Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Taking Part survey collects data on many aspects of leisure, culture and sport in England, as well as an in-depth range of socio-demographic information on respondents. The survey is commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in partnership with three of its non-departmental public bodies (Sport England, Arts Council England and English Heritage). The survey was first commissioned in 2005 as a face-to-face household survey of adults (16+) in England. Since then it has run annually and has also been developed to include further elements, including a child element and a longitudinal element. Further information can be found on the Gov.uk Taking Part web pages.

For Taking Part, 2016-2017, also known as Year 12 of the continuous survey, 9,352 adults were interviewed in the face-to-face cross-sectional study. Of these, 59% were recruited to the web panel longitudinal follow-up. They were invited to complete a web questionaire on a quarterly basis, these datasets include data collected from Q0-8. Latest edition For the fourth edition (January 2024), the data and documentation for the web panel have been updated.

Main Topics:

Main topics covered by the survey include: the arts, museums and galleries, libraries, archives, heritage, sport, volunteering, charitable giving, general free time activities, digital activities, special events, community participation, personal well-being and demographics. Almost all of these topics appear in the main adult and child data sets, and in the longitudinal data sets.  The web panel questionaires include questions on changing participation levels over time and key life events. In order to preserve confidentiality, some geographic and other potentially identifying variables have been removed from the UK Data Archive End User Licence version. A Special Licence version that contains more detailed data, including some of the variables listed above and detailed geographical variables (ACORN Group and ONS Urban Rural Classification), is available.

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Face-to-face interview

Web-based interview