Citizenship Survey: April - December 2008, England (corrected version)

Published	17 July 2009
Type(s)	Statistics
Site	Corporate
Product code	09RFC05888
ISBN	9781409813804
Price	Free

Summary

Please note: This version was corrected on 17 July 2009. It replaces the version published on 23 April 2009.

The latest national statistics from the Citizenship Survey produced by Communities and Local Government were released on Thursday 23 April.

Statistics from the Citizenship Survey for England and Wales include data covering a range of issues including community cohesion, empowerment, values, racial and religious prejudice and discrimination, volunteering and charitable giving.

Data in the statistical release are based on England, with the exception of the Labour Market Discrimination figures which are based on England and Wales.

The latest statistics report on the first three quarters of the 2008-09 survey, covering April to December 2008, and update those previously released on 29 January 2009 (April to September 2008).

Key statistics from the release include:

In April-December 2008, 39 per cent of people felt they could influence decisions in their local area, a similar proportion to 2007-08 (38 per cent) but lower than in 2001 (44 per cent).
Twenty-two per cent of people felt they could influence decisions affecting Great Britain, a rise since 2007-08 (20 per cent).
In April-December 2008, 41 per cent of adults volunteered formally at least once in the 12 months prior to interview, with 26 per cent having volunteered formally at least once a month.
In April-December 2008, 83 per cent of people perceived their community as cohesive, agreeing that their local area was a place where people from different backgrounds got on well together. This figure remains unchanged since 2007-08, but represents an increase from 80 per cent in 2003.
Seventy-seven per cent of people felt they belonged strongly to their neighbourhood. This proportion is unchanged since 2007-08 (75 per cent), but has increased since 2003 (70 per cent).
In April-December 2008, 81 per cent of people were satisfied with their local area as a place to live.
Older people were more likely to be satisfied with their local area than younger people. Levels of satisfaction were highest among those aged 75 years and over (86 per cent) and lowest among those aged 16-24 years (76 per cent).
Overall, 81 per cent of people mixed socially at least once a month with people from different ethnic or religious backgrounds, either at work, at a place of education, through a leisure activity, at a place or worship, at the shops or through volunteering. This is unchanged since 2007-08 (80 per cent) when it was first measured.
In April-December 2008, 10 per cent of people felt that racial or religious harassment was a very or fairly big problem in their local area, a similar proportion to 2007-08 (9 per cent).
A higher proportion of people from minority ethnic groups (18 per cent) thought that racial or religious harassment was a very or fairly big problem compared to White people (9 per cent).
Eight per cent of people from minority ethnic groups compared to 2 per cent of White people felt they had been refused a job for reasons of race. Seven per cent of people from minority ethnic backgrounds felt they had experienced discrimination on the grounds of their race when seeking promotion compared to 1 per cent of White people.

The full Citizenship Survey Statistical Release and the accompanying tables are available to download below.

Notes

1. The Citizenship Survey, run by NatCen on behalf of the Cohesion Research Unit within Communities and Local Government, is a household survey covering a representative core sample of 10,000 adults in England and Wales each year. There is also a minority ethnic boost sample of 5,000 to ensure that the views of these groups are robustly represented.

2. The data are collected through face-to-face interviews. The Citizenship Survey has been commissioned every two years since 2001. Since 2007-08, the survey has moved to a continuous design, allowing the provision of headline findings on a quarterly basis. This statistical release is based on the first three quarters of data from the 2008-09 survey (April-December 2008), which is made up of 6,975 core interviews and an additional 4,310 interviews with people from minority ethnic groups.

3. The statistics relating to labour market discrimination refer to England and Wales, whereas those relating to cohesion, empowerment and volunteering relate to England only. This reflects the coverage of policy responsibilities.

4. The statistics from the Citizenship Survey are produced to high professional standards, as set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice. For more information on National Statistics see: www.statistics.gov.uk (external link).

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Citizenship Survey: April - December 2008, England (Updated 17 July 2009)
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Citizenship Survey: April - December 2008, England (Updated 17 July 2009)
MS Word, 2333 kb , 46 pages
Citizenship Survey: April - December 2008, England - Tables
MS Excel, 228 kb
Pre-release Access list: Citizenship Survey
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