Official Statistics

Civic Engagement and Social Action - Community Life Survey 2019/20

Published 14 July 2020

The Community Life Survey is a household self-completion survey (online or paper) of adults aged 16+ in England. This chapter summarises results related to civic engagement and social action from the 2019/20 survey, which ran from April 2019 to March 2020.

Differences between groups are only reported on in this publication where they are statistically significant i.e. where we can be confident that the differences seen in our sampled respondents reflect the population ^{[footnote 1]}.

1. Civic Engagement

In the Community Life Survey, civic engagement is measured in the following ways:

Civic participation: engagement in democratic processes, both in person and online, including contacting a local official (such as a local councillor or MP), signing a petition, or attending a public rally (excludes voting).

Civic consultation: taking part in a consultation about local services or problems in the local area through completing a questionnaire, attending a public meeting or being involved in a face-to-face or online group.

Civic activism: involvement in activities in the local community such as being a local councillor, school governor, volunteer special constable or magistrate (for those aged 18 or over). Civic action also includes involvement (in person or online) in decision making groups in the local area, for example, a group making decisions about local health or education services, a tenants’ decision making group or a group set up to tackle local crime problems or to regenerate the local area.

Figure 4.1 Percentage of respondents taking part in civic participation, consultation or activism at least once in the 12 months prior to completing the survey, 2013/14 – 2019/20

Civic participation:

In 2019/20, 41% of respondents said they had engaged in some form of civic participation at least once in the last 12 months. This is an increase from 2018/19 when 34% took part.

1.1 Demographic breakdown

• Those aged 75+ were less likely to have engaged in civic participation (28%) than all other age groups (37-45%).
• A higher proportion of White respondents engaged in civic participation (41%) than Black respondents (33%) and Other respondents (29%).
• Some regional variability was seen, with those in Yorkshire and the Humber engaging less (32%) than in the North West, London, the South East and the South West (ranging from 37% to 46%).
• Those living in a rural area were more likely to have engaged (45%) than those in an urban area (40%).
• Those living in the least deprived areas showed higher engagement (47% of respondents) than those in the most deprived areas (34%).
• No significant variability was seen between genders or those with or without a disability or long term limiting illness.

Civic consultation:

In 2019/20, 21% of respondents took part in civic consultation at least once in the last 12 months, similar to 2018/19 (19%).

• The age groups 16-24 and 25-34 were less likely (15% and 17%) to have engaged in civic consultation than the age groups between 35 and 74 years old (23-25%).
• Those living in a rural area were more likely to have engaged (28%) than those living in an urban area (19%).
• Those from the least deprived areas showed higher levels of civic consultation (24%) than those from the most deprived areas (17%).
• No significant variability was seen between the different gender, ethnicity, disability or region categories.

Civic activism:

In 2019/20, 8% of respondents had engaged in civic activism at least once in the last 12 months, the same as in 2018/19 but lower than in 2013/14 (10%).

• Those aged 65-74 showed higher engagement with civic activism (12%) than all younger ages. Engagement by those over 75 (10%) was also significantly higher than the age groups 16-24 (5%) and 25-34 (6%).
• Respondents in rural areas showed higher engagement (11%) than those in urban areas (8%).
• No significant variability was seen between the different gender, ethnicity, disability, region or index of multiple deprivation categories.

2. Influencing local decisions

2.1 Feeling able to influence decisions

In 2019/20, 27% of respondents either definitely or tended to agree that they personally can influence decisions affecting their local area. This is similar to 2018/19 and 2013/14.

• Those aged 35-49 (30%) agreed more that they could influence decisions than those aged 25-34 (24%), 65–74 (24%), and 75+ (23%) years old.
• White respondents (25%) felt less able to influence decisions than respondents with Asian, Black or Mixed ethnicities (33% to 45%).
• Those with a limiting long term illness or disability (24%) were less likely to say they felt able to influence decisions than those without (28%).
• Some regional variability was seen, with those in London (33%) feeling more able to influence decisions than those in all other regions (25-27%).
• No significant variability was seen between gender, urban/rural status or index of multiple deprivation categories.

