Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to ensure that (a) small grassroots organisations and (b) under-represented groups are consulted on the Civil Society Covenant.

The Civil Society Covenant was launched by the Prime Minister in July 2025 at a major civil society summit. Its ambition is to strengthen relationships and encourage partnership between civil society and all levels of UK government.

To inform the development of the Civil Society Covenant, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, working with key civil society partners, engaged over 1,200 organisations from across the diversity and breadth of civil society. This included nine roundtables that heard from a diverse set of civil society organisations that may have been under-represented or faced barriers in participating in the engagement process. These roundtables brought together 220 leaders including those from faith communities and those representing ethnic minority groups, as well as people leading small organisations locally in the heart of their communities and Local Infrastructure Organisations.

The views and insights heard through this engagement fed directly into development of the Covenant which includes a commitment to ‘Promote participation and inclusion by involving people in decisions that affect their lives, ensuring their voices are heard and removing barriers to democratic participation’.