Cwm Taf Well-being Assessment

As part of its duty under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act, the Cwm Taf Public Services Board will develop a Well-being Plan (by May 2018). The Plan will contain a set of Well-being Objectives and the steps the Public Services Board will take to meet them.

Successfully achieving the Well-being Objectives will help to improve the cultural, economic, environmental and social well-being of the people who live and work in Cwm Taf now and in the future. You can follow the development of the Well-being Objectives and find out how you can get involved in the conversation here.

In order to understand what well-being currently looks like in Cwm Taf and what is important to our communities, the Public Services Board first carried out an assessment of well-being. This told us about

Our population

Cwm Taf is made up of two local authority areas; Merthyr Tydfil and Rhondda Cynon Taf.

There are 295,865 people living in Cwm Taf; 20% of the population lives in Merthyr Tydfil and 80% lives in Rhondda Cynon Taf.

More people live here than live in other places of the same size in Wales, but our population is not expected to rise as much as other areas in the next twenty years.

304,543

By 2039 our population is predicted to rise to 304,543.

Belonging

Feeling part of, or like you belong to, a community makes a huge difference to well-being.

People with different interests, knowledge and opinions coming together are able to make much more of a difference than lots of smaller groups, or individuals, trying to make a difference alone.

Many communities in Cwm Taf have a very strong sense of community spirit.

Knowing

People and communities may not be able to feel like they belong because they do not know what is out there for them to get involved in.

We need to make sure that there are as few things stopping people from getting involved as possible.

What is available is always changing and our public services need to understand the best ways of sharing information and what can really help people.

Connecting

The geography of Cwm Taf (the landscape, towns and travel routes) means that it is not always easy to get to where we need to go, so we need to look at getting around in different ways.

We can connect to each other in different ways, like through social media or online communities.

We need to make sure that the links between communities and public services are strong and that our public services are helping in the right ways.

Using what we have

We have already identified the things that are going on in Cwm Taf and we need to build on them in the future.

Pride in our communities and what we are doing can be made even better by looking at what we have around us and using our local assets.

The establishment of the Public Services Board means that all the organisations which can help make a difference to well-being are already sitting around the same table.

Changing what we can

We need to start small and build on what we already know works.

This might be making the most of money or time to really get something right and working together to make a real difference.

Well-being can be improved and protected in the future if we know how to make a difference and make it as soon as possible, before things start or get worse.

Cwm Taf Well-being Assessment.pdf