Mapping and Understanding the UK Civil Society Sector
This report presents findings from the UK Third and Civil Society Sector Database.
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This report presents findings from the UK Third and Civil Society Sector Database (the ‘Data Spine’), a research infrastructure that brings together data from ten UK regulatory sources to provide a comprehensive picture of the civil society sector.
The Data Spine was developed by Braw Data Ltd as part of an ESRC and DCMS-funded research project, in collaboration with the Third Sector Research Centre at the University of Birmingham and partner institutions at the Universities of Southampton, Oxford, Stirling, and the West of Scotland.
The Data Spine represents a step-change in how the civil society sector can be analysed. For the first time, comprehensive and consistent financial data are available not only for charities but also for CICs, co-operatives, and other nonprofit companies — organisational forms that have historically lacked comparable financial reporting. The Data Spine enables users to:
- identify and track every formally registered civil society organisation in the UK
- analyse the financial trajectories of charities and nonprofit companies over time
- examine patterns in public procurement contracts awarded to civil society organisations
The Data Spine contains records for over 770,000 civil society organisations drawn from across the UK. These include charities registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (CCEW), the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR), and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI), as well as Community Interest Companies (CICs), co-operatives and mutuals, and other nonprofit companies registered at Companies House.
This report demonstrates these capabilities through three research themes — civil society demography, finances, and procurement — before describing the construction and contents of the Data Spine.