When we think about a country’s government, many of us are likely to conjure up images in our mind of our country’s Prime Minister, Taoiseach, or President ... or perhaps a senior Minister who is in the public eye a lot. But we shouldn’t overlook the large number of people who play an integral role in supporting these figureheads. In the UK, more than half a million people work for the British Civil Service which, between 2005 and 2011, was led by today’s guest, Lord Gus O’Donnell. 

Lord O’Donnell is a proud wellbeing public policy advocate, and a valued member of the World Wellbeing Movement’s Board of Trustees. In this episode, he talks host Sarah Cunningham through his journey into wellbeing economics, and his hopes for a wellbeing policy agenda that helps society move ‘beyond GDP’. Gus advocates for a government that prioritises the wellbeing of its people as the measure of success. 

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We are all Working on our Wellbeing daily, but not everyone has access to the latest cutting-edge research into the science of wellbeing … until now. From our home at the World Wellbeing Movement, within the University of Oxford, we have created the Working on Wellbeing podcast so that you can be a fly on the wall during our conversations with the world’s leading wellbeing experts.

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