As we look ahead to a difficult winter, safeguarding health and wellbeing is top of many people’s minds. But in difficult times, how useful is wellbeing as a metric for designing and evaluating public policy?

Last week, I was pleased to be invited to talk about this question to the Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Public Administration Committee. The invitation was in response to a piece we published at LGiU looking at the outcomes of New Zealand’s Wellbeing Budget.