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Scotland's People Volume 7: results from the 2001/2002 Scottish Household Survey

7. Our communities

Introduction

This section examines different elements of community life including voluntary activity, views about the service and performance of local councils, convenience of shops and other services, use of recycling facilities and religious affiliation.

Please refer to Section 2 for more information about interpreting the information in the tables in this section.

Volunteering

Just over a quarter of adults (26%) say that they gave up time in the previous 12 months to help as a volunteer for a charity, club, campaign or organisation ( Table 7-1). Rates of voluntary activity vary by age, sex, economic status, income and area type. ( Table 7-1 to Table 7-6). For example, 34% of adults in households with a net annual income of 20,000 or over volunteer compared with 18% of those in households with an income of less than 6,000 ( Table 7-3).

Adults in rural areas are more likely to give up their time as volunteers than those in more urban areas. Rates of volunteering are highest in remote rural areas (37%) and lowest in large urban areas (23%) ( Table 7-4).

The majority of adults who volunteer do so for a few hours each month, with 62% volunteering for five hours or less a month ( Table 7-9).

Attitudes towards local councils

Table 7-12 shows that 81% of adults either tend to agree or strongly agree that voting in local elections is important. However, lower proportions of younger adults than older ones agree that voting in local elections is important. Eight-nine per cent of adults aged 75 and over agree compared with 67% of 16 to 24 year olds and 72% of those aged between 25 and 34 years ( Table 7-12).

Forty-three per cent of adults either tend to agree or strongly agree with the statement 'my council provides high-quality services', while around a third (33%) disagree ( Table 7-16).

Perceptions of the quality of council services differs by age. While 57% of those aged 75 and over agreed with the statement 'my council provides high quality services', only 35% of those aged 16 to 24 did likewise ( Table 7-17).

Forty per cent of adults tend to agree or strongly agree that their 'council does the best it can with the money available' and 34% disagree. Older adults were more likely than younger adults to agree. Fifty-seven percent of those aged 75 and over agreed compared with 35% of those aged 16 to 24 ( Table 7-22).

Convenience of services

Overall, the majority of adults find services convenient to use, but there were variations in perceptions of convenience across sub-groups in the sample ( Table 7-31).

Perhaps most notably, area type has a relatively consistent impact on perceptions of convenience of services, with lower proportions of those in rural areas perceiving services as convenient ( Table 7-32).

Recycling facilities

Over half (56%) of the adult population have not recycled any glass, paper, metal or plastic in the past month ( Table 7-34).

Adults without access to a motor vehicle are less likely to have recycled items in the past month than those with access to a motor vehicle ( Table 7-35).

The main reasons given for not recycling are there being no facilities available (29%), never having thought about recycling (20%) and facilities being too far away (16%) ( Table 7-37).

Religion

Table 7-40 shows the religious affiliation of the adult population by age. The most common affiliation is with the Church of Scotland, with almost half (47%) of all adults being of that faith.

Fifteen percent of adults are Roman Catholics, 8% class themselves as belonging to other Christian denominations and 2% of adults belong to other religions.

Overall, 28% of all adults have no religious affiliation although this varies by age, with younger adults being more likely to have no religious affiliation. While 39% of those aged 16 to 24, and 42% of those aged 25 to 34 reported having no religious affiliation, only 12% of those aged 75 and over did likewise.

In couple households, both partners tend to have the same religious affiliation. Table 7-42 shows that where the HIH is identified as having no religious affiliation, their spouse or partner is also identified as having no religious affiliation in the majority of cases.

Table 7-1: Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by sex

Column percentages, 2001/2002 data
Adult population

Figure 7-1: Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by age and sex

Table 7-2 : Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by economic activity

Column percentages, 2001/2002 data
Adult population

Table 7-3: Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by annual net income

Column percentages, 2001/2002 data
Adult population

Table 7-4: Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by urban/rural classification

Column percentages, 2001/2002 data
Adult population

Table 7-5: Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by local authority

Row percentages, 2001/2002 data
Adult population

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