Scottish Household Survey

[RedactedTaeFeck]

Just got an envelope with a letter, leaflet and free canvas bag through about this today and it is also offering £20 for completing it.

Anyone else?

I'm interested in finding out more about the funding and use of this so will have an investigate later (gas man just arrived!).

If anyone has any info in the meantime I'd be grateful.

I did the survey and will get the £20 voucher. It took around 1 hour 30 mins plus a visit from a surveyor.

Did you do it?

No, I'm not doing it. I also asked where the money is coming from and was told (in a poorly written email) that it comes from scotgov fees that they pay for the survey. They think that the cost will be offset by the savings made by not doing the surveys in person and that people would be more inclined to participate for £20. It just generally makes me feel uncomfortable. I never completed anything more than the absolute basics on those school info gathering questionnaires either.

I'm probably just paranoid.

How did you find it? Were you happy to answer everything?

Does this help? www.gov.scot/collections/scottish-household-survey/

Oh, I didn't think about funding. I didn't do it for the voucher and there was an option to give the money to charity. Maybe I can cancel the voucher. I just did the survey because I like doing these things.

It was fine. I was asked about my health, use of transport and how often I walk and exercise. My central heating. How often we go to certain places.

And yes I was happy to answer everything. There was nothing too personal. I was asked asked to have a laptop of tablet in front of me so I could look at the choice of answers for some questions. That makes it easier.

If a product is free, you are the product.

The Scottish Household Survey's a really important source of data for monitoring lots of outcomes in Scotland. I've used it in multiple jobs. It's been run for a long time so it gives us time series data which is used for lots of the indicators used to measure progress in the National Performance Framework. The data is also really useful for academic research, for example into inequalities in local environmental amenities and people's perceptions of their neighbourhood. It also contains the Scottish House Condition survey which gives us really important information about the quality and efficiency of Scotland's housing stock. All the data is anonymous and use of the data is strictly controlled. I'd encourage anyone invited to take part to do so if you can spare the time.

It's government funded and is not used for commercial purposes btw

I use the results of the survey in my job in local government. It provides information that is useful to planning for services.
www.gov.scot/collections/scottish-household-survey-publications/

This page has loads of information on the survey. There is a separate report about data collection and methodology. There also seems to be a film from the Scottish Government Chief Statistician explaining about it.

Probably too late for you though! They obviously could have done a better job in the letter they sent and explained about it more clearly.

I put the bag in the bag collection for shopping and dh lit the fire with the rest.

I understood the letter okay and I asked about the funding and received a reply plus I looked on-line etc.

I'm just not comfortable about giving data and also about people being paid (albeit they can opt to donate etc) as that potentially skews the data anyway.

I'm not saying others shouldn't complete it but it's not for me. I would have potentially participated if I'd known what data they were gathering in advance and was comfortable with it.

That's totally fair enough. Your data, your choice.

I think the important thing about the £20 incentive is that without it there would be no point sending it out at all because they wouldn't get the response rates they need to get anywhere near representative data. Without it they'd probably get no more than 15% returning it whereas normally where they do home visits they get ~60%. With COVID they can't win really.

So do they randomly door knock usually? The bump all goes on about representative samples etc and I can't imagine that many folk have over an hour free at no notice?

The £20 put me off more than encouraged me to be honest.

But then I don't need £20 and can (and do) donate to charity myself.

I think they select a sample of addresses then come back a few times if they don't catch the person in. It is quite impressive they get that response rate, it must take ages!

The being put off by the incentive is a well documented psychological effect - motivation crowding they call it. But overall it still bumps up response rates. It'll be interesting to see what their response rates are with this different method and how they account for bias.

I once had someone come to the house and ask me a million questions then wanted me to keep receipts for things I bought etc. Looking back it’s quite strange but I remember feeling like at the time I didn’t have a choice.

Is this the same thing? I do remember vouchers mentioned.

That sounds like something else @Twosharks. Any legitimate research should always make it 100% clear to people what the study is about and that it is completely voluntary.

Twohorse, that sounds like the Living Costs and Food Survey by the O.N.S. I have worked on that in the past and it is absolutely legitimate and official and very important for UK statistics which inform policy and decisions. You should have received full information in advance describing it and why it's so important to participate.

@twosharks I meant! Bloody autocorrect.

They did used to randomly door knock yes, because they came to my door years ago (in a different house).