DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-8082-1
title: Community Life Survey, 2015-2016: Special Licence Access
title: Community Life Survey, 2012/13- : Special Licence Access

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 Community Life COVID-19 Re-contact Survey (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 23-24 and upcoming 24/25 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 Community Life Survey incorporates a small number of priority measures from the Citizenship Survey, which ran from 2001-2011, conducted by the then Department for Communities and Local Government. These measures were incorporated in the Community Life Survey so that trends in these issues could continue to be tracked over time. (The full Citizenship Survey 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;/p&gt;
 The 2015-16 survey covers July 2015 to April 2016 and forms 'Official Statistics', meaning that it meets the high standards of quality set out by the &lt;a href="http://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/assessment/code-of-practice/" title="Code of Practice for Official Statistics"&gt;Code of Practice for Official Statistics&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br&gt;
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&lt;b&gt;End User Licence and Special Licence data&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Users should note that there are two versions of each &lt;i&gt;Community Life Survey&lt;/i&gt; dataset. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Special Licence (SL) version. The SL version contains more detailed variables relating to: social class; ethnicity; religion; sexual identity and lower level geographical classifications (see Main Topics section for details). &lt;br&gt;
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The SL data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version. Therefore, users are strongly advised to order the standard version of the data.&lt;br&gt;
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The standard EUL version of the &lt;i&gt;Community Life Survey, 2015-2016&lt;/i&gt; dataset is held under SN 8081.&lt;br&gt;
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