Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps local authorities are taking to ensure elderly and vulnerable people who are without a support network of friends or family during the winter do not suffer from loneliness.

My department is working with local authorities and with colleagues across Government to support people suffering from loneliness and to develop policies to reduce social isolation.

Through my department, the Communities Fund is providing resources for 54 partnerships between Local Authorities and communities, some of which are developing projects to help social isolation and loneliness through social prescribing interventions, volunteering and employment. For example, in South Norfolk, a social prescription intervention project will tackle social isolation, reduce use of primary care resources, and help increase access to services in a rural area, and, in Stoke-on-Trent, funding is being used to help communities support older residents, particularly those who are experiencing social isolation and loneliness.

The planning system also encourages local authorities to consider loneliness and social isolation when making decisions. Paragraph 1.16 of the Housing White Paper confirmed the strengthening of the National Planning Policy Framework so that planning authorities are expected to have clear policies for addressing the housing requirements of groups with particular needs, such as elderly and disabled people and the Neighbourhood Planning Bill introduced a new statutory duty on the Secretary of State to produce guidance for local planning authorities on how their local development documents should meet the housing needs of older and disabled people. Guidance produced will place clearer expectations about planning to meet the needs of older people, including supporting the development of such homes near local services.

Additionally, our Supported Housing and Disabled Facilities Grant programmes are helping the target populations live as independently as possible within the community, which helps to prevent loneliness.

All community spaces have an important role to play in preventing loneliness and the Department works closely with local authorities, community groups, and the voluntary and charity sectors to ensure communities know and use the rights they have over their community assets. That can be the local pub, park, community café or local employment services, youth clubs, or social prescribing initiatives. The Pocket Parks Programme, for example, transformed 87 small patches of waste land across England (2015/2016) into community green spaces. Communities not only got a pocket park, but also came together in the planning, execution, and enjoyment of their new community hub, which helped to increase community cohesion and decrease social isolation.

In 2013-14, the Department of Health also added a loneliness measure to the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework and Public Health Outcomes Framework and supported the development of a loneliness toolkit for Health and Wellbeing Boards by the Campaign to End Loneliness, which can be found at http://campaigntoendloneliness.org/guidance/. Local authorities can use these measures as guidance to develop interventions to tackle loneliness and social isolation.