Non‑statutory guidance for public services boards and regional partnership boards: Assessments, data and evidence - 3. Roles and responsibilities of PSBs and RPBs

This section provides a practical overview of how roles and responsibilities are typically organised across PSBs and RPBs. Rather than duplicating statutory requirements, it sets out how each partnership usually approaches its assessment duties, and how responsibilities can be coordinated in practice. This section intends to support early planning discussions about leadership, contributions and shared work.

PSBs focus primarily on place-based well-being, while RPBs focus on care and support needs. Each partnership leads its own statutory assessment; however, both carry out similar tasks such as gathering evidence, involving people, analysing trends and interpreting insight.

PSBs usually lead work that is:

• Area wide and community focused, drawing on insight about place, population trends and community well-being. This includes drawing on existing community voice evidence and working with partners to involve people whose voices are seldom heard. For the purposes of this guidance, “seldom heard” may include people facing structural barriers to participation, such as social or economic disadvantage, protected characteristics, higher‑risk or marginalised groups, or barriers linked to geography or digital access.
• Strategic and collaborative, bringing multiple public bodies (and other members) together to explore shared well-being issues.
• Longterm in nature, using future trends and the five ways of working to inform the PSB’s well-being plans.
• Broad in evidence needs, combining data, perceptions and qualitative experience from across communities.

RPBs usually lead work that is:

• Region-wide population group focused, exploring needs such as older people, children and young people, carers, disabled people and others. This includes engagement with people with lived experience and carers across priority groups, ensuring diverse voices are represented.
• Service oriented, relating insight to the range and level of services required, delivered in partnership, that responds to the diversity of the population, including Welsh-medium provision.
• Demand and sufficiency focused, supporting 5-year Area Plans and Market Stability Reports.

Roles may differ across partnerships, but early clarity on leadership, contribution and decision‑making processes can help avoid duplication and support more coherent assessments. Clear expectations about who leads, who contributes and how work is shared can reduce duplicated effort and support a consistent regional narrative.

• Clear contribution roles: Where one partnership leads, the other can contribute insight, data or expertise without duplicating effort.
• Communication and governance: Agreeing how findings will be presented to both boards can support a coherent story across the region.

PSBs and RPBs may wish to agree a shared approach to engagement that avoids duplication, aligns timelines and reduces burden on communities and stakeholders. A coordinated approach can help both partnerships draw on a common base of community insight, lived experience and stakeholder views. Partnerships may wish to identify a joint engagement lead or working group to coordinate activity, maintain an overview of existing insight and ensure engagement activity is inclusive, bilingual and proportionate across both duties.

To strengthen this joint approach, partnerships may also wish to:

• Make deliberate efforts to involve people whose voices are often under‑represented, including those who may not typically participate in formal engagement.
• Use trusted intermediaries, community organisations and tailored methods to reach people who are hardest to engage, ensuring engagement activities are culturally sensitive and accessible.
• Review existing community insight and citizen voice evidence to assess sufficiency, identifying demographic, spatial or thematic gaps and determining where further engagement is needed.
• Reduce engagement fatigue by aligning engagement cycles, sharing insight across both partnerships and combining activities where appropriate.

A shared approach to engagement helps ensure that both assessments are informed by a diverse and robust range of views, supports more consistent interpretation of evidence and reduces unnecessary burden on communities.