Third Sector and Civil Society Organisations in the UK, 1869-2025

This dataset brings together information on all organisations registered with at least one charitable or non-profit regulator in the United Kingdom. It was developed by combining and deduplicating records from ten separate registers, covering organisations across all four nations of the UK. The Third Sector and Civil Society (TSCS) in the UK are overseen by a range of regulatory bodies, including three national charity regulators and several additional registers for non-profit entities. Companies House, the UK’s official register of companies, also includes non-profit types such as companies limited by guarantee and community interest companies.

Because these registers operate independently and often overlap—many organisations appear in more than one—the available data is fragmented. This fragmentation makes it difficult to form a clear picture of civil society and its role within the UK. By integrating these diverse sources and linking records where evidence suggests they refer to the same organisation, we produce a unified “spine” of TSCS organisations. This consolidated list enables consistent mapping, analysis, and monitoring of the sector as a whole. The spine can also be linked to other datasets—such as government procurement records—to examine patterns in public spending, or to demographic data to explore the geographic and social distribution of civil society activity across the UK.

本数据集整合了英国境内所有至少在一家慈善或非营利监管机构完成注册的组织机构的相关信息，通过整合十个独立登记系统的记录并开展去重处理构建而成，覆盖英国全部四个构成国的各类组织机构。英国第三部门与公民社会（Third Sector and Civil Society, TSCS）由多类监管机构负责管理，涵盖三家国家级慈善监管机构与若干面向非营利实体的专项登记系统。英国官方企业登记机构英国公司注册处（Companies House）亦将担保有限责任公司、社区利益公司等非营利企业类型纳入登记范畴。

由于各登记系统独立运作且存在大量交叉覆盖——大量组织机构同时出现在多个登记系统中，现有数据呈现碎片化特征。这种数据碎片化状况使得全面厘清英国公民社会的整体面貌及其在国内的作用变得极为困难。本研究通过整合上述多元数据源，并在存在明确证据表明多条记录指向同一组织机构时进行关联匹配，最终构建出英国第三部门与公民社会（TSCS）组织机构的统一核心基准框架。该整合后的基准框架可实现对该部门整体的标准化映射、分析与监测。该基准框架还可与其他数据集进行关联，例如政府采购记录，以研究公共支出的分布模式；亦可与人口统计数据结合，探究英国境内公民社会活动的地理与社会分布特征。