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7. Our communities

Introduction

This chapter examines different elements of community life including voluntary activity, views about the convenience of shops and other services, voting behaviour, use of recycling facilities, and religion.

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

Volunteering

Just under a quarter of adults (23%) 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 7.5 and Table 7.2).

For example, 30% of those who are self-employed volunteer while only 13% of unemployed people do ( Table 7.2). Also, while only 19% of young adults aged 16-24 volunteer, 35% of young adults at school do ( Figure7-1, Table 7.2).

38% of adults in households with a net annual income of over £40,000 volunteer compared with 16% of those in households with an income of less than £6,000 ( Table 7.3).

Rates of volunteering are highest in remote rural areas (35%) and lowest in large and other urban areas (21% in each) ( Table 7.4) Those living in Orkney were most likely to volunteer (42%) ( Table 7.5).

Convenience of services

Overall, the majority of adults find services convenient to use, but there are variations in perceptions of convenience across sub-groups in the sample ( Table 7.12 to Table 7.15).

Those with access to a car are far less likely to say public transport is convenient (76%) compared to those without (90%). They are more likely than those without a car to say that banks, doctors, grocery/food shops and outpatients are convenient. ( Table 7.13).

Area type impacts on perceptions of convenience of services, with those living in remote small towns more likely than those living in other areas to perceive services as convenient (with the exception of public transport). Lower proportions of those living in more rural areas perceive most services as convenient, the exceptions being post offices in all rural areas and doctors in remote rural areas ( Table 7.14).

Recycling facilities

Overall, 59% of all households had recycled at least some glass, paper, metal or plastic in the past month (T able 7.16). Households are most likely to recycle paper (50%) and glass bottles (37%) and least likely to recycle metal cans (18%) and plastic (17%). It should be noted that this data is not comparable with earlier data as, since Quarter 2 2003, the SHS has asked since then about recycling by households rather than by adults. Time series comparisons prior to 2003 are therefore not possible.

Households without access to a motor vehicle are less likely to have recycled items in the past month (44%) than those with access to a motor vehicle (66%) ( Table 7.17).

The main reasons given for not recycling are there being no facilities available (39%), never having thought about recycling (17%) and facilities being too far away (15%) ( Table 7.20).

Religion

Table 7.22 shows the religious affiliation of the adult population by age. The most common affiliation is with the Church of Scotland, with just under half (44%) 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, 31% of all adults have no religious affiliation although this varies by age, with younger adults being more likely to have no religious affiliation.

In couple households, both partners tend to have the same religious affiliation. Table 7.25 shows that where the Highest Income Householder is identified as having no religious affiliation, their spouse or partner is also identified as having no religious affiliation in the majority (81%) of cases.

Table 7.1: Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by sex
Column percentages, 2003/2004 data
Adult population

	Male	Female	All
Yes	22	25	23
No	78	75	77
Total	100	100	100
Base	12,210	16,461	28,671

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, 2003/2004 data
Adult population

	Self employed	Full time employment	Part time employment	Looking after home/family	Permanently retired from work	Unemployed and seeking work	At school	Higher/further education	Government work/training scheme	Permanently sick or disabled	Unable to work due to short term ill-health	Other	All
Yes	30	24	29	23	21	13	35	22	20	15	16	28	23
No	70	76	71	77	79	87	65	78	80	85	84	72	77
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
Base	1,293	9,487	2,924	2,043	8,906	1,012	237	810	40	1,542	254	123	28,671

*Percentages not shown as sample size is less than 100.

Table 7.3: Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by net annual household income
Column percentages, 2003/2004 data
Adult population

	£0 - £6,000	£6,001 - £10,000	£10,001- £15,000	£15,001 -£20,000	£20,001- £25,000	£25,001- £30,000	£30,001- £40,000	Over £40,000	All (income known)
Yes	16	16	18	23	25	27	32	38	23
No	84	84	82	77	75	73	68	62	77
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
Base	2,465	5,486	5,814	4,023	3,121	2,459	2,724	1,557	27,649

Table 7.4 Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by urban/rural classification
Column percentage, 2003/2004 data
Adult population

	Large urban areas	Other urban areas	Accessible small towns	Remote small towns	Accessible rural	Remote rural	Scotland
Yes	21	21	24	26	30	35	23
No	79	79	76	74	70	65	77
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
Base	10,428	8,049	2,956	1,319	3,438	2,478	28,668

Table 7.5 : Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by local authority
Row percentages, 2003/2004 data
Adult population

	Yes	No	All	Base
Aberdeen City	23	77	100	1,062
Aberdeenshire	27	73	100	1,159
Angus	27	73	100	587
Argyll and Bute	35	65	100	523
Clackmannanshire	23	77	100	539
Dumfries and Galloway	27	73	100	783
Dundee City	15	85	100	779
East Ayrshire	22	78	100	648
East Dunbartonshire	32	68	100	498
East Lothian	25	75	100	503
East Renfrewshire	22	78	100	565
Edinburgh City	24	76	100	2,299
Eilean Siar	27	73	100	532
Falkirk	21	79	100	771
Fife	23	77	100	1,973
Glasgow City	21	79	100	3,116
Highland	33	67	100	1,023
Inverclyde	18	82	100	526
Midlothian	23	77	100	529
Moray	26	74	100	582
North Ayrshire	21	79	100	695
North Lanarkshire	18	82	100	1,628
Orkney	42	58	100	635
Perth and Kinross	34	66	100	600
Renfrewshire	21	79	100	938
Scottish Borders	27	73	100	633
Shetland	23	78	100	639
South Ayrshire	26	74	100	590
South Lanarkshire	21	79	100	1,492
Stirling	26	74	100	552
West Dunbartonshire	17	83	100	461
West Lothian	20	80	100	811
Scotland	23	77	100	28,671

