What matters in the implementation of sustainable development policies? Findings from the Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act, 2015

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the implementation of the unique and pioneering latest Welsh Government sustainable development legislation: the Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act, 2015. The paper is the first empirical analysis of this legislation, based on 16 semi-structured interviews and 89 documents. The analysis explores sustainable development policy implementation by analysing and critiquing the Act and provides a wider understanding of the key factors influencing local implementation of national Sustainable Development policies, focussing on the local level to understand how different practices emerge in different places.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable development
• Policy implementation
• Localism
• Well-being
• Wales

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Welsh Government, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Cardiff University who fund the Wales Centre for Public Policy (ES/R00384X/1).

Notes on contributors

Suzanna Nesom

Suzanna Nesom is currently a PhD student in the Economics department at Cardiff University, where she is studying the regional variation of the Gender Pay Gap in Wales. Before this, she worked as the Research Apprentice at the Wales Centre for Public Policy, where she worked on a variety of policy areas, including Sustainability and Gender Equality.

Eleanor MacKillop

Eleanor MacKillop is a research associate with a background in political science, organisation studies and local government research. Her work at the Wales Centre for Public Policy involves, amongst other issues, researching the role of evidence in policy-making in Wales and elsewhere, examining policy-making in devolved administrations and small countries, and evaluating the Well-Being of Future Generations Act recently adopted in Wales.