Citizenship Survey: April 2008 - March 2009, England

Published	16 July 2009
Type(s)	Statistics
Site	Corporate
Product code	09RFC06032
ISBN	9781409816669
Price	Free

Summary

The latest national statistics from the Citizenship Survey produced by Communities and Local Government were released on Thursday 16 July.

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 all four quarters of the 2008-09 survey, covering April 2008 to March 2009, and update those previously released on 23 April 2009 (April to December 2008).

Key statistics from the release include:

In 2008-09, 39 per cent of people felt they could influence decisions in their local area, this is unchanged since 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) but lower than in 2001 (25 per cent).
In 2008-09, 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.
Levels of formal volunteering (at least once a month) have not changed since 2007-08 (27 per cent) but have fallen since 2003 (28 per cent) and 2005 (29 per cent).
In 2008-09, 84 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 represents an increase on 2003, 2005 (both 80 per cent) and 2007-08 (82 per cent).
Seventy-seven per cent of people felt they belonged strongly to their neighbourhood. This figure represents an increase on 2003 (70 per cent), 2005 (74 per cent) and 2007-08 (75 per cent).
In 2008-09, 82 per cent of people were satisfied with their local area as a place to live.
Older people were generally more likely to be satisfied with their local area than younger people. For example, 87 per cent of those aged 75 years and over were satisfied with their local area compared to 78 per cent of those aged 16-24 years.
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 2008-09, 9 per cent of people felt that racial or religious harassment was a very or fairly big problem in their local area; this is unchanged since 2007-08 (9 per cent).
A higher proportion of people from minority ethnic groups (17 per cent) thought that racial or religious harassment was a very or fairly big problem compared to White people (8 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 all four quarters of data from the 2008-09 survey (April 2008-March 2009), which is made up of 9,335 core interviews and an additional 5,582 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 2008 - March 2009, England
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Citizenship Survey: April 2008 - March 2009, England - Tables
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