Buzz’s Adam Williams talks to Sophie Howe, the inaugural Future Generations Commissioner of Wales – a unique post created with the aim of assessing and safeguarding the nation’s economic and social wellbeing in decades to come.

“This is an expedition rather than a journey – the things we’re doing now will pay dividends in 10 to 20 years.”

Sophie Howe

What is the main role of the Future Generations Commissioner?

The role was established through the Wellbeing Of Future Generations Act and passed in the Senate in 2015. My job is to make sure that our public institutions demonstrate how they’re thinking about the needs of future generations when making decisions, and hold them to account.

Has your own background influenced your view on which decisions to make?

I grew up in Ely in Cardiff – an area often at the wrong end of the poverty, life expectancy and health statistics. I grew up with a sense of frustration. But, because my parents worked, I went to school in north Cardiff – Whitchurch, the leafy suburbs – and there was a real difference between the aspirations of kids I went to school with and kids I played in the street with.

Why should a child’s life chances be determined on the basis of where they’re born – or when they’re born? For the first time in hundreds of years, this generation of young people’s life chances could be worse than their parents. They’re much less likely to be able to afford a house, they’re potentially paying for costs incurred by climate change, paying pensions, dealing with the costs of an increasingly ageing population. We really only make decisions on the basis of whether it’s going to be good or not for the next election.

Since the Future Generations Act’s inception in 2015, how have the four challenge areas – climate change, economic change, population change, and citizen disengagement – improved in Wales?

We’re trying to change things in the long term, but there have been some really positive changes as a result of new legal requirements around the Future Generations Act. The Welsh parliament was the first in the UK to declare a climate emergency and set out a plan to reach net-zero – but we’re still not doing enough; there’s no country in the world, other than Namibia, that is doing enough to keep global temperature rises below two degrees. That’s why COP26, the climate conference in Glasgow, is going to be so important – at the moment the world is heading for about 2.8 degrees, which is really kind of catastrophic.

In Wales, there’s been record investment in active travel and public transport over the last couple of years, and the National Forests For Wales plans to plant millions and millions of trees that are good for the nature crisis and for reducing carbon. Planning applications now have to take into account their impact on climate.

On demographic change, the pandemic has highlighted some big challenges – combined with an ageing population, many in poor health because we just patch them up when they become ill. We’ve seen the strain on the NHS as a result of that. I’ve recommended we ensure carers are paid a living wage, not just the minimum wage, which Government have accepted.

Some programs have taken place as a result of the Future Generations Act, about intergenerational solutions to problems. A publicly-funded program in Gwent is pairing young people and older people, aiming to address the isolation and loneliness epidemic that’s affecting both. Another involved local primary school kids just going to spend time befriending adults in the local care home. Some kids taking part previously had the worst attendance, behavioural problems, potentially challenging backgrounds – and in this care home, there’s been a 50% reduction in the use of antipsychotic medication since those visits have started and a 39% reduction in calls to the Ambulance Service. The residents in those homes are engaging with these young people, the young people are engaging with them, and behaviour is improved in the school.

We’ve seen big changes in the workforce during the pandemic: two years ago, who would have thought 30%-40% of us would work from home? Carers can better balance work and family life, and not travelling to work has reduced carbon emissions. However, up to 35% of jobs are currently being lost to automation and artificial intelligence – this is predicted to increase in the future and could impact people who are already vulnerable, the poorest in society, ethnically diverse communities.

I’m challenging the Government to address that {and} the climate emergency. We could create 60,000 new jobs in Wales in the green industries of the future: electric vehicle infrastructure, home insulation, work in renewable energy – good jobs. But we need to target those jobs at people who are currently not in those industries. There’s definitely not enough Black people, enough women, disabled people.

Although citizen disengagement is still an issue, the Future Generations Act asked, in our national survey, is there a sense of community in your area? Two years ago, 52% of Welsh people said yes; last November it had increased to 74%. However, there are still substantial challenges in terms of engagement in the political system – the number of people who feel it can make a difference to them.

In addition to working with future generations, have you done anything to influence the present generation?

We’ve reduced the voting age in Wales to 16, which is brilliant. Politicians are still very much guided by the way in which people are going to vote them either in or out of office: that means we really need to get current generations on board. I did a lecture yesterday where I was talking about people’s brains almost being hardwired to ignore the future. It’s why we’re so bad at paying into our pensions; it’s why we’ve ignored the climate crisis despite knowing about it. I think there’s a dual issue.

