Scottish Household Survey:

1

• Scottish Household Survey
• An Introduction
• Emma McCallum
• SHS Project Manager

2
Introduction to SHS

• Largest sample survey of private households in
  Scotland
• 15,000 interviews per year
• Two year sweep
• Continuous survey since February 1999
• Face-to-face interviews using Computer Assisted
  Personal Interviewing (CAPI)
• Wide range of topics particularly social justice,
  transport and local government
• Conducted by TNS and MORI Scotland

3
Main aims of SHS

• Provide household and individual information to
  support transport, local government and social
  justice policy areas
• Permit disaggregation of such information both
  geographically and in terms of population
  sub-groups
• Allow the relationships between social variables
  within households to be examined
• Allow early detection of national trends
• Allow detailed follow-up surveys of sub-samples
  from the main survey

4
Content of SHS

• Household composition
• Property
• Transport
• Services and local government
• Economic activity
• Income, assets and savings, money worries
• Health, care, childcare, volunteering
• Local area and community safety
• Other topics.

5
Sampling

• Aim to have results for every Council area not
  designed to produce results for below local
  authority area
• Sampling pro-rata to the number of households in
  each Council would mean (e.g.) under 100
  households per year in Orkney and Shetland
• So disproportionate sampling, to give a minimum
  of 550 households per Council (over 2 years)
• Within each Council, the sample is "stratified",
  to make the results more representative
• Not as good as the Census - but more up-to-date,
  and far more questions

6
Survey response

• Total 2003/2004 c. 30,683 interviews
• 2003 c. 15,353 interviews
• 2004 c. 15,330 interviews
• Final combined response rate for 2003/2004 69.
  Higher than any previous two-year sweep.

7
Use of Data (1)

• Internal
• Social Justice milestones-volunteering, internet
  access, adult smoking
• Transport White Paper
• Congestion reduction policy
• Homelessness Taskforce

8
Use of Data (2)

• External
• Strathclyde passenger transport for transport
  modelling
• Edinburgh University to study social mobility
• Joseph Rowntree Foundation Measuring Poverty
  and Social Exclusion in Scotland report
• Glasgow University as part of study of health
  inequalities in Paisley
• Scottish Further Education Funding Council- key
  indicators

9
SHS outputs access

• Annual and technical reports (website)
• Publications and articles
• Datasets (1999/2000, 2001/2002, 2003/2004 from
  August 2005 (UKDA)
• Analysis requests (via SHS Team)
• Tables (website)
• Analytical topic reports
• Research using follow-up facility

10
Follow-up surveys

• SHS sample provides a base from which to
  commission more detailed, follow-up surveys
• Advantages include
• Willing interviewees
• Existing data on them and their households from
  the main survey.
• Allows follow-up survey to concentrate on
  collecting new data
• Could be used to sample otherwise difficult to
  identify population sub-groups
• SHS interviewer asks for permission to
  re-contact c. 65 adults agree

11
Follow-up surveys

• Contribution made by Traveline Scotland to modal
  shift
• Assessing Improved Transport for Disabled People
• Fertility decision-making another child?

12
Analytical Topic reports

• SHS funded
• Use SHS and other data
• Topics suggested by policy colleagues

13
Analytical Topic reports

• Accessibility and Transport
• Contractor Collaboration lead by Transport
  Research Institute, Napier University
• Modal Shift
• Contractor MVA

14
Future Developments.

• SHS Review
• More analytical topic reports
• Anti-social behaviour
• Volunteering (2006)
• Child-care
• Long distance commuters
• Website developments
• Development of tables facility

15
Contact

• SHS Team
• Emma McCallum
• Lisa Taylor
• E shs_at_scotland.gov.uk
• T 0131 244 8420

• Website
• www.scotland.gov.uk/shs
• -FAQs
• -Publications
• -Quarterly releases
• -News