FIFTY YEARS OF THE ESRC FEATURE
establishment owes much to the influence of Lord (Gus) O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, who is described by Layard as “a hero” for his role in the growing acceptance that these issues are of policy importance. In addition, Prime Minister David Cameron has long supported wellbeing and happiness as a concern for government. The ESRC is a partner in the Centre and leads its research commissioning. Nancy Hey, deputy director (development), says that while the organisation is still in the throes of being set up, it is clear that it will have a bridging function that involves bringing research evidence to a broad range of users. Among its 17 partner bodies, the ESRC will take a lead in research, Public Health England is heavily involved because of its work in the application of new knowledge, the Office for National Statistics will add expertise in the measurement of wellbeing, and the Big Lottery Fund will bring experience of supporting wellbeing interventions. The aim of the Centre is to raise awareness of
wellbeing in a wide range of contexts, including the workplace. Hey says: “There is broader support for the Centre than we had perhaps anticipated. Clinical Commissioning Groups, community organisations and public health directors are all showing interest. In Northern Ireland, local authorities have a duty to promote wellbeing, and we know that human resources professionals in local government and elsewhere are keen.” Hey adds that businesses such as BT have got
the wellbeing message and regard it as a priority. She hopes to spread the idea to other companies
Because people tend to compare their income to those of people around them, very little extra happiness is produced if everyone tries to raise their standard of living
by a process of mutual learning. She says: “This issue goes a long way beyond whether employers provide fruit for the office. It started out with workplace stress, but has now extended into areas such as presenteeism.” The City Mental Health Alliance, for example, is pushing workforce welfare in possibly the UK’s most high-stress and long-hours workplace. Measuring health interventions The ESRC’s longest-running and arguably best- established research on health and wellbeing concerns health economics. The ESRC has been a key partner for the University of York, which has had a pivotal role in establishing health economics as a vigorous and influential subject and in training many of its top practitioners. The York MSc in health economics now has 40 students a year, and many alumni are in key jobs in the field around the world.
Professor Andrew Jones, head of the department of economics and related studies at York, says that health economics began there in 1963 and has grown rapidly since. A key innovation in the field, the QALY or quality-adjusted life year, was pioneered at York by Professor Alan Williams. It is a measure of the gain to be made by a specific health intervention, and is used in the NHS and other organisations to compare the value of apparently disparate choices. The QALY has its critics. Professor Layard, for example, thinks it pays too little attention to mental rather than physical health. But Jones points out that it is a key tool for “priority-setting in a non- market system, where cost-benefit analysis is not
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