Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department uses Office for National Statistics estimates of personal well-being in formulating policy; and what policies his Department has introduced to improve personal well-being in the last 12 months.

HM Treasury uses ONS wellbeing statistics to inform health and wellbeing policy within the department. The Treasury also measures personal wellbeing through the annual Civil Service People Survey using the same national statistics that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) use for the UK population as a whole. The survey includes personal wellbeing questions covering life satisfaction, worthwhile, happiness and anxiety.

Over the past year the department has implemented the following initiatives to support well-being: access to the Wellbeing Gateway that includes quick guides and links to policy and support for the most common wellbeing issues, development of a Wellbeing Hub detailing all the wellbeing and resilience support and training available; provision of ‘Wellbeing Confident Leader’ workshops to the senior civil service (SCS) staff and introduction of the Stress Talking Toolkit to help with the difficult conversations around stress and mental health.