As you don’t have the power to make things happen or stop them from happening, how can you ensure a public body has behaved in accordance with the Act?

You’re absolutely right: I don’t have that power. I can’t intervene in individual cases. My job is to kind of be the conscience on behalf of future generations, to inform how public bodies take decisions; to monitor the progress they’re making and advise them on things they could be doing, and look at where there are systematic problems.

I also have powers of review on particular issues. I’ve just done a big review into the way that we spend money in Wales. We’ve still got public bodies buying ambulances and refuse trucks, and they’re still procuring diesel fleets, in the middle of a climate emergency. I’m asking them to justify that.

Universal basic income, which a few years ago was seen as pie in the sky, is something I’ve been recommending, and now we’re going to pilot UBI in Wales. A lot of my time is spent building a movement of people doing brilliant things and making sure we’re getting more of them.

What other issues in Wales today do you believe are most important to tackle?

At the moment, we’ve got a crisis in our NHS because of COVID – but actually, the NHS has been in crisis for very many years, because we’re not turning off the tap in terms of demand on the system. Every single November and December – and this year will be worse – we get the same headlines, ambulance waiting times increasing, the system hits a breaking point. Every year we just throw more money at A&E.

There is some brilliant stuff starting to happen in Wales. In Cardiff, some GPs condition bikes on prescription. They might have previously issued statins to reduce your cholesterol but now offer free use of the Next bike scheme, so your cholesterol level, weight or blood pressure can benefit from some physical activity. Other doctors are using park runs to get their patients involved and engaged in those sorts of activities. Small examples, but a shift to what we call social prescribing. So how do we get upfront about a problem and start prescribing not just drugs or other treatments, but different preventative measures?

I want to mention jobs and skills for the future. Wales, driven by the Future Generations Act, has had a curriculum reform, which aims to produce ethical and informed citizens, creative and enterprising individuals – to equip young people not just to go into another industrial-age job, but for a life well-lived. Increasingly, menial tasks in our jobs will be done by AI or automation, so critical skills for the future are things robots can’t do: creative skills, cooperation, collaboration, and empathy.  These skills are crucial – that is, until part of the curriculum falls off a cliff aged 14, the GCSE system is teaching you how to pass tests, and you regurgitate everything you learned in two years in a two-hour exam. That’s utter bullshit. We’re still facing big issues in how to reform our education system.

“A lot of my time is spent building a movement of people doing brilliant things, and making sure we’re getting more of them.”

Sophie Howe

How has the general public responded to the Act?

Today, the Irish government came to talk to us about it, because they’re intrigued, but if I started chatting with someone at my local pub, there’s a fair likelihood they wouldn’t know what I was talking about. In an ideal world, everyone would know about it. From my postbag and the number of people who engage on social media, I think it’s improving, but it takes a long time to get those messages out.

People might talk about what we need to do on climate and other government decisions, and not necessarily know a lot of that is driven by the Future Generations Act. In some ways, does it matter? Or is what matters is the fact that they are talking about it, and it’s in their consciousness?

How well do you believe the Act has improved long-term living standards?

A lot of work has gone on tackling inequalities, but there are still endemic problems. Poverty levels have not really shifted – one of the reasons I’m proposing universal basic income. Gains in life expectancy have improved in most countries every year, but have levelled off in Wales. I’ve always said this is an expedition rather than a journey: the things we’re doing now will pay dividends in 10 to 20 years’ time. It’s difficult to predict.

What projects do you have coming up as Future Generations Commissioner?

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be releasing a report on future trends in inequality. So we’ll be looking at the change in the nature of work, looking at climate change, and looking at the change in demography, the ageing population, and exploring what that means, in terms of is it likely to increase inequality or decrease inequality and what do we need to do about it.

I’m continuing to work on universal basic income, and in the next few months looking at the potential benefits of a reduced working week. We’ve been averaging a 37-hour week for the last 100 years – a lot of changes have happened in the workplace over that time. Thinking about the fourth industrial revolution, AI, automation – the things we were just talking about – what does that mean, and is it desirable?

There’s been a huge amount of interest in Wales’ approach to future generations across the world – from New Zealand to Germany, Finland, Ireland, Dubai. The UN Secretary-General announced they would follow Wales’ lead and have a Special Envoy – the equivalent of a Future Generations Commissioner – at the UN, and reform some of their governance structures to embed future generations’ thinking. Lots happening!

Info: www.futuregenerations.wales

words ADAM WILLIAMS