The Office for National Statistics has published annual statistics on civil partnerships that were formed in the United Kingdom in 2011, as well as those which were dissolved.

Civil partnerships are a legal recognition of a relationship between two people of the same sex. A dissolution is a legal end to a civil partnership obtained through the courts.

The figures show that the provisional number of civil partnerships in the UK in 2011 was 6,795, an increase of 6.4% since 2010. The local authorities with the largest number of civil partnership registrations in 2011 were the London borough of Westminster (219 male and 56 female partnerships) and Brighton and Hove unitary authority (121 male and 101 female partnerships).

London has been the most popular region in England and Wales to register a civil partnership in every year since the legislation was introduced in 2005. In 2011, 25.5% of all civil partnerships were registered there (1,731 civil partnerships).

To obtain a civil partnership dissolution in the UK, a couple must have been in either a registered civil partnership or a same-sex partnership recognised abroad for 12 months. There were 672 civil partnership dissolutions granted in 2011, compared with 522 in 2010 (a 28.7% increase).

Of these 672 dissolutions, 624 were in England and Wales, 44 were in Scotland, and four were in Northern Ireland. The rise in the number of dissolutions in the UK was to be expected as the number of civil partners living in the UK continues to increase.

By the end of 2011, 2.2% of male civil partnerships in the UK had ended in dissolution, while 4.6% of all UK female partnerships had ended in dissolution.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0.