CPD’s sixth Wellbeing Government Roundtable brought together senior public servants from central government agencies within the Commonwealth and across the states and territories. Together with presenting CPD’s latest research paper, Embedding Progress, the goal was to consolidate a collective understanding of progress in establishing a wellbeing approach to government decision-making and identify future opportunities to embed such approaches. To this end, participants discussed lessons learned from the Closing the Gap initiative, the value of wellbeing frameworks, and what is needed to enhance that value and further embed wellbeing approaches.
These discussions took place in a context of growing momentum for a wellbeing approach to government. The Commonwealth and several state and territory governments have established wellbeing frameworks or economic statements that intend to place wellbeing at the centre of government decision-making and set out indicators that measure success and track progress towards a set of goals beyond growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The discussion was focused around three major themes:
Roundtable participants discussed how wellbeing frameworks are useful, their limitations and what is needed to maximise their effectiveness. The functions of wellbeing frameworks noted by participants included:
Participants also noted a gap in evidence of the empirical effectiveness of wellbeing frameworks. They emphasised the need for more Australian examples of frameworks having a demonstrable improvement to decision-making that also results in improved outcomes.
Improving collaboration across organisations was a key concern for participants, particularly across different levels of government. They discussed the disharmony that can occur between frameworks and metrics between different levels of government and different agencies, and shared lessons from the challenges that have faced whole-of-government programs like Closing the Gap.
Participants also noted that community needs to play a role in setting the aspirations of government but not be burdened by over-consultation on internal government changes.
Participants described systems change that is needed as occurring in two modes:
This roundtable clarified key challenges to embedding wellbeing in government and identified some pathways for moving forward. CPD will continue its research in this area with a focus on developing a repository of domestic case studies that demonstrate how improved decision-making leads to improved outcomes.
The Centre for Policy Development’s Wellbeing Initiative works on approaches to the economy that meet the needs of people, communities and the environment they depend on.
With world-leading research in wellbeing economics, government practice and public sector innovation, the CPD Wellbeing Initiative has become a leading research effort on Australia’s approach to wellbeing.
The initiative is a nexus for experts, practitioners, public officials and researchers to equip Australia’s government and economy to chart a course to wellbeing for current and future generations.
