Speaking last week at the launch of the Wellbeing and Policy report, commissioned by the Legatum Institute, he said that if he was prime minister, he would “sit the cabinet around a table and say: ‘Right, we’re going to have a spending review and I’m going to ask you in your budget bids how your budget is going to increase the wellbeing of society”.
He later told CSW that this approach should be “an important part of the next Spending Review”.
The report calls for greater use of wellbeing measures in policy-making. This, O’Donnell (pictured above) said, would require a “big culture change across departments”.
He added that, although this will be hard to achieve, “the sooner we start on this process [the better]. I think in ten years’ time we might be doing it rather well.”
Robust metrics to measure wellbeing will be available in “a matter of time”, he said. Asked when he thinks this will be the case, he said: “It’s a work in progress. I think we’re beginning to understand relationships between wellbeing and income.”
O’Donnell added that work on wellbeing is “an international effort: the same issues arise everywhere.”