Roundtable launches new report to improve NI wellbeing
By News Northern Ireland, ,

The Carnegie Roundtable on Measuring Wellbeing in Northern Ireland has launched a set of ten recommendations to help improve wellbeing in Northern Ireland. The Roundtable was initiated and supported by the Carnegie UK Trust and the School of Law at Queen’s University Belfast.

The high-level Roundtable has worked over the course of a year to produce the recommendations, speaking to a wide range of people about the need for change to address some of the most enduring challenges in Northern Ireland.

Martyn Evans, Chief Executive of the Carnegie UK Trust and Co-Chair of the Roundtable, said: “The Trust has seen first-hand how countries around the world such as Canada, the US, France and Scotland measure social progress and fed this experience into the work of the Roundtable. After learning from this international experience, the Roundtable believes that the time is right to develop a ‘wellbeing framework’ to guide and support the work of all public services in Northern Ireland.”

Dr Peter Doran, School of Law at Queen’s University, said: “The Roundtable’s recommendations are ambitious and timely, given the appetite for change we have encountered in many part of the public sector, local government and civil society. Wellbeing and all that it implies about role of a modern government and its relationship with citizens, is an idea whose time has come. I am very proud of the role that the School of Law has played in bringing this process home.”

Among the ten recommendations for developing a wellbeing framework are introducing a new, innovative way of delivering public services by encouraging different departments and agencies to work together towards shared outcomes; focusing spending on achieving economic and social outcomes in difficult financial times; and improving reporting and communicating the progress made in Northern Ireland to politicians and the public.

For more information on the Roundtable click here, follow the Roundtable on Twitter @NIwellbeing and download the new report here.