed. One of the conclusions reached was the importance of more actively engaging people throughout the country in identifying what factors are most important in improving their lives and how best they should be measured and monitored. This offers the opportunity to build on the energy generated by the referendum campaign and help strengthen accountability and democracy in Scotland.