Surveys

From time to time, NASACRE commissions and supports surveys of its members. This section contains details of surveys which NASACRE has carried out on behalf of its members.


This is NASACRE’s Second Report into the funding of SACREs by LAs. It builds upon the findings of the first report, published in 2021 by analysing the responses of 142 (of 150) LAs who were sent an FOI in January 2023. It shows that the Majority of SACREs in England still do not get funded sufficiently to enable them to carry out their duties well.

Here is NASACRE’s report into SACRE funding in England, published 17th May 2021. Levels of funding for SACREs have been a source of some concern and interest to the Association for some time. The report is the first ever national survey of LAs to assess SACRE funding. It is based on responses to a Freedom of Information request sent in November 2020 to all LAs in England. Responses were obtained from 136 LAs, with 15 not supplying answers by the end of March 2021.

In order for NASACRE to be able to represent the views of its member SACREs at a national level, including to the REC and other policymakers, it is important that we try to develop as full an understanding of the views of our members as possible. This is the reason for this quite lengthy research survey which was conducted by the NASACRE Chair, Paul Smalley during January – May 2017

Anonymised data from this survey is being discussed with the NASACRE Executive and being used to inform policymakers about the strengths, views and hopes of SACREs across the country. The first example of this is the evidence submitted by NASACRE to the REC Commission on Religious Education in June 2017, which you can read below.

It is also hoped that the results of this research will be published more widely in suitable journals to inform the wider RE community.

Evidence submitted on behalf of NASACRE to the Commission on RE by Paul Smalley

This study has been developed by university researcher Mark Plater, in collaboration with NASACRE.

To: explore the purpose of RE:
What exactly is the subject trying to achieve?
What are its priorities?

“A thought-provoking survey which forces you to think through what your views are and to focus on what is important in RE”. SACRE member

This document provides final results of the SACRE member survey.

From September to December 2014, NASACRE held an open consultation via its website. Of the 152 education authorities in England, each required to have a SACRE, 87 (57%) participated in the 22 question survey. The purpose of the survey was to see the current state and status of SACREs in England; Wales has its own national association.

Read the analysis of the 2014 NASACRE survey.