2025 started over five years ago. It was founded by Clare Budden, then Chief Officer for Community and Enterprise at Flintshire County Council and now Group CEO of North Wales housing association, ClwydAlyn, Paul Diggory, former CEO of North Wales Housing, and Margaret Hanson, former Vice Chair of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and now Chief Executive of mental health charity, Imagine Independence.
They joined together because they were angry about health inequalities and the impact they continue to have on people’s lives – someone living in a deprived community in North Wales is likely to live 11 less than someone in a wealthier area, yet this is avoidable.
At the same time, the Future Generations Act was emerging, which provided an opportunity for 2025 to develop a strong and coordinated leadership response to the challenges set out in the act based around the five ways of working.
Based in systems leadership, the 2025 approach is all about achieving long-term system change, involving and collaborating with anyone with a shared passion for tackling and preventing avoidable health inequalities across geographical and organisational boundaries to deliver integrated learning and action.
Growth of 2025 The 2025 movement has grown and developed over the last five year to over 300 people and organisations. In practice this is led through a Programme Management Group (PMG) of leaders chaired by Clare Budden.
This includes representatives from Flintshire, Conwy and Denbighshire county councils, North Wales Fire Service, Public Health Wales, Wrecsam Glyndwr University and housing associations ClwydAlyn, Cartrefi Conwy, Grwp Cynefin and Adra which all oversee and steer the wider work of the movement. 2025 is enabled by leadership practice, Do-Well (UK) Ltd. Engaging Do-Well’s Ken Perry as community enabler for 2025 was key learning for the leadership team for his role in maintaining the energy and growth of the movement.
Work on the ground is led by Just Do Teams (JDTs) – the engine room of 2025. JDTs cover a wide range of issues from food and fuel poverty to homelessness and social isolation, all working together to create a healthier and more resilient communities.
This approach has seen wide ranging achievements - more than 800 avoidable hospital admissions have been prevented across Conwy and Denbighshire through a pilot project to put a housing officer post in the acute hospital. More than 500 households a week in Flintshire have also received emergency food support during the pandemic.
Other work underway is tackling fuel poverty by engaging with over 3,500 households to provide advice on how to warm their homes while saving money on their energy bills, which is also contributing to a low carbon society and a resilient and prosperous North Wales.
Relighting the fire
While 2025 has continued to make progress in keeping the fire burning over the last 12 months, the pandemic has understandably had an impact on its work as many of those who remain committed to the movement have been on the frontline of the Covid response.
With its work needed more than ever as the impact of the pandemic continues to exacerbate existing inequalities, 2025 members have now turned their focus to ‘relighting the fire’. This aims to celebrate and showcase what has gone well over the last five years and encourage more people and organisations to bring their support and influence to the movement.
As part of Relight the Fire there will be a number of 2025 gatherings coming soon to highlight how the movement has grown, what the learning has been so far and encourage new connections and support.
The Relight the Fire campaign is your opportunity to make a difference, please take it by contacting Ken Perry at ken.perry@do-well.co.uk.
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