DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-8867-2
title: Community Life Survey, 2020-2021
title: Community Life Survey, 2012/13-
title: CLS

description: &lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Community Life Survey&lt;/em&gt; (CLS) is a household survey conducted in England, tracking the latest trends and developments across areas key to encouraging social action and empowering communities, including: volunteering and charitable giving; views about the local area; community cohesion and belonging; community empowerment and participation; influencing local decisions and affairs; and subjective well-being and loneliness.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The CLS was first commissioned by the Cabinet Office in 2012. From 2016-17, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) took over responsibility for publishing results. During 2020, the DCMS also commissioned the&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt; Community Life COVID-19 Re-contact Survey&lt;/span&gt; (CLRS) (SN 8781) to provide data on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected volunteering, charitable giving, social cohesion, wellbeing and loneliness in England.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;For the 2023-24 and 2024-25 survey years, DCMS partnered with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to boost the CLS to be able to produce meaningful estimates at Local Authority level. This has enabled data collection at the most granular level since data collection commenced. The questionnaire for 2023-24 was developed collaboratively to adapt to the needs and interests of both DCMS and MHCLG, including some new questions and changes to existing questions, response options and definitions in the 2023-24 and upcoming 2024-25 surveys.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Background&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Up to 2015-16, the survey used a face-to-face methodology. Following thorough testing (experimental online versions of the survey were released for 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16), the CLS moved online from 2016-17 onwards, with an end to the previous face-to-face method. The survey uses a push-to-web methodology (with paper mode for those who are not digitally engaged). The survey informs and directs policy and action in these areas;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;to provide data of value to all users, including public bodies, external stakeholders and the public; and&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;underpin further research and debate on building stronger communities.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;The CLS incorporates a small number of priority measures from the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Citizenship Survey&lt;/span&gt;, which ran from 2001-2011, conducted by the then Department for Communities and Local Government. These measures were incorporated in the CLS so that trends in these issues could continue to be tracked over time. (The full &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Citizenship Survey&lt;/span&gt; series is held at the UK Data Archive under GNs 33347 and 33474.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Further information may be found on the GOV.UK &lt;a title="Community Life Survey" href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/community-life-survey"&gt;Community Life Survey&lt;/a&gt; webpage.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt; 
&lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;span&gt;The &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;Community Life Survey, 2020 -2021&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt; (CLS) covers April 2020 - March 2021 and forms 'Official Statistics', meaning that it meets the high standards of quality set out by the
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/"&gt;&lt;span&gt;Code of Practice for Official Statistics&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;span&gt;Further information may be found on the GOV.UK &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/community-life-survey-202021"&gt;&lt;span&gt;Community Life Survey, 2020/21
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span&gt;webpage.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Latest edition information&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;&lt;span&gt;For the second edition (June 2025) two new variables were added: &lt;/span&gt;ResponseGroup (‘Grouped predicted response (stratum for assigning paper questionnaires') and ProbPaperIn2ndReminder (‘P(allocated to get paper in second reminder). These variables support research into mode-specific measurement effects.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;The &lt;a href="https://surveyfutures.net/" target="_blank"&gt;Survey Futures&lt;/a&gt; project, funded by the ESRC, includes a strand concerned with the issue of mode-specific measurement effects. One of the surveys that would provide important information to support this strand is the CLS 2020-2021, because it included an experiment whereby addresses were probabilistically allocated to either receive or not receive paper questionnaires in one of the reminder mailings. The addition of the two new variables supports this research.&lt;/p&gt;