A couple of weeks ago Christchurch had a visit from Sophie Howe the former Commissioner for Future generations for Wales. This Commissioner position is fascinating. The task for the Commissioner is to ensure that the public service complied with the Future Generations Act which has laid out seven long-term well-being goals as a kind of “vision for the country”.
Sophie Howe has had an impressive career in the Public Service in Wales and her presentation at Te Putahi, our Cities Centre for Architecture and City Making, was truly inspiring. Thanks Jess and team for bringing her here.
Here is a link to her presentation at the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, Make a cup of tea, sit back, and watch this inspiring woman speak...
Te Putahi’s next session is on public transport and we will supply full details in the next Tuesday Club notes in two weeks. 6-7.30 4 September Turanga
In an interview with Kathryn Ryan on RNZ Sophie Howe elaborated her role and the importance of it. In the interview she stated:
For a long time, governments have focused on what’s immediately in front of them – how long has it taken you to get an ambulance, how long does it take to get health care, treatment, and so on? Of course, that’s important. But actually, it’s the wider things, perhaps the things that governments haven’t prioritised, like creating cohesive communities in the way we plan, design and build cities, like preparing for the older population and who is going to meet those care needs in the future. It’s those things which are in many cases more important than what the healthcare system itself does.
“The system is constructed against doing all of this, it’s constructed to deal with the short term … Even the performance measures that our health service or our local authorities would have, they’re all short-term measures. The system isn’t joined up, it doesn’t work together across departments or across organisations.
“So I spent a lot of my time as commissioner, introducing civil servants in one department or to civil servants in another department, sometimes banging heads together, people who weren’t working together, posing those questions – show me the long-term trends you’ve used in this policy development, show me how you’re joining the dots between different areas.”
Here is a link to the whole interview How to leave the world a better place than we found it | RNZ
Does anybody have the overheads Sophie used. If you have, could I get a copy and I will share these in future Tuesday Club notes.
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