Tackling Loneliness Inter-Ministerial Group

In 2018, the strategy for tackling loneliness: A Connected Society launched. The strategy contained three objectives that continue to guide DCMS’s work:

• To reduce the stigma of loneliness; 
• To drive a lasting shift so that relationships and loneliness are considered in policy-making and delivery by government departments and organisations across society; and
• To build the evidence base for what works to tackle loneliness.

Five years on from 2018 and DCMS continues to work in partnership with departments across government so that relationships and loneliness are considered in policy making. To support this, the Minister for Loneliness chairs a biannual Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) that is attended by Ministers from 12 government departments. The IMG was launched in 2018 and after a brief hiatus during Covid-19, the meetings reconvened in June 2022.

In March 2023, the fourth annual progress report on the Tackling Loneliness Strategy was published. This report contained 60 new and ongoing commitments from government departments to be progressed in the subsequent two years. The IMG agreed to these commitments, and continues to help to identify opportunities to collaborate, share up to date evidence, and monitor the delivery of cross-government action. The fifth annual report is due to be published in May. 

Each meeting focuses on a different topic, often with a guest speaker invited to provide Ministers with an in-depth view of the issue. Recent IMG meetings have explored the role of social prescribing in tackling loneliness (July 2023), and the work that government departments are doing to tackle loneliness for children in care and care leavers (February 2024).