Social Partnership - Annual Report (2024/25)

1. Background

 On 1 April 2024, the new Social Partnership Duty (“the Duty”) on public bodies came into force in Wales. The Duty is set out in sections 15, 16 and 18 of the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act 2023 (“SPPP Act”). It complements existing well-being duties to which certain public bodies are already subject to under Part 2 of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (“WFG Act”).

In carrying out sustainable development, public bodies listed under section 6(1) of the WFG Act, will be required, in so far as is reasonable, to seek consensus or compromise with their recognised trade unions, or, where there is no recognised trade union, other worker representatives, when setting their well-being objectives and making decisions of a strategic nature about the reasonable steps they intend to take to deliver those objectives set under section 3(2) of the WFG Act.

Section 16(2) of the SPPP Act, sets out a number of specific requirements relating to the Duty, which a public body must comply with when ‘seeking consensus or compromise’. The requirements are intended to ensure that trade unions or other representatives of the staff of public bodies are fully and properly involved when a public body sets its well-being objectives, or when making strategic decisions about the reasonable steps the body is taking to meet those objectives.

The SPPP Act states that:

In order to seek consensus or compromise a public body must include its recognised trade unions or other representatives of its staff in the process of setting objectives or making decisions, by (in particular):

(a) consulting them at a formative stage of the process, and

(b) otherwise involving them throughout the process by:

• providing sufficient information to enable them to properly consider what is proposed, and
• providing sufficient time to enable them to adequately consider what is proposed and respond.

The intended effect of the legislation is to improve the economic, social, cultural, and environmental well-being of people in Wales by strengthening the role of social partnership within strategic decision-making.

The SPPP Act requires in-scope public bodies to produce an annual report to evidence how they have complied with the duty, which must be submitted to the Social Partnership Council (“SPC”) for scrutiny.

Section 18 of the SPPP Act states:

(1) A public body must prepare, in respect of each financial year, a report of what it has done to comply with the duty.

(2) The report must be agreed with the public body’s recognised trade unions or (where there is no recognised trade union) other representatives of its staff or contain a statement explaining why it was not agreed.

(3) The public body must publish the report, and submit it to the SPC, as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of the financial year.