Otago Regional Council (ORC) has recently released its Otago Wellbeing Baseline Report and boy is it interesting. 

ORC has developed the Wellbeing Framework for Otago to help gain a comprehensive understanding of wellbeing in the region and also, crucially, has set up a regional programme to monitor it. 

It centres around seven dimensions of wellbeing and includes 33 indicators as a way to measure outcomes in the region.

The seven dimensions of well-being can be summarised as: Healthy and fulfilled people; A good standard of living; Connected communities; Belonging and identity; Participation and governance; A healthy natural environment; and an enabling built environment.

There are four pou used - not distinct dimensions of wellbeing but principles or ways of looking at wellbeing that cut across the seven dimensions. These are:

1. The equity pou reminds us that it is not just the overall level of wellbeing in the Otago population that matters, but also its distribution among groups in the population.
2. The Mātauraka Kāi Tahu pou recognises the importance of the knowledge, values and worldviews of Kāi Tahu, as mana whenua for the Otago Region, across all aspects of wellbeing.
3. The resilience pou looks at the degree to which levels of wellbeing are resilient to potential shocks, and
4. The sustainability pou reflects the need to balance the wellbeing needs of current generations alongside safeguarding the wellbeing of future generations to come.

At a sub-regional level, the report shows just how well Central Otago is doing but also offers some insight into the things we could be doing better at.

 For instance, when it comes to live expectancy, Central Otago is ranked fifth out of 67 districts, sitting at 83.75 years in 2019. New Zealand is ranked eighteenth of 201 countries so I think it fair to say Central Otago folk have one of the highest life expectancies in the world not just now but in all of history.  

Seriously, think about that for a moment. How blessed are we?

Our employment rate ranks amongst the highest in the country, with only Queenstown Lakes District Council having a lower Jobseeker rate. We are fifth out of 67 districts for our kids going on to some form of tertiary education, with just over 70 per cent doing that. It is interesting to note Dunedin City is ranked first in New Zealand in this category.

You are much less likely to be the victim of a crime in Central Otago than just about anywhere else in the country, with our rate around 10 people per 10,000 compared to a national score of over 50. Despite recent trends, New Zealand remains one of the safest countries in the world, so living in Central, you are amongst the safest of the safe. We need to remind ourselves of that every so often.

As I say though, not all is rosy. Our rental affordability, or more accurately unaffordability is second only to QLDC in Otago and some of the data that covers all of Otago rather than breaking down to a sub-regional level also shows cause for concern. In particular, and surprisingly, the Otago region performs much lower than the national benchmark for Connected Communities.  

It saddened me to read that 39.5 per cent of the population in Otago reported feeling lonely some, most, or all of the time, but it is the emotion that reading something like that brings that creates change. I would have thought we were much more connected than that, but the evidence proves otherwise, meaning we can’t afford to sit on our laurels in that space.

Regrettably, our treatment of the environment doesn’t show a great report card either. Otago's natural environment performs below the other main regions, but above the national average. 

I really commend you to read the report in full. It is fascinating, easy to read and really makes one think about things and challenge assumptions and I think is essential reading for those people who feel things aren’t quite as perfect for them as they could be. Otago Regional Council must be heartily congratulated at putting this important piece of work together. The report can be found here.