No official statistics on social infrastructure and associational life

The UK has no official, regular, neighbourhood-level measure of social infrastructure stock or associational membership. The Community Life Survey is England-only and cannot resolve below regional level; NCVO's Almanac lags 3–4 years and its publication slipped to 2026; the Bible Society's 'Quiet Revival' withdrawal (March 2026, faulty YouGov data) showed how weak religious-participation data is. Onward's Social Fabric Index (last full update 2023) and OCSI/Local Trust's Community Needs Index are one-off or proprietary. The British Academy/Bennett Institute measurement project is foundational research, not an operational statistical product; the Community Wealth Fund had to commission bespoke analysis just to find 'doubly disadvantaged' areas.

Billions in neighbourhood funding (Pride in Place, Community Wealth Fund) are now allocated using ad hoc, non-official indices that cannot be scrutinised or updated. Without baseline statistics, none of these ten-year programmes can credibly demonstrate whether Britain's civic fabric is recovering or fraying.

ONS-badged annual social infrastructure and civic health statistics at neighbourhood (LSOA/ward) level: a maintained open register of community spaces and associations plus participation measures, co-developed with the Bennett Institute/British Academy programme, OCSI and Onward, and mandated as the evaluation baseline for government neighbourhood programmes.

// Build together: Counterparty: ONS for badging and mandate; OCSI/Bennett-style open-data prototype can precede the official series.

Billions in neighbourhood funding are allocated using ad hoc, non-official indices, but the fix is a standard statistical product with no dated trigger, so it can progress opportunistically.