Official Statistics

Community and Engagement Survey 2025/26: Background Information and Methodology

Published 31 July 2026

Applies to England

1. The Community and Engagement Survey is commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). In 2025/26, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) partnered with DCMS to boost the community pathway of the survey, enabling LA level estimates to be produced for a number of measures.

2. The Community and Engagement Survey is the successor to the Participation Survey and Community Life Survey. The Participation Survey ended in September 2025, whilst the Community Life Survey ended in March 2025. Time series charts within the reports (due to be published on 14th August 2026) present data for both of these surveys, as well as the Community and Engagement Survey for 2025/26. A vertical dotted line is included in charts to indicate the change in survey name and structure, although estimates can still be compared. Community Life Survey data is not available for 2022/23. Time series charts within this report present a dotted line between survey estimates in 2021/22 and 2023/24.

3. The fieldwork for the 2025/26 Community and Engagement Survey was conducted by Verian. 

4. This release is based on self-completed questionnaires conducted either online or using paper questionnaires. The Community and Engagement survey was completed between October 2025 to March 2026. The total sample size for the Community and Engagement Survey year was 192,244^{[footnote 1]}. Sample sizes for each breakdown can be found in the accompanying tables.

5. All households sampled were invited to complete the survey online with the option to request a paper questionnaire instead. A targeted sample was also sent up to two paper questionnaires in their first or second reminder letter to encourage responses from those at risk of digital exclusion. In October 2025 to March 2026, 173,481 people (90%) completed the Community and Engagement Survey online and 18,763 (10%) completed the paper version of the questionnaire^{[footnote 2]}. Due to space limitations in the paper questionnaire, not all questions from the online survey are included in the paper version. Where this is the case, this has been referenced in the corresponding chapter of the report and accompanying tables. Please take this into consideration when interpreting the results.

6. The Community and Engagement Survey represents a set of Official Statistics and as such has been produced to the professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Official Statistics undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure they meet customer needs and are produced free from any political interference. Please see the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for more information.

7. Stringent quality assurance procedures have been adopted for this statistical release. All data and analysis had been checked and verified by at least two different members of the DCMS team and Verian to ensure the highest level of quality.

8. Guidance on the quality that is expected of Community and Engagement Survey statistical releases is provided in a quality indicators document. These quality indicators outline how statistics from the Community and Engagement Survey match up to the six dimensions of quality defined by the European Statistical System (ESS). These are: relevance, accuracy, timeliness, accessibility, comparability, and coherence.

9. The Community and Engagement Survey measures participation by people (aged 16 and over) living in private households in England. No geographical restriction is placed on where the activity or event occurred unless stated (for instance, for domestic tourism).

10. Unless stated, participation in activities asked in the engagement pathway must be for the purpose of recreation or leisure, including voluntary work. It excludes involvement in activities where the prime motivation is paid work or academic studies.

11. Changes over time and differences between groups are only reported on where they are statistically significant at the 95% level. Statistically significant differences have been determined in this report on the basis of non-overlapping confidence intervals. This means that we can be confident that the differences seen in our sampled respondents are reflective of the population. Specifically, the statistical tests used mean we can be confident that if we carried out the same survey on different random samples of the population, 95 times out of 100 we would get similar findings. When sample sizes are smaller, we can be less confident in our estimates, so differences need to be greater to be considered statistically significant.

12. The upper and lower bounds presented in this report have been calculated using a 95% confidence interval. This means that had the sample been conducted 100 times, creating 100 confidence intervals, then 95 of these intervals would contain the true value. When the sample size is smaller, as is the case for certain groups and in certain years, the confidence intervals are wider as we can be less certain that the individuals in the sample are representative of the population. This means that it is more difficult to draw inferences from the results.

13. The data is weighted to ensure representativeness of the Community and Engagement Survey sample. Weighting is based on the Labour Force Survey data from the Office for National Statistics (July-September 2025 for quarter one, and October-December 2025 for quarter two)^{[footnote 3]}. There are two types of weighting: (i) to compensate for unequal probabilities of selection, (ii) to adjust for non-response. Detailed information on the weighting procedure can be found in the technical report.

14. The GSS has a policy of monitoring and reducing statistical survey burden to participants where possible, and the burden imposed should be proportionate to the benefits arising from the use of the statistics. As a producer of statistics, DCMS is transparent in its approach to monitoring and reducing the burden on those providing their information, and on those involved in collecting, recording and supplying data. The compliance cost of a survey is calculated by (Number of responses to the survey multiplied by the median time spent completing the survey [in minutes]). The Community and Engagement Survey had 173,481 respondents in October 2025 to March 2026, and the median survey completion time was 33 minutes 31 seconds (split by 34 minutes and 9 seconds for the Community pathway and 26 minutes and 42 seconds for the Engagement pathway), therefore the compliance cost for the Community and Engagement survey in 2025/26 was 107,774 hours, 14 minutes and 3 seconds^{[footnote 4]}.

15. The Community and Engagement Survey is only asked of adults in England. Currently there is no harmonised survey or set of questions within the administrations of the UK. Data on similar areas for the devolved administrations is available in the Scottish Household Survey, National Survey for Wales and Northern Ireland Continuous Household Survey. Further information is available in the Community and Engagement Survey quality report in the Annex A: Survey Comparability with Devolved Administrations chapter.

16. For more information about the Community and Engagement Survey and to access other guidance documents and the questionnaire, see the Community and Engagement Survey web pages. The CES guidance page can be found here.

17. The responsible analyst for this release is Dea Begaj. For enquiries on this release, please contact cesurvey@dcms.gov.uk.

1. This was combined with a sample size of 17,939 from the Participation Survey completed between April and September 2025. ↩

2. During April to September 2025, 15,915 people (89%) completed the Participation Survey online and 2,024 (11%) completed the paper version of the questionnaire. ↩

3. Weighting is also applied to the Participation Survey using January-March 2025 Labour Force Survey (for April-June data collected) and April-June 2025 (for July-September data collected) data from the Office for National Statistics. ↩

4. The Participation Survey had 17,939 respondents in April to September 2025, and the median completion time was 21 minutes and 16 seconds, therefore the compliance cost for the Participation Survey in 2025/26 was 6,358 hours, 22 minutes and 44 seconds. ↩