Figure 4.2 Percentage who feel agree they personally can influence decisions affecting their local area by ethnicity, 2019/20

2.2 Importance and desire to influence local decisions

Respondents were asked how important it was for them personally to be able to influence local decisions. In 2019/20, 57% said it was either ‘very important’ or ‘quite important’.

• The age groups 35-49, 50-64 and 65-74 years old showed higher agreement (62%) than those in the age groups 16-24, 25-34 and 75+ years old (44-52%).
• Black respondents showed higher agreement (71%) than respondents with other ethnicities (52-59%).
• Some regional variability was seen, with London showing higher levels of agreement (62%) than regions including the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, the East Midlands and the West Midlands (50-55%).
• Those living in rural areas were more likely to agree (62%) than those living in urban areas (56%).
• Those from the least deprived areas (63%) showed higher agreement than those from the most deprived areas (54%).
• No significant variability was seen between the gender or disability categories.

Figure 4.3 Percentage agreeing by it is important to be able to influence decisions in their local area by age, 2019/20

2.3 Wanting to be more involved in local decisions

Respondents were asked if generally speaking, they would like to be more involved in the decisions their local council makes which affect their local area ^{[footnote 2]}. In 2019/20, 53% said yes and 45% said no. A further 2% said it depends on the issue, similar to 2018/19.

Figure 4.4 Responses to ‘generally speaking, would you like to be more involved in the decisions your local council makes which affect your local area?, 2013/14 - 2019/20’

Enabling decision making:

Respondents were asked: ‘If you wanted to influence decisions in your local area how would you go about it?’ and were presented with a list of options, of which they could select all that applied. The three most common responses were ‘sign an online petition’, ‘contact the council/ a council official’, and ‘contact my councillor’, the same as in 2018/19.

A significant increase in popularity was seen for the option ‘Sign an online petition’, which increased from 44% in 2018/19 to 47% in 2019/20.

Figure 4.5 If you wanted to influence decisions in your local area how would you go about it? - 2019/20

Respondents were then asked, what would make it easier to influence decisions in their local area and asked to select all options that applied. The most common response was ‘if I knew what issues were being considered’, followed by ‘if I could give my opinion online/ by email’ and ‘if I had more time’, the same as in 2018/19.

Figure 4.6 What would make it easier to influence decisions in the local area? - 2019/20

3. Social action

In the Community Life Survey, social action refers to involvement with issues affecting the local area by doing things like:

• Setting up a new service/amenity
• Stopping the closure of a service/amenity
• Stopping something happening in the local area
• Running a local service on a voluntary basis
• Helping to organise a street party or community event

This definition of social action has been preserved here for legacy reasons, but the UK government currently defines Social Action as also including all volunteering, civic engagement, and charitable giving.

In 2019/20, 16% of respondents had been involved in social action at least once in the last 12 months, similar to 2018/19 and lower than in 2013/14 (19%). Awareness of other people being involved in social action was reported by 32% of respondents, similar to 2018/19, and lower than in 2013/14 (40%).

Figure 4.7 Percentage of respondents who had been involved in social action and who were aware of others being involved, 2013/14 – 2019/20

For being personally involved with social action:

• The 65-74 year old age group showed a higher incidence of social action (24%) than any other age group.
• Those living in rural areas were more likely to have participated in social action (23%) than those living in urban areas (15%).
• A higher proportion of those from the least deprived areas (19%) had participated in social action than those from the most deprived areas (13%).
• No significant variability was seen between gender, ethnicity, disability, or region categories.

1. The 95% confidence intervals are indicated by error bars on the charts. They show the range that we are 95% confident the true value for the population falls between. When there is no overlap between the error bars for two or more groups, we can be more confident that the differences between groups represent true differences between these groups in the population. ↩

2. In 2016/17, the option ‘depends on the issue’ changed from being available up front to only being available if the respondent tried to move on without answering. While this is likely to have reduced the number of respondents selecting that response, it is less clear how this would have impacted the other two response options. ↩