Making Wellbeing Count for Policy: Patterns and trends in personal, social and societal wellbeing in Europe and the UK.

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Recent years have seen a huge growth in interest in the concept of wellbeing, and this has been matched by a steady increase in the amount of data available for studying it. After the so-called Stiglitz report commissioned by French President Sarkozy, a number of other governments have followed suit and taken a more proactive approach to the measurement of wellbeing. In November 2010 Prime Minister David Cameron launched the Office for National Statistics's Measuring National Wellbeing Programme. At the time, a source in the PM's office said "next time we have a comprehensive spending review, let's not just guess what effect various policies will have on people's wellbeing. Let's actually know." However there has been relatively little attention so far to appropriate policy responses to emerging findings. This project starts to address this shortfall making extensive use of the European Social Survey, a well-established cross-national dataset with high methodological standards. Since 2002, the ESS has included a small number of questions measuring different elements of wellbeing: the degree to which individuals feel happy and satisfied with their own lives (personal wellbeing); the extent to which they feel integrated and included in their social surroundings (social wellbeing); and the evaluations citizens make of the performance and values of their society at the national level (societal wellbeing). In addition, on two occasions (2006 and 2012), the survey has included a whole module of questions about social and personal wellbeing. The resulting data from the 2012 fieldwork recently became available for 24 countries and the remaining countries' data will be released in Spring 2014. The approach comprises three strands. The first stage uses the data to map the European wellbeing landscape, noting the differences between countries, over time, and between different measures. It will also explore the factors (or 'drivers') that seem to be associated with wellbeing, and how these also vary between country, over time and for different measures. It will aim to identify inequalities in wellbeing and to establish where these are most and least apparent. Building on previous work, we hope to discover how people's individual wellbeing is related to their evaluations of the quality of their societies, and how strongly, if at all, the two are linked. It will also look at the relevance of the 'Five ways to well-being' - a tool which is being used by local authorities, health professionals and community groups across the UK to improve wellbeing. The second strand of the project uses these data to develop headline indicators of wellbeing that best capture the complexity of its many aspects. In doing so it attempts to accurately represent both the structure of the data and the many theories of what wellbeing is. Each differently designed set of indicators has implications for the way they are communicated and to whom.The final strand is focused on the use of wellbeing data in policy analysis. Drawing on the previous stages of analysis, the project team will consider whether the variations in wellbeing across Europe call for policy responses, and if the 'drivers' that are revealed point to any policy priorities. We will select three areas of policy, examine what types of evidence currently inform how these policies are made, and then develop policy recommendations by integrating the well-being data into the policy process and other types of evidence, working with policy makers in a series of seminars. It will use these recommendations, together with an analysis of cross-Europe levels and changes in well-being and set of easily accessible headline indicators of population well-being, to create interest in the findings across a broad audience. The intended ultimate outcome is greater credibility of, and appetite for, the use of subjective well-being data in policy making and better informed debates on political goals.