RE1
Reduced Loneliness
Relationships
Reduced Loneliness
Loneliness is typically defined as the discrepancy between a person’s desired and actual social relationships.
Some ways loneliness can be experienced are:
- emotional loneliness – a lack of emotional attachment to someone like a close friend or partner
- social loneliness – a lack of friends to go out with, or who share our hobbies or interests
- existential loneliness – a sense of being in a room of people you know and still feeling alone
Some people experience loneliness occasionally – perhaps only at certain times, like Sundays or Christmas – while others feel lonely all the time, which is sometimes called chronic loneliness.
Key Value
A monetised social value of £8,100
This is the monetised value of 1 person reporting they are ‘hardly ever or never’ lonely from being ‘some of the time’ lonely over the course of a year.
Reducing loneliness is often the intention of interventions. The values are guided by government policy (The Green Book) and sophisticated research into the relationship between loneliness 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 (see section on life satisfaction.) Research using national datasets can estimate the isolated impact of a change in loneliness on life satisfaction, after accounting for important controls such as age, health, socio-economics and other demographics.
This research has been done by State of Life (The WELLBY Guide), which found that even after accounting for all these other factors, a change by 1 category in a loneliness scale is worth approx. £8,100.
State of Life’s research found that even after accounting for other observable factors, a change from ‘often/always’ lonely to ‘hardly ever’/ ‘never’ lonely is associated with an increase in life satisfaction of 1.24.
Therefore this change in loneliness is worth 1.24 WELLBYs, or 1.24*£13,000 = £16,129 (rounded to £16,000). A change from ‘sometimes’ lonely to ‘hardly ever’ / ‘never’ lonely is associated with an increase in life satisfaction of 0.53 (0.53 WELLBYs) or 0.53*£13,000 = £6,850 (rounded to (£7,000).
Adjusted for inflation to 2023 prices is 8,087. Our approach to inflation adjustments is explained in our FAQs HERE
An overall rounded value of £8,100.
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.
To assess local needs related to the value RE1 ‘Reduced loneliness’, you can use several indicators to capture different aspects of loneliness and social isolation. Key data sources include:
% of adults reporting being lonely (Sport England) – Measures the proportion of adults who report feeling lonely. This data is updated annually and available at the local authority, region, and active partnership levels. To explore the survey, select the data you are interested in analysing (Locations), then choose location and in the final step choose measures (Loneliness).
Frequency of feelings of loneliness (Community Life Survey 2023-24) – Tracks how often individuals feel lonely, offering a deeper understanding of the intensity of loneliness experienced. This data is available annually at the local authority level.
Together, these indicators help assess the scope of loneliness in communities, enabling targeted interventions to address social isolation and enhance social connections.
How to measure Reduced Loneliness
If you’re just getting started with Impact measurement, start with Bronze first. The result of a Bronze measurement is just an estimate but requires the least effort, whereas Silver, Gold or platinium give more accurate results but require more effort.
Each level has an effort-to-accuracy indicator; choose the one that’s right for you.
Bronze
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Multiply the proportion of your participants you expect to report substantially reduced loneliness by £8,100
Silver
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Consider what categories of loneliness you might shift people from and to. Therefore you can calculate an estimate of the overall shift, by applying the appropriate WELLBY values.
Gold
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Measure actual amounts of difference that reduced loneliness makes to people’s lives.
Gold+
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
At the Gold+ level, you are building on your Gold value calculation by assessing the value against the counterfactual, or ‘what would have happened anyway’.
| Value Type: | Master outcome |
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. This PPN outlined the requirement to use the new 2025 Central Government Social Value Model. 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 seeing 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 artefacts 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 and valuing social value, including wellbeing, economic, and fiscal impact, and effects on our environment, 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.
