Wellbeing as part of a recovery plan

Britain is facing a 'significant recession' the headline reads. In fact, we will experience the worst damage from the Covid-19 crisis of any country in the developed world, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Maybe we can blame the government’s failure to get on top of the health crisis, its delay going into lockdown, or perhaps the ‘chaotic mismanagement’ of the exit from lockdown, or maybe all those individuals who aren’t adhering to the social distancing rules. Alongside a potential increase in unemployment to around 9%, we may also want to lay some blame on our failure to secure a lasting agreement with the EU on trade and access to the single market, according to the OECD.

Despite the impending doom forecasted for our economy, a ‘substantial majority’ of the public want the government to focus on improving health and wellbeing over economic growth. According to a YouGov poll, eight out of 10 of us would prefer priority to be given to health and wellbeing over economic growth during the coronavirus crisis, and six in 10 of us would still want the government to pursue health and wellbeing ahead of growth after the pandemic has subsided.

Cartoonist: Michael Leunig

Measuring more than GDP

Back in November 2010, Cameron called for the nation’s wellbeing to be measured, following the June Budget which acknowledged the limitations of GDP in measuring quality of life. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) led the debate, called the National Wellbeing Project, and since April 2011 has been measuring those aspects of that matter most to people’s wellbeing. As a nation therefore we have been measuring both wellbeing using the ONS 4, alongside GDP, for some time.

But how much difference has this made in what has been almost a decade?

Last month, in a report entitled The Tragedy of Growth, backed by politicians from several parties, including Clive Lewis of Labour, the Green party MP Caroline Lucas, and the former Conservative environment minister Lord Deben, who chairs the committee on climate change, campaigners called for a shift away from GDP as the government’s core measure of success. I thought we had already done that. Perhaps the difference this time is that the report is boldly saying that “to protect wellbeing and avoid ecological disaster we must abandon GDP growth and transform our economic system”. In fact, it’s in the title of the report! It then goes on to outline how Britain can achieve a post-growth economy that prioritises human wellbeing and ecological stability.

Again, the onus is being put on the ONS to publish a “dashboard” of wellbeing indicators, which the Treasury would then be required to target for improvement. The ONS do actually describe their current tracking on national wellbeing as a dashboard, so perhaps the authors of the report are saying it needs to be bigger and better (i.e. include the ecological factors) or that perhaps more people need to take notice of it and act on it.

Not a moment too soon

Thanks to the data that the ONS has been collecting for years before the pandemic and more frequently since lockdown, we know that across a range of indicators, levels of wellbeing and psychological distress are substantially worse in the April 2020 survey period than they were during March/April in 2019. This pattern is consistent across all regions in the UK, between men and women, across all age groups and across different ethnic groups. In fact, levels of all measures of wellbeing are at the lowest they have ever been since records began in the UK. Interestingly, if some ecological factors were included on that existing dashboard, we might find that they too are at lowest levels since records began – for example pollution and carbon emissions!

McKinsey have published a report assessing the cost of Covid on life satisfaction - Well-being in Europe: Addressing the high cost of COVID-19 on life satisfaction.  They calculate an indicative monetary value for the total wellbeing cost to adults in the UK to be around £2.25bn per day, or around £43 per adult per day. Whilst one-third of this figure represents the health-related costs, two-thirds represents the economic and social impacts. 

Therefore, I would like to add by voice to the call for wellbeing to be a focal point in our recovery. Is anybody listening?