Table 7.6: Whether gave up time to help as an organiser/volunteer in the past 12 months by year
Column percentages, 2000-2004 data, Adult population

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Yes	26	25	27	24	23
No	73	75	73	76	77
Total	100	100	100	100	100
Base	14,554	14,635	14,032	13,925	14,746

Table 7.7 Types of organisations or groups which adults volunteer for by sex
Column percentage, 2003/2004 data, Adult population who volunteer

	Male	Female	All
Sports activities	28	9	17
Church/Religious activities	13	17	15
Activities or organisations working with young people	14	15	14
Working in the area of health eg hospices/hospitals/clinics/projects	8	13	11
Working with people with disabilities	8	9	8
Working with older people	6	8	7
Arts, culture	6	7	6
Playgroups or other children's activities	4	10	7
Working with vulnerable people	3	4	4
Parent/Teacher Association	1	4	3
Working in support of the environment	3	2	2
Providing adult education	2	1	2
Working with animals	1	2	2
Professional Societies or Associations	4	2	2
School board	1	2	1
Community Council	2	2	2
Residents/tenants groups or organisation	3	2	2
Tackling social inclusion/poverty (member of research panel/ social inclusion Partnership projects etc.)	1	1	1
Political Party	1	1	1
Providing advice eg Citizens Advice	1	1	1
Community safety (Victim Support/Neigbourhood Watch etc.)	1	1	1
Local economic/employment initiatives (credit unions/food co-ops etc.)	1	0	0
Promoting equal opportunities (race/gender/disability etc.)	0	0	0
Trade Union	0	0	0
Other	9	9	9
Base	2,551	4,029	6,580

Columns add to more than 100% since multiple responses allowed.

Table 7.8: Type of voluntary work undertaken by sex
Column percentages, 2003/2004 data
Adult population who volunteer

	Male	Female	All
Provide some kind of service	63	64	64
Fundraising	32	42	38
Management committee	29	20	24
Help with administration	21	16	18
Help with campaigning	10	9	9
Other	4	3	3
Base	2,564	4,050	6,614

Columns add to more than 100% since multiple responses allowed.

Table 7.9: Number of hours spent volunteering in the previous 4 weeks by sex
Column percentages, 2003/2004 data
Adult population who volunteer

	Male	Female	All
Up to 5 hours	51	59	56
6 to 10 hours	19	17	18
11 to 15 hours	7	7	7
16 to 20 hours	9	7	8
21 to 35 hours	7	6	7
36 hours or more	7	5	6
Total	100	100	100
Base	2,564	4,050	6,614

Table 7.10: Number of hours spent volunteering in the previous 4 weeks by age
Column percentage, 2003/2004 data
Adult population who volunteer

	16 to 24	25 to 34	35 to 44	45 to 59	60 to 74	75 plus	All
Up to 5 hours	56	64	62	57	44	48	56
6 to 10 hours	18	15	17	18	19	19	18
11 to 15 hours	5	7	5	7	8	10	7
16 to 20 hours	10	7	7	7	9	10	8
21 to 35 hours	6	4	5	6	10	7	7
36 hours or more	5	3	4	6	10	5	6
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
Base	429	880	1,517	1,731	1,589	468	6,614

Table 7.11: Percentage finding services convenient by sex
Column percentage, 2003/2004 data
Adult population

	Male	Female	All
Post Office	90	91	91
Bank	76	76	76
Doctors	82	82	82
Grocery/food shop	94	92	93
Chemists	89	89	89
Outpatients	58	57	57
Public transport	78	80	79
Base	11,812	15,849	27,661

Table 7.12: Percentage finding services very or fairly convenient by net annual household income
Column percentages, 2003/2004 data
Adult population

	£0 - £6,000	£6,001 - £10,000	£10,001- £15,000	£15,001 -£20,000	£20,001- £25,000	£25,001- £30,000	£30,001- £40,000	Over £40,000	All (income known)
Post Office	91	92	91	91	92	89	88	88	91
Bank	75	74	76	77	78	76	76	78	76
Doctors	82	81	81	82	84	84	83	83	82
Grocery/food shop	92	92	93	93	94	94	93	94	93
Chemists	89	88	89	89	90	90	88	89	89
Outpatients	55	53	56	58	59	61	60	58	57
Public transport	85	85	82	79	78	75	74	72	79
Base	2,347	5,260	5,602	3,894	3,038	2,404	2,639	1,525	26,709

Table 7.13: Percentage finding services very or fairly convenient by access to a car
Column percentage, 2003/2004 data
Adult population

	Access to a car	No access to a car	All
Post Office	91	90	91
Bank	78	73	76
Doctors	84	79	82
Grocery/food shop	94	91	93
Chemists	89	88	89
Outpatients	60	51	57
Public Transport	76	90	79
Base	18,536	9,125	27,661

Table 7.14: Percentage finding services very or fairly convenient by urban/rural classification
Column percentages, 2003/2004 data
Adult population

	Large urban areas	Other urban areas	Accessible small towns	Remote small towns	Accessible rural	Remote rural	Scotland
Post Office	90	89	94	96	92	93	91
Bank	76	79	82	90	68	70	76
Doctors	80	83	88	92	80	87	82
Grocery/food shop	93	94	94	98	89	89	93
Chemists	91	91	94	96	80	70	89
Outpatients	56	64	54	71	52	43	57
Public transport	89	83	77	74	57	47	79
Base	10,211	7,828	2,875	1,286	3,208	2,250	27,658

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