Participation Strategy 2022-27
Well-being of Future Generations (Wales ) Act 2015
The Council is committed to embedding the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 into all its service delivery and activities.
The Act puts in place a sustainable development principle, which means that we must ‘act in a manner which seeks to ensure that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.
Ref: Future Generations Wales (opens in a new tab)
The Act puts in place a duty on the Council as a public body to maximise its contribution to seven national Wellbeing goals, which are shown to the right. As a Council, we need to incorporate the goals into all of our work and make sure that when we make decisions we consider the impact they could have on people living their lives in Wales in the future.
The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act also asks individual public services to apply five ways of working, which we have adopted in the development of this strategy.
- Long Term The importance of balancing short term needs with the need to safeguard the ability to also meet long term needs.
- Prevention How acting to prevent problems occurring or getting worse may help public bodies meet their objectives.
- Integration Considering how the public body’s wellbeing objectives may impact upon each of the wellbeing goals, on their other objectives, or on the objectives of other public bodies.
- Collaboration Acting in collaboration with any other person (or different parts of the body itself) that could help the body to meet its wellbeing objectives.
- Involvement The importance of involving people with an interest in achieving the wellbeing goals, and ensuring that those people reflect the diversity of the area which the body serves.
Welsh Language
The Council sets out a range of information, objectives and action points in relation to the development of the Welsh Language in the county in its Welsh Language Strategy 2021 – 26, which is available on the website at Welsh Language Standards - Pembrokeshire County Council
What do we mean by participation?
Welsh Government statutory guidance, produced to support the implementation of the Act, defines participation as:
‘People being actively involved with policy makers and service planners from an early stage of policy and service planning and review.’
The Ladder of Participation is also a useful tool for illustrating how different communication and involvement activities enable the participation and empowerment of people to varying degrees.
Timescales
In developing its public participation strategy a council must consult people who live, work or study in the council’s area and anyone else it thinks appropriate. The Act requires a council’s first strategy made under this section to be published as soon as reasonably practicable after the local government elections in May 2022.
The Act then enables the council to determine the frequency of the subsequent reviews of its strategy but it must consult with people who live, work or study in the council’s area and anyone else it thinks appropriate when undertaking a review. The revised or new version of the strategy must be published as soon as possible after the review.