The first cross-Government Loneliness Strategy was published on 15 October 2018.

The Department’s commitments in the Strategy include measures which will reach dementia patients through services they already use. For example, by 2023, the Government will support all local health and care systems to implement social prescribing connector schemes across the whole country. The Chief Social Worker for Adults is also working to improve knowledge sharing among social workers so they can better help people at risk of chronic loneliness.

In 2018 the Government also launched the £11.5 million Building Connections Fund in partnership with The National Lottery Community Fund and the Co-op Foundation which has funded 126 projects, including some of which support people with dementia.

The Department is also delivering the Challenge on Dementia 2020 to make England the best country in the world for dementia, and has launched the Dementia Friendly Communities programme to make society more inclusive for people with dementia.

My Department does not issue guidance on the Family Test. However, the Department for Work and Pensions is currently refreshing the government guidance on the Family Test which is due to be published shortly. I can confirm that loneliness will be included in the updated guidance.

The Department is developing guidance for schools which will include advice on how schools can use their premises for community use. This guidance will set out different types of income generation activities including letting out premises, working with local businesses, selling goods and services, and applying for grants. The Department intends to publish this on GOV.UK in due course.

The Department’s aim is to level the playing field between schools in their ability to generate income and help them build strong community links at the same time.

BEIS continues to work with the Campaign to End Loneliness through the Employer Leadership Group to identify best practice by employers in tackling loneliness – both in their own workforce and in the wider community. The group strengthens cooperation and coordination between Government, business and other groups with an interest in tackling loneliness. It last met on 23rd July, and will meet again on 7th November. The intention is to publish examples of good practice by the end of the year. We expect this to include examples of employers providing community space.

The Campaign to End Loneliness and BEIS are engaged with a range of organisations through the Employers Leadership Group and others including the Federation of Small Businesses, Contact the Elderly and TalkTalk, to draw together examples of good practice in tackling loneliness. We are working with these organisations to share good practice and develop advice and guidance which may help others do more to support the social wellbeing of employees. Thirty employers have so far signed the Campaign to End Loneliness Pledge.

The Department has recently tendered for a research contract to explore the effectiveness with which community-led housing (and cohousing in particular) addresses loneliness. Specifically, the impact of housing interventions on loneliness; understand the impact of community-led housing and co-housing on reducing loneliness across all ages; and to explore best practice in housing schemes that promote social cohesion.

The information requested is not held centrally as the Department does not currently hold data on the number of schools that allow their premises to be used outside school hours. The Department will collect data on the income generated by schools letting their premises for the year 2019-20. This data should be available towards the end of next year.

The Department encourages schools to make the best use of their facilities, particularly where this creates more opportunities for young people to access a broad range of activities.

Schools sit at the heart of their community and there are some excellent examples of this happening. For example, the Deanery CE Academy in Swindon, opened in September 2019, where community access has been designed in the layout of this school.

We are aiming to increase the proportion of apprenticeships started by people with a learning disability or learning difficulty (LDD) to 20% by 2020. During the first 3 quarters of 2018/19, 12.3% of starts were by apprentices who identified as having LDD, up from 11.5% reported at the same time last year.

Traineeships support young people identified as having LDD to gain work experience through work placements. In 2017/18, 21% of starts were by young people who identified as having LDD.

To support employers to offer opportunities to people with LDD, the department is funding a range of resources for employers on work experience, traineeships, apprenticeships and employment for those with LDD. We are also funding the Learning and Work Institute to create an employer toolkit on widening participation.

We are also continuing to work with Mencap to take forward the recommendations from their July report to make apprenticeships more accessible.

We continue to provide financial support to training providers where an apprentice requires additional support to help remove barriers for people with LDD. Up to £150 a month may be paid to training providers to fund additional support. In specific circumstances, this amount can rise to £19,000 per year if necessary.

Providers and employers recruiting apprentices aged 19 to 24 with Education, Health and Care plans continue to receive an additional payment of £1000. Providers and employers who recruit 16 to 18 year olds receive £1000 regardless of whether they have LDD.

No assessment has been made.

In the NHS Long Term Plan, NHS England and NHS Improvement committed to deliver at least £4.5 billion of new investment in primary medical and community health services over the next five years. Part of this investment will support the recruitment of over 1,000 trained social prescribing link workers in place by the end of 2020/21, rising further by 2023/24, with the aim that over 900,000 people are able to be referred to social prescribing schemes by then.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are working to get all social prescribing services, local commissioners and providers involved in measuring the impact of social prescribing locally. It has developed a Common Outcomes Framework (COF) for social prescribing which will enable social prescribing connector schemes across the country to capture core impact data. This will help to create a consistent evidence base; support the business case; and, build a national picture of the impact of social prescribing. The outcomes cover three key areas: the impact on the person; the impact on community groups; and the impact on the health and care system. NHS England and NHS Improvement will be working with stakeholders in a phased approach over the next two years to embed the use of the measures in the COF for the evaluation of social prescribing schemes.

The COF can be found via the following link:

www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/social-prescribing-community-based-support-summary-guide.pdf

On 23 October 2019, the Government launched a new independent organisation: the National Academy for Social Prescribing, which is set to receive £5 million in grant funding from April next year to support its work. Since its development was announced in November 2018, the Department and NHS England have been working with a broad range of partners both in and out of Government to build consensus on the form and focus of the organisation in order that it deliver the greatest impact. The Academy will be working to: build and promote the evidence base for social prescribing and sharing best practice; developing training and accreditation across sectors; exploring new models and sources of funding; and, helping to broker relationships between sectors.