Prime minister Andy Burnham has hit the ground running, tackling head-on three of the public’s burning concerns: falling standards of living, failing public services and a remote, out-of-touch, over-centralised Whitehall. Now, this autumn, a fourth challenge, reversing the decades-long decline of civic engagement, is about to move centre stage to achieve his ambition to put citizens back in control of their communities. For while there are tens of thousands of local champions bringing towns, cities and villages together, Britain is suffering a civic recession, a hollowing out of the associations, clubs and organisations that once were the beating hearts of our communities.
It is a sobering fact that almost 50% of British adults are not members of any community organisation of any kind, neither a civic association nor church nor faith group, nor even a sports club. Trade union membership has halved from more than 13 million in 1979 to less than 7 million in 2025. Then there is the widespread collapse in religious adherence – the fall in Church of Scotland membership from 1.3 million in the 1950s to less than 300,000 today being one of the most dramatic indicators.
The long-established Women’s Institute has seen its UK membership fall from a peak of 470,000 in the 1950s to about 170,000 today. Since 2000, the UK has lost about 1,200 youth centres. Working men’s clubs – which were once at the centre of industrial communities – have fallen from a peak of 4,000 in the 1970s to about 1,800 now, their membership dwindling from 4 million to under 1 million.
And the number of pubs in the UK, the heart of many communities, has dropped from 75,000 in the 1960s to about 45,000 today. For a fleeting moment, the boost in volunteering during the pandemic obscured a drop from 27% of all adults a decade ago to just 17% now. But the breakdown is not just in formal memberships, but in informal, everyday relationships too: young people in particular are vulnerable, with soaring numbers in England reporting having no close friends at all.
If our physical infrastructure – our roads, railways and airports – broke down, there would be a public outcry and a demand for their immediate repair. If our financial infrastructure collapsed – if cash machines shut down and bank transfers failed – there would be panic. But the breakdown of our civic infrastructure is happening in plain sight and it needs urgent remedy.
This change is not unique to Britain. A survey of more than 30,000 people in 20 countries provides compelling evidence that, in tandem with economic decline, civic decline helps explain the widespread loss of trust, nostalgia for the past and lower levels of tolerance that are the surface manifestations of what is a deep and widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo. It should not be a surprise that many now talk despairingly of a broken society as well as a broken economy.
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