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Listen
7. Our communities
Introduction
This chapter examines different elements of community life including voluntary activity, views about the convenience of shops and other services, perceptions of the quality of services provided by local councils, 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
As the volunteering questions changed between 2005 and 2006 the figures given in this section are based on 2006 data only. The exception to this is those tables relating to adults who have given up volunteering ( Table 7.15 and Table 7.16). A quarter of all adults (25%) have taken part in voluntary activities in the last 12 months ( Table 7.1). This is more common among those who are self-employed (36%) or working part-time (31%) and among higher income households (for example, 45% of adults in households with an annual income of more than £40,000) ( Table 7.2 and Table 7.3). Volunteering is also more common in rural areas; 41% of adults in remote rural areas compared with 22% in large urban areas ( Table 7.4).
The most commonly given reason overall for stopping volunteering is lack of time (25%). However, this reason is more likely to have been given by those on higher incomes (31% of respondents with an annual household income of over £30,000), while those on lower incomes are more likely to have stopped because of illness (23% of those with an annual household income of £10,000 or less) ( Table 7.15). When asked what might make them return to volunteering, more than half of those on lower incomes (56%) say that nothing would. Among those with higher incomes, 28% also say than nothing would, but 17% feel they would consider taking up volunteering again if it fitted with their other commitments and 16% would if they had more time ( Table 7.16).
Convenience of services
Overall, the majority of adults find services convenient to use ( Table 7.17). Those with access to a car are less likely to say public transport is convenient (84%) compared to those without (93%). They are more likely than those without a car to say that banks, doctors and outpatients are convenient ( Table 7.19).
The type of area 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) ( Table 7.20).
Recycling facilities
The proportion of households recycling at least some glass, paper, cans or plastic in the past month has increased since 2003; 55% of households recycled at least one of these items in 2003 while in 2006 when 80% recycled at least one of these items ( Table 7.36). In 2006, households were most likely to recycle paper (76%) and glass bottles (57%) and least likely to recycle metal cans (48%) and plastic (47%). Incidence of households recycling any of these items tends to be lower in larger urban areas. It should be noted that this data is not comparable with earlier data collected before 2003 as, since Quarter 2 2003, the SHS has asked about recycling by households rather than by individual adults.
In 2005/6, the percentage of households recycling any of these items varied across local authorities, from 55% of households in Glasgow to 97% of households in South Ayrshire ( Table 7.37).
The main reasons given for not recycling are there being no facilities available (50%), never having thought about recycling (12%) and facilities being too far away (10%) ( Table 7.38). In Glasgow 72% gave the main reason as no facilities available ( Table 7.39).
Quality of local council services
Three new questions were added in 2005/2006 designed to measure perceptions of the quality of local council services. Similar proportions agree or tend to agree with all three questions: 43% agree their council 'provides high quality services'; 39% agree their council is 'doing the best it can with the money available'; 38% agree their local council is 'addressing the key issues affecting quality of life in their neighbourhood' ( Table 7.40, Table 7.45, Table 7.50). Levels of agreement increase with age. The proportions of people tending to disagree or strongly disagree are also similar (33% high quality services; 36% doing its best with the money available; 32% addressing key issues).
The percentage of people expressing strong disagreement with the statements relating to the quality of services provided and addressing key issues affecting quality of life increases as deprivation increases ( Table 7.42Table 7.52).
Religion
Table 7.55 shows the religious affiliation of the adult population by age. The most common affiliation is with the Church of Scotland, with just over four in ten (41%) of all adults being of that faith. Fifteen percent of adults are Roman Catholics, 7% class themselves as belonging to other Christian denominations and 2% of adults belong to other religions. Overall, a third (34%) 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 7.58 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.
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