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It is partly about having the commissioner there to hold those organisations to account. The commissioner will have powers of investigation, so if somebody thinks that they can just tick a box and say, “We’re doing this”, and that was a significant issue and the particular public sector organisation could be doing significantly more, the commissioner could hold an investigation and hold that organisation to account.

There is a combination of the duty to “have regard to” guidance, advice and support and a backstop in the form of the commissioner, who could say, “I am looking into your organisation—at the moment, you’re just ticking the box. Where is the significant change that your organisation could deliver in terms of the sustainable development principles to which you are supposed to have due regard?” That combination is important.

From looking at the experience in Wales, we can see that there have not been dozens of investigations, because no public sector authority wants to be investigated. We can also look at the experience with Audit Scotland, which looks at decisions after they have been made. That is another way of holding public bodies to account, and it has a big impact on organisations. It creates public awareness, and it makes the Government aware of issues with a public sector organisation. There is a whole raft of ways in which to hold people to account.

The duty would also empower those staff members, in public sector bodies that are signed up to the principles, who know that more can be done. It would also assist organisations in which—as Elena Whitham mentioned—there are people leading the way. More people would feel comfortable with that, because that would be what was expected under the legislation.

The other aspect is the guidance on how to implement sustainable development and the investigatory power. Yes, I have been looking at public sector authorities and thinking about how they might improve and about the lobbying that I might do in my region with my health board and my local authority to push sustainable development further up the agenda. Should the bill be passed, those organisations will have a public duty to implement sustainable development, as defined in the bill. That might help when, for example, the health board is thinking about planning a new hospital, because I will be able to lobby the board on that. If the bill is passed, it will have a public duty in that regard, rather than it being something that is nice to have.

There is an issue to do with changing the way in which public sector organisations invest now so that it will deliver savings. I gave you the example of the hospital in Swansea that built a solar farm that makes £1 million a year. That is the kind of different thinking that I am seeking to encourage. Think about the challenges that the public sector is facing. Getting to the point of embedding sustainable development is difficult, but introducing a legal obligation will push the issue up the agenda. Sustainable development is an opportunity that is not being seized currently.

We also have the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and we have rights embedded in law, but the bill brings a broader approach in terms of sustainable development and wellbeing. There are also the outcomes that are defined by the Scottish Government in the national performance framework. I think that there is scope for more discussion, and part of that is about collaborative work.

One of the things that I have recognised from the outset is the challenge of getting the definition perfect for now and for five or 10 years down the line. I wanted to have a focus on this so that we raised it up the agenda and enabled organisations to focus on it, too. The collaborative work is critical.

Is there another question that you would like to ask me?

The evidence has been fascinating to me. I got permission to introduce my bill when there was enough support from colleagues, and that was when the Scottish Government announced its bill on wellbeing and sustainable development. I have been looking at the issue because the Government is now talking about reviewing the national performance framework, but that will not happen until next year and it will be a long time before we see the proposals. A potential piece of legislation is before you that could address those issues.

I am keen that we get that joined-up thinking. We are looking at NPF reform in early 2026, but we will then go into an election and we will have new ministers and people will move on. Retaining on-going and consistent oversight and accountability is a real issue. The wellbeing and sustainable development principles in the bill would assist the national performance framework—I am also thinking about the wellbeing outcomes—because they totally complement each other. The bill pushes all those things up the agenda. We should not keep delaying.

I reiterate that there was huge push for such a bill before the 2021 election. We are now at the end of 2025, so we need to get on with it. Passing the bill would support the Government’s ambitions and mean that more of the focus was on implementation rather than just targets, which is critical.

We were thinking about implementation. This is about real people and the fact that we need to think through what the impact of legislation will be. That is why we went for it. I looked at Scotland’s national outcomes and the national performance framework, and I thought about the opportunities for people’s lives from implementing wellbeing goals. I mentioned earlier that we have both sustainable development goals and wellbeing outcomes; the bill joins the two together. It is about the impact on real people of the decisions that we make.

The issue is not at the top of my agenda. Joint working and collaboration are the way to move forward. If people think that I can strengthen the definition in some way, I am happy to look at that, but it was not the overarching issue that was raised in the evidence or stakeholder feedback when I introduced my bill.

It considered the definition to overlap with existing human rights protections. I go back to the point that I made earlier. It does not duplicate existing rights or enforcement mechanisms, and it does not go into the specific human rights of key groups in society. It is about a general wellbeing approach, which affects us all. That is the distinction.

The key issue is having work done jointly by different commissioners, so that they do not try to do the same thing. The work that is being done by the children’s commissioner is fantastic, but it does not think about 2050, because that is for future generations. A huge amount of work needs to be done in this area, and that is not currently happening. I have absolutely no worry about overlap, because the experience in Wales is that joint work is really good.

I do not know whether you are suggesting that we should strengthen the definition of wellbeing in the bill.

No, my point is that we have to spend this resource if we are going to implement the bill’s ambitions. The SPCB-supported bodies landscape review very helpfully looked at, for example, the sharing of back-office resources, the location of commissioners and so on, and you could look at sharing back-office capacity for, say, human resources or finance. My point, though, is that we need new resource, and a focus on this issue.

My preference would be for there to be a new commissioner, with the title of future generations commissioner, to raise the issue up the agenda, provide the capacity to implement the legislation and make the change that we have all talked about for years but which has not happened. That would align with what is being done by the Scottish Government through the national performance framework, and it would help in terms of outcomes.

As I said, my strong preference is for there to be a commissioner, but the lesson of the work that has been done is that you can share resources. Experience in Wales shows that you can share back-office resources as well. However, we must invest in the area now, because, if we do not have that officer capacity and the powers of investigation, following on from the work on sharing best practice, advice and guidance and a consideration of the themes that are key priorities across the public sector, the ambitions of this legislation will not be fulfilled.

Absolutely. The point of the bill—the point of having the combination of the duty, the definition and the commissioner—is to get on with delivering that systemic change. The support, oversight and scrutiny functions are critically important. You can see that if you look at the experience of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, which has carried out two major reviews: one into how the Welsh Government has implemented the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and one into how that act has informed public bodies’ procurement decisions. We can learn lessons from what has been done in Wales.

Having a commissioner in Scotland with teeth is critically important, because that is how we would bring about that systemic change. You need the oversight to be in place, you need the work that is done by public bodies to be supported and you need to have that scrutiny function.