The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has launched the Civil Society Covenant, a new way of working in partnership with civil society organisations. Here’s an outline of what it is, and what it means for charities.
The UK government has today (17 July 2025) launched the Civil Society Covenant, outlining a new way of working that puts people and communities at the heart of decision making.
The Covenant sets out how civil society and public bodies will work together at both national and local level in the future, to design policy that works for everyone. While also marking a commitment to improve collaboration across wider public bodies in health, local government and the justice system.
It applies to all UK government departments and recognises the vital role of charities, social enterprises, faith-based groups, unions, funders and informal community organisations.
Read the full Civil Society Covenant on GOV.UK.
As part of the Covenant’s launch, the government has confirmed:
These measures aim to support a stronger, more consistent relationship between government and civil society at all levels.
The voluntary sector is vital to the fabric of a fair and equal society. Today, the government has recognised the crucial role our sector plays in achieving that. The Civil Society Covenant lays out the ambition for how we put people and communities back at the heart of decision making and lays a roadmap for a relationship where true lived experience forms the basis of designing good government policy.
In 2024, NCVO and ACEVO led a major engagement exercise with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) hearing from over 1,000 civil society organisations. Organisations told us they wanted a Covenant with clear commitments, meaningful accountability, and practical impact.
We published our findings and recommendations in May 2025. Since then, we’ve contributed to the Civil Society Advisory Group convened by DCMS to help shape the final version.
Read the engagement report and recommendations.
We’ve been working with government officials, partners and our infrastructure and membership body counterparts to make sure the final Covenant works for those it is designed to support.
NCVO will continue working with government, infrastructure bodies and organisations across civil society to help make sure the Covenant leads to real change. This includes advocating for the needs of small and marginalised organisations.
In the coming weeks, we will be providing further analysis of how the principles of the Covenant could work in practice if implemented well.
Meaningful change will come from how we and government departments behave day to day, and on our willingness to reflect, adapt and support each other to work differently.