The survey shows a slight drop in formal volunteering: 39% of people formally volunteered at least once in the last year compared to 40% for the year 2009-10. Interestingly though, the level of formal volunteering  in 2010-11 is now identical to what it was in 2001.

In 2010-11, 34% engaged in civic participation at least once year. The level of civic participation is unchanged on 2009-10 but lower than in any year before then (between 38% and 39%).

Unfortunately, this is the last edition of the survey so we won’t be able to see how the trend evolves.

The report shows that while last year’s political events increased the public’s interest in politics to a record 58%, there was no matching rise in political or civic activity. It also shows that despite people expressing more interest in how things work locally than in politics in general, only one in 10 people say they will ‘definitely’ spend some time doing some form of voluntary work at some point in the next couple of years. Overwhelmingly, motivation to volunteer and get involved seems to be rooted in a sense of personal self-interest. People are more likely to get involved in their local community ‘if I felt strongly about an issue’ (40%), ‘if it was relevant to me’ (33%), ‘if I had more time’ (28%), and ‘if it affected my street’ (25%).

These findings are commented as follows by Ruth Fox, Director of the Hansard Society’s Parliament and Government programme, and co-author of the report:

‘The momentous events surrounding the election and its aftermath has left people feeling more interested in and knowledgeable about politics. But they have not been roused to get more involved in it – the majority prefer to remain spectators. Even at the local community level only one in 10 say they are certain to volunteer. People say they are interested in being more engaged locally but on the whole are not willing to actually commit to activities. They are not very altruistic. It’s self-interest that motivates them to action: when an issue affects them or their community in a personal way.

This raises interesting questions for the development of the Big Society. A clear focus on the local and the personal is where the Big Society has the greatest chance of succeeding. The concept needs to avoid political associations, focus on the local and personal, and emphasise ‘community’ rather than ‘Society’. Given that the public are less knowledgeable about how things work locally than they are nationally a strategy to address this knowledge deficit is also needed.’

• Who participates?
• Where do people participate?
• What do people participate in?
• Why do people participate?

It looks at whether there has been decline in participation over the last decades and includes some international comparisons. It also examines in more detail a number of specific participatory activities (membership, giving, volunteering, timebanking, ethical consumerism, political participation, local governance, campaigning and direct action and protest).

Here are some of the main findings in the report:

• The millennium year marked a turning point in the long-term decline in the proportion of UK households that give to charity. Roughly a third of households gave to charity in 1978, but by 1999 this share had fallen to roughly a quarter. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the proportion of givers has averaged over 28 per cent.
• Average donations have increased in real terms over three decades. Looking at the whole population (both givers and non-givers), donations have more than doubled – from £0.96 per week in 1978 to £2.36 per week in 2008.
• Looking only at givers, donations have gone up three-fold – from £3.05 per week in 1978 to £8.66 per week in 2008.
• But there has been no change in donations as a share of total spending for more than 20 years. Households today give 0.4 per cent of their spending, exactly the same as they did in 1988.
• Charitable giving is largely recession-proof. Donations have typically grown in times of economic growth and have not fallen at the same rate as the economy during recessions.
• Charitable giving increasingly depends on elderly donors. The over-65s now account for more than a third of all donations, compared with a quarter in 1978. Higher giving among older age groups may reflect the values and beliefs of these generations.
• Better-off donors now account for an increasing share of total donations. Today, the richest ten per cent of donors account for 22 per cent of total donations, compared with 16 per cent in the early 1980s.
• At the same time, poorer givers are more generous in terms of the proportion of their total budgets given to charity. The poorest ten per cent of givers donate 3.6 per cent of their total spending to charity, compared with 1.1 per cent for the richest 10 per cent.

 All the presentations, session outlines and discussion notes are now available via googledocs: http://bit.ly/bigsocietyevidenceseminar 

Unsurprinsingly, I would recommend you reading the documents relating to the session on participation, including Colin Rochester’s outline ‘Participation: how does qualitative help us?’ which focuses on motivations and looks at some of the reasons why people participate.

Also worth a read is John Mohan’s outline ‘What do volunteering statistics tell us about the prospects for the Big Society?’ which further develops some of the ideas he presented in a recent article on the civic core.

Regarding volunteering, the report indicates that the number of people formally volunteering at least once a month has fallen since 2005 (26% in 2008-09 compared to 29% in 2005) but that people who volunteer regularly are volunteering more hours. It also notes that people who regularly participate in formal or informal volunteering are more likely to give to charity than people who are not regular volunteers.

The main report can be dowloaded in the CLG website. Alongside the main report, a summary and an annex (with measures of civic health for each upper tier and unitary authority in England) have also been produced.

Using a narrative approach allows researchers to explore how people make meaning of experience, how experience and meaning are shaped by context, and how people’s identities may be constructed by the stories they tell about themselves and their world. In the Pathways project, our interest in people’s stories about their experience of participation over their life times makes a narrative approach to data collection and analysis very appropriate. Traditionally, narrative has been associated with qualitative research, but the workshop leader, Professor Jane Elliot, explained that narrative is equally relevant in quantitative research – numbers ‘tell a story.’

Interestingly, the Centre for Longitudinal Studies is currently engaged in a piece of research focusing on social participation amongst a sub-sample of 1958 cohort members.  One of its aims is to try to understand why some members are more socially engaged than others. The Pathways team will certainly be following this research as it progresses.

In addition to information on the sales of ethical products and services the report includes data on boycotts (food and drinks, travel, eating-out and clothing).