Response to feedback from the Wellbeing of Wales user survey

The first ever annual Wellbeing of Wales report was published on the 25 September 2017. The report presents the progress Wales is making as a nation against the 7 goals set by the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

An online user survey was run from November 2017 through to February 2018.

The survey was advertised over social media, newsletters, emails, a blog post, and on the Wellbeing of Wales report webpages. The survey had a total of 43 respondents of which: 42% belonged to a public body, 21% were individuals and 16% were from the third-sector. The remaining 21% of respondents belonged to other organisations such as businesses or interest groups. For context, within a 6 month period, the main landing page had 3,200 unique page views and the report PDF was downloaded 1,100 times.

The survey consisted of 20 questions about various aspects of the report. The questions were a mixture of multiple choice and free-text fields.

People are using the report. Over a third of respondents said they found the report easy to use to make decisions. People have used, or plan to use, the report in a wide array of situations from research to budgeting. It has a view count in-line with other headline Welsh Government statistics. The SlideShare presentation of the key findings has had significantly more views than any previous use of that mechanism for sharing statistics.

The messages are getting across, 7 in 10 respondents think the key messages were communicated ‘fairly well’ or ‘very well’.

The individual progress reports for each Well-being goal are being used, 7 in 10 respondents found the progress reports ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ useful.

19 respondents said navigating the elements of the report was ‘easy’ or ‘very easy’. 5 did say it was ‘difficult’ or ‘very difficult’. The PDF was downloaded by over a third of people who viewed the main landing page. However, only 1 in 8 visitors to the main page used the interactive part.

Whilst respondents generally thought the messages were communicated well, there were a couple of comments about jargon. 23 people were unsure if the ‘Globally Responsible’ narrative effectively captured progress against the goal and 5 thought it didn’t.

We will continue to communicate the key messages, and try to use clear language to do so. We will examine how we can improve the “Globally Responsible” narrative to best convey its message.

We will keep the report in its current layout and continue to provide multiple formats to access the report. We will try and draw attention to the interactive report tab, which was missed by several users. This is an issue we are trying to address across other interactive reports as part of our improvements to statistical dissemination and the website in general over the next 12 months.

We will continue to seek feedback and improve the report, through multiple channels, including talking with stakeholders directly. People wishing to contribute can email stats.info.desk@gov.wales.