Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill: consultation

Annex G: Strengthening duties for wellbeing and sustainable development

In the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, the duty related to the use of the National Outcomes in policy and decision making is as follows:

“The persons mentioned in subsection (2) [a cross-border public authority; any other Scottish public authority; any other person carrying out functions of a public nature] must have regard to the national outcomes in carrying out the functions mentioned in subsection (3) [any such function that is exercisable in or as regards Scotland and does not relate to reserved matters].”

All public authorities are therefore required to “have regard to” the National Outcomes in carrying out their work, as it pertains to Scotland.

However, several stakeholders have argued that this duty is general and interpretive and does not explicitly require consideration of how policy and delivery decision making can better achieve the National Outcomes, meaning it is therefore difficult to hold organisations to account.

This has highlighted that, whilst the National Outcomes have broad support as a vision for national wellbeing, further measures may be needed to encourage all public authorities, both national and local, to focus their policy and decisions on achieving wellbeing and sustainable development in a coherent and joined-up way. We are consulting to make sure that the provisions of the Bill achieve this as effectively as possible.

As noted above, the current duty to ‘have regard to’ the National Outcomes is seen as being interpretive and non-specific, which may be limiting its effect on policy and decision making processes. We are therefore consulting on how this duty could be strengthened to ensure wellbeing and sustainable development principles more consistently shape policy development. Strengthening existing duties would avoid the complexity of establishing a separate duty or additional impact assessment. This strengthened duty would be intended to change the way in which public authorities use the NPF, by ensuring they focus on achieving the National Outcomes into the longer term.

The Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill is an opportunity to review this. We want any legislative duties to help ensure that sustainable development and wellbeing are central to all decision making and close the reported ‘implementation gap’ between the National Outcomes and their use in policy development.

However, given the need to avoid adding unnecessary complexity to the current landscape of legal duties on public authorities, we must do so in a way that complements and strengthens the existing approach, rather than creating a wholly separate duty. That is why we propose to strengthen the existing “have regard to” duty to ensure that the National Outcomes – and in that, wellbeing and sustainable development – are built into all policy and decision making processes.

We are therefore seeking your views on how the Bill can achieve this. We would welcome insights on what the Bill should specifically require public authorities to do; how (or whether) any current legal duties could be improved; and how the Bill could do so in a way that upholds wellbeing, sustainable development, and the interests of future generations.