Amid the rising demands on the social sector and declining funding, civil society has been left feeling overlooked, sidelined and ignored in recent years. Social sector organisations have received warm words, praise and endorsements, but this has not added up to an overall vision for the impact of civil society, nor given voice to its transformative potential in national or local decision-making.
A promise renewed
Last week, the Prime Minister launched the Civil Society Covenant as “a way forward in partnership – together – by giving civil society a home at the heart of government.”
For PBE, this was a commitment coming full circle. When Sir Keir Starmer addressed civil society leaders to launch the Covenant, he was keen to remind the room: “Around 18 months ago, in opposition, in a church near Waterloo Station, I made a promise to people in this room,” he said. “That we would reset the relationship between government and civil society. Today, in government, we are delivering on that promise.” We were in that room back in January 2024, when PBE brought together civil society leaders and Labour’s frontbench in a gathering that helped lay the groundwork for the Covenant.
A contribution revalued
PBE believes that the sector has often been overlooked by policymakers because the scale and breadth of civil society’s contribution to our economy, communities and health and wellbeing has been undervalued.
Our new analysis highlights the true scale of civil society’s contribution to the UK. It reveals that the sector’s economic value is nearly double the official estimate—worth £39.6 billion compared to the current figure of £20.8 billion. This includes a remarkable £15.5 billion from volunteering alone, a vital yet often overlooked source of economic and social value.
The research shows that civil society contributes 1.5% of the UK’s Gross Value Added, supports 480,000 paid jobs, and provides 688 million hours of unpaid work each year. Taken together, this output rivals that of the UK’s entire agriculture and car manufacturing industries combined.
Yet too often, across governments and regions, the UK has failed to tap into the unique insight and practical solutions that civil society offers to the challenges facing the country.
A relationship reimagined
The publication of the Covenant signals a welcome shift. It sets intention for a stronger partnership focused on the huge potential of civil society’s impact on all the Government’s missions.
The positive feedback from organisations at the launch noted a shift in both tone and level of engagement with civil society-led solutions to the big challenges facing communities and public services. Minister after minister offered considered reflections and real ambition about social sector-led solutions, impact and potential.
At the Covenant’s launch, several ministers drew on their backgrounds in the sector to highlight their commitment. Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy argued for civil society to be at the heart of decision-making. Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland Kirsty McNeill emphasised the need for trust, honesty and partnership between the sector and government.
These themes resonated across the ministerial speakers: the need for strong partnership with the sector, a trusting relationship which does not baulk at challenge, and a mature acknowledgement that government cannot deliver on its missions alone.
The Covenant feels like a different kind of approach to the original Compact between Government and the voluntary sector launched in the late 1990s. This was initially established under the then Labour government and was later revised and streamlined under the Coalition before fading away. The Compact was heavier on structure, codes and commitments. Along with it grew a whole apparatus of accountability and governance.
The new Covenant includes some initial steps to implement its principles but also provides a broader constructive challenge to the sector to come forward with answers from civil society to the big challenges facing our communities.
Perhaps reflecting the different places both civil society and government are in in 2025 compared to the late 1990s, the Covenant feels less like an attempt to provide a predictable and formal structure to sector relationships, and focuses more on building the trust, confidence and a shared language to help both government and civil society to get to bigger solutions, faster. As Lisa Nandy’s foreword to the Covenant puts it, “ambition alone is not enough. If we are to transform the country, we must be willing to do things differently and to do them together.”
Alongside the Covenant, the government announced commitments to embed and scale two different service models that were initiated in, and pioneered by, the social sector. This includes the launch of Diagnosis Connect on the NHS App: an approach developed by the Richmond group that will connect patients recently diagnosed with long-term conditions with support in the community. Also announced was the commitment of £53 million to scale up the Drive Partnership’s approach to combined statutory and voluntary agency responses to high-harm, high-risk perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse.
A challenge accepted
The art of turning high level principles into lived reality will not come from the Covenant and its structures alone, but through the ability of the sector and the opportunities it is given to make an impact across the government’s priority policy agendas. To deliver the ambitions of the Covenant this will need to include all the missions set out in the Plan for Change, the Cabinet Office’s Test, Learn and Grow approach to public service reform and building local Covenants into the devolution of decision-making to mayoral and combined authorities.
This is, of course, not the first attempt to reignite the spirit of collaboration between state and civil society. Sceptics have several failed examples to point to in highlighting the barriers to turning high-level commitments into changed relationships. All those involved in the launch of the Covenant will be paying close attention to how the Covenant fares in contact with the realities of fiscal events, strained capacity at different levels of government and future political trade-offs facing government.
From chronic health conditions to social disconnection and entrenched inequality between places in the UK, we know many of the UK’s most persistent problems require long-term, local, people-centred answers. Civil society organisations in those communities and places need the shared power, trust and sustained support to make change happen.
The launch of the Covenant underlines that the UK simply cannot afford to continue to overlook or undervalue the role of civil society. Welcoming the arrival of the Civil Society Covenant is not just embracing positivity in a moment of reset, it is recognising the huge potential of civil society-led solutions to the challenges Britain faces and a signal of readiness to help make stronger partnerships work.