Report

Future wellbeing policy: Lessons from Wales and beyond

This report from UK think tank Carnegie UK reflects on the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act since it was enshrined in law just over ten years ago.

In January 2026, the Institute of Welsh Affairs (IWA) together with Carnegie UK, the Centre for Welsh Politics and Society/WISERD, and the Co-production Network for Wales convened a conversation in Cardiff among people who have lived and worked with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act since it was enshrined in law just over ten years ago.

The event offered thought-provoking reflections on the past, present, and future of this ambitious legislation, providing insight not just for leaders and practitioners in Wales, but for other countries and regions who seek to embed wellbeing approaches into their own institutions and societies.

The Act is often held up as an exemplary model of embedding wellbeing into policy governance. It is undoubtedly a landmark piece of legislation for the wellbeing movement and for Wales but, in the decade since it was passed, change has been more limited than many hoped. Key barriers that have been observed include a perceived lack of ‘teeth’; misaligned institutional structures and resourcing processes; and the broad (and sometimes abstract) nature of the Act, which can limit how relevant it feels in day-to-day decision making.

These are not issues that Wales faces alone. Across the globe, governments are working to address complex issues like these. Some have embedded budgetary tools that support long-term cross-departmental investment. Others have established strong strategic governance that aligns decisions with long-term visions. While each approach is unique to its context, such illustrative examples offer potential tools for advancing the impact of the Well-being of Future Generations Act in Wales, as well as the effective implementation of wellbeing approaches more broadly.

Applying the lens of a maturity model provides a new way of understanding how wellbeing approaches can evolve through future stages of development. One such model, under development by Carnegie UK and published alongside this paper, helps to identify three core areas that should be embedded or enhanced to support the Act in Wales, and that could apply equally in other contexts. These are: ways of working that build trust and enable clear and frank communication at all levels to facilitate better collaborative processes tools to direct spending to what matters most for people in the present day and what they think matters for their children and grandchildren governance that supports institutions through these changes by actively engaging with them and holding them to account for setting and working towards outcomes in alignment with the wellbeing vision.

Change for the long term can take a long time, but it is nonetheless important to ask how we will know if or when a given approach to wellbeing is working. This work requires a focus on the conditions for the structural and cultural progress that will be fundamental to ensuring that the wellbeing of people now and in the future is not a ‘nice to have’ but a guiding principle of government.