WWD3
Attendance at Religious Services
What we do
- Community
Attendance at Religious Services
Religious institutions, spaces, activities, and beliefs play a huge part in our societal dynamics across the globe. In the UK, the last census, 2021, showed 46.2% of people in England and Wales reported their religion as ‘Christian’, 6.5% reported themselves as ‘Muslim’, 1.7% reported being ‘Hindu’, 0.9% as Sikh, and 0.5% as Buddhist and Jewish respectively. There are also another 0.6% who report ‘other religion’. Whilst the religion question of the census is voluntary, and there are differing surveys that show variations of these percentages of the population, even at the most conservative end of the scale there are still a huge number of people who believe in and participate in religious activities regularly in the UK.
In terms of actual religious spaces, there are around 40,000 church buildings in the UK open to the public and being used for worship and other community based activities. There are thousands of religious spaces dedicated to the other religions in the UK (e.g. over 1,500 mosques, approx 500 synagogues, and 500 Hindu temples, and approx 200 Buddhist buildings).
The communities that work, worship and volunteer in these spaces run a wide variety of activities and services that have a huge collective impact on our UK society. On top of regular religious services, centres may run homeless services, food banks, drug and alcohol programmes, nighttime economy support, youth activities, environmental and ecology programmes, support for the elderly and adult social care, child and family support, or other activities based on community need.
The potential for direct and indirect economic value,, and wellbeing value creation, for the communities that engage with these institutions is huge. There are existing values relating to religious activities as well as rich data sets on religious engagement, and validated (tried and tested) ways to most accurately ask about these. For this Measure Up value we are focusing on the wellbeing value of attendance at religious services. There are however many other areas of potential value creation that we may explore more in the future.
Key Value
A monetised social value of £3,400
This is the monetised wellbeing value of 1 person attending religious services ‘once a week or more’
The values are guided by government policy (The Green Book) and economics based research into the relationship between religious activity and wellbeing (measured by life satisfaction.) The Green Book recommends that life satisfaction is expressed as £ monetised wellbeing, using the value of £13,000 for 1 WELLBY, over one year.
Research has been done by State of Life which found that even after accounting for other factors, compared to someone who ‘never or almost never’ attends religious services, someone who attends ‘once a week or more’ is associated with an increase in life satisfaction of 0.22333. Therefore this change in attending religious services is worth 0.22333 WELLBYs, or 0.22333*£13,000 = £2,903 (rounded to £3,000).
Adjusted value for inflation to 2023 prices is £3,407. Our approach to inflation adjustments is explained on our Methodology page HERE
A rounded value of £3,400 in 2023 prices.
A similar figure is reported in the House of Good 2021 report update which states a range of wellbeing value for a person attending religious services weekly of between £2,417 – £3,867, and a central value of £3,142.
The wellbeing change of the congregations, volunteers and the people helped is associated with:
- their religious belief
- helping others or being helped
- being part of a community
- feeling happier and healthier
- companionship
- a sense of belonging or purpose
- pleasure of being in a beautiful place with a rich history.
Local Needs Analysis Data Source
Before using this MeasureUp value, we encourage you to assess the local need in relation to the activity or outcome.
Here is the most useful initial data source for assessing local need in relation to this value.
For assessing local needs related to the value WWD3 ‘Attendance at religious services’, you can consider indicators that reflect religious affiliation and access to places of worship. Key sources include: Religious affiliation (Census 2021) and Places of religious worship per 100,000 people. The Census 2021, conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), provides detailed data on religious affiliation at neighbourhood level (Output Areas), MSOAs, and local authority levels. This data gives insight into the religious makeup of communities, which can help infer potential demand for religious services.
The number of places of religious worship per 100,000 people—also provided by the ONS—offers a proxy for access to spaces for religious practice. This indicator is currently available at the local authority level, with its update frequency to be determined.
Bronze
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Multiply the proportion of your stakeholder group you expect to regularly attend religious services by £3,400
Silver
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Consider whether the religious centre is rural or urban, and adjust the value based on this.
Gold
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Measure actual attendance at religious services, and measure actual amounts of difference that religious belief makes to people’s lives
Gold+
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Adjust your measurement based on comparison to your control group, and discounting any other causality factors that may have had an impact on their overall wellbeing
| Value Type: | Activity |
What's this?
This is the type of value. Some values are outcomes, which means many different interventions might lead to them, others are specific interventions that have a set value. |
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| UN SDG Categories: |
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What's this?
The UN Sustainable Development Goals are global goals adopted in 2015 for all signed up nations to achieve for us to have a sustainable global future by 2030. There are 17 Goals that address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030. |
| 2020 Social Value Models: |
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What's this?
PPN 06/20 Taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts introduced the Central Government Social Value Model in 2020 which all Central Government contracting authorities must use in their in scope procurements. It consists of 5 themes, 8 policy outcomes, and 24 Model Award Criteria which outline key priority areas to achieve more social value. |
| 2025 Social Value Models: |
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What's this?
PPN 06/20 was superseded by PPN 002 Taking account of social value in the award of contracts, published in February 2025 in line with the Royal assent of the Procurement Act 2023. The Model applies to all Central Government procurements commencing on or after 1 October 2025 under the Procurement Act 2023. Out of scope procurements can choose to apply the model but are not required to do so. The updated model is structured around 5 government missions and 8 outcomes, with 17 Model Award Criteria, and a mandatory minimum 10% weighting of the total evaluation score assigned to social value. |
Evidence
Measure Up focuses on empowering you to numerically measure the impact you’re having. We recommend that numeric reports are backed up with stories and other types of evidence to help illustrate, in human terms, the impact that’s being made on individuals.
We recommend seeking consent from one or more participants in your intervention to collect and tell their story. This should include a little background on the participant, a summing up of life before the intervention, the human impact of the intervention, and the longer term (if known) impact on the person’s life outside of, and after, the intervention.
Providing photographs, audio recordings, video interviews or even artifacts from the intervention (for example, writing, paintings, music, etc from creative interventions) can add more colour, and convey the emotional impact of interventions more directly.
In some cases it’s appropriate to anonymise or abbreviate the personal information of case study participants. No story should be published or shared without the recorded consent of the individual(s) it concerns. Individuals continue to own the rights to their stories and if they request you stop sharing the story or making it available online you should do so promptly and without need for justification.
Feedback
Measure Up is an open, collaborative and transparent. If you have any suggestions or feedback on our pragmatic, recommended approach to measuring Life Satisfaction please get in touch so we can share and discuss this at our next Advisory Group meeting.
More help
We want to empower anyone to perform and improve their impact measurement – without needing a degree in economics.
If you need any more help, or just someone to do the legwork for you we can help signpost you to software, training and consultancy to help you get to grips with the impact you’re having.
