Time will tell if General Wellbeing (GWB) replaces Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the measure of choice for the great British media. Will they find growth or decline in GWB as repetitively reportable at GDP? Who knows, but putting party politics aside, I don’t disagree with Cameron’s attempt to end reliance on an oversimplification of economic ‘success’.
It’s worth noting this is not a new idea. 20 years ago, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and visionary Mahbub ul-Haq created their Human Development Report. Now produced each year (and the latest is just out), it tracks human development, using a range of measures, globally. You can see the progress countries are really making developing the lives of their people. Much better than the broad-brush GDP.
So, it’s come as an (expected) disappointment that the Tories are so lackadaisical with the happiness and wellbeing of the country’s employees. Take the Department for Transport for instance. Just one month before Christmas, the first tranche of redundancies is about to kick in. By May, they will be losing 600 out 1900 staff.
In the case of my Tory-led Wirral council, I believe out of 1600 staff applying for voluntary redundancy, 800 have been told by the council they don’t know when they can say if they are needed or not. Whether they will have a job or not. Teams don’t know who will do what, managed by whom, to what end. It’s a turbulent time, and there are many Wirralians in a pretty dark place.
How can anyone do a decent job under these circumstances? How can anyone plan for the family holiday or buy Christmas presents? I’ve asked to see our Chief Executive to find out what he’s doing to help people cope with the stress the Tory leader of Wirral council is causing our employees. I want to know what care they are giving people and how they are protecting people from the indignity of feeling like they’re on the scrapheap.
My worry is that very little is being done. All at the same time as the group responsible for the mental health of our borough – the Primary Care Trust – faces dissolution.
Employment is central to a person’s sense of well-being. Their identity and dignity. So I have a feeling that in years to come, Cameron’s Tories won’t be so keen on his new happiness index. Not if it shows up the scars of the damage he and his Government are doing to the working life of our people.
Photo: Brooks Elliott
What I’d like to know is why the writer thinks public sector workers should face different conditions from those in the priovate sector. We’ve ALL seen cuts, why is it seen as such a crime against humanity that people in the public sector will also see cuts like the rest of us? Its very easy to blame this new government but we had 13 years of New Labour swelling the public sector to a size that is totally unsustainable. 52% of our econmy is state controlled….thats mental…..
Hopefully a focus on well-being, and the ONS measurements, will be useful for policymakers – and for those holding them to account. I was interested to read Andrew Oswald’s report on happiness and well-being. I’ve gone through his report and analysed and explored his ideas. My article can be found below: http://reflectionsandcontemplations.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/how-to-measure-happiness-and-a-few-thoughts-on-achieving-it-reflections-on-the-economics-of-well-being/
The point about the happiness agenda is that it requires an interventionist state to keep the economy on track, public investment in things that are conducive to personal and social well-being, and regulation to curb the excesses of the market place that cause so much misery. In other words the feel good society can only be achieved in a society run on social democratic lines. We should therefore be welcoming the Cameron initiative while showing how Tory policies are completely incompatible with it. This issue could have tremendous appeal to the public at large and as such should have a central role in our policy review.