Agenda item

Context:

To provide members with an overview of the process being followed to produce the wellbeing plan; the structure of the plan and some of the actions that could feature within it.

The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act is about the process of improving the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales, by taking action in accordance with the sustainable development principle aimed at achieving well-being goals.

One of the responsibilities the Act places on the Public Service Board is to prepare and publish a well-being plan and well-being objectives for the county. This will draw on the evidence in the well-being assessment that was approved by the PSB and endorsed by council in March 2017.

Key Issues:

The Well-being of Future Generations Act aims to ensure that public bodies think more about the long term, work better with people and communities and each other, look to prevent problems and take a more joined-up approach. Each PSB must prepare and publish a local well-being plan setting out its local objectives and the steps it proposes to take to meet them. This needs to be published no later than one year after the last council election.

The plan must describe how the board will improve the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being of the county by setting local objectives which maximise its contribution to the seven national the well-being goals. There are two elements to the plan, objectives and the steps to meet those objectives.

Work completed between April and July resulted in the PSB adopting four draft well-being objectives at its meeting on 25th July following scrutiny by this committee on 11th July.

These are based on the well-being assessment that was previously scrutinised by this committee and are shown in the table below:

Purpose Building Sustainable and Resilient Communities

Our aspiration is to:

·         Reduce inequalities between communities and within communities

·         Support and protect vulnerable people

·         Consider our impact on the environment

Our (proposed) well-being Objectives are:

·         People / Citizens Place / Communities

·         Provide children and young people with the best possible start in life

·         Protect and enhance the resilience of our natural environment whilst mitigating and adapting to the impact of climate change

·         Respond to the challenges associated with demographic change

·         Develop opportunities for communities and businesses to be part of an economically thriving and well-connected county.

The steps the PSB will take to meet these objectives

A series of workshops will take place in September and October 2017. These will identify and prioritise the initial programmes of work that the Board will consider commissioning to meet its final objectives. More detail will need to be added before the plan is consulted on.

The process used to move from the Well-being Assessment to Well-being Plan is summarised in Appendix 1.

The PSB is now responsible for developing the plan that will articulate these objectives and describe the steps that will be taken to meet them. They will be asked to endorse the plan when they meet on 8th November prior to a 12 week public consultation. Drafting of the plan will continue into November and so it is not possible to present the committee with a draft at this stage.

Officers from Monmouthshire County Council and other partners are in the process of identifying the steps. As members will be aware the Act describes five ways of working: long-term; integrated; collaborative; involvement and preventative.

The plan cannot be produced in isolation and the process began with a workshop on 9th October attended by officers, partners, community members and other stakeholders. A number of committee members were also invited to observe. At time of writing the outputs from the event are still being analysed, a short overview is shown at appendix 3 and this will be supplemented by a presentation at the meeting, by which time the initial analysis will be complete.

Member Scrutiny:

A Members asked for clarity on MCC’s objectives for the next 25 years and what changes elected Members were being asked to look at.

The public consultation phase starts in mid-November 2017 and Elected Members expressed their wish to get involved with this process.

Given the unique geography of the County it was asked if rural areas were going to be given as much consideration as the four main towns.

Members welcomed the work and raised concerns regarding the size of the project.

The role of the devolved Welsh Government was felt to be vital, with an example of healthcare tariffs in regard to hip fractures being cited with standardised care called for.

Members were concerned that the ‘easy’ issues would be addressed for quick wins, rather than more critical issues and asked for quantifiable standards.

Members were keen that areas of the County suffering from rural deprivation were addressed.

A Member commented on the 5 year plans that Town and Community Councils were looking at as short-sighted and felt that they should be looking at a minimum scope of 25 years,