August 2009
2009 Quarter 1 Data Release
This is the latest in a series of quarterly releases which announces the availability of the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) for a particular quarter. In accordance with National Statistics, this will help to ensure orderly and open access to the SHS. In practice, this means that the SHS for this quarter can be used to answer questions to inform policy from people within and outwith the Scottish Government.
Please see the SHSQuarterly Data Release publication summary page for further information.
Annual Report 2007/2008
The SHS Annual Report 2007/2008 has been published, providing access to data which is representative across all local authorities in Scotland. Please view our Annual Publications page for further information.
We will be publishing a number of Local Authority (LA) tables in due course which presents all tables from the main report replicated for each local authority. If you have any immediate requirements for any analysis in the meantime then please Contact us and let us know what you require.
July 2009
National Statistics Assessment
Under the provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, the UK Statistics Authority has a statutory responsibility to assess whether the Code of Practice for Official Statistics has been complied with in relation to any official statistics, subject to a request from an appropriate authority (as defined in the Act). Where the Authority determines that the Code has been complied with it will designate the statistics as "National Statistics", but otherwise not. These arrangements also apply to statistics already designated as National Statistics which will all be re-assessed.
Further information on this is available from the UK Statistics Authority Monitoring and Assessment website.
The UK Statistics Authority recently announced Phase 2 of its Assessment Programme through a news release and its intention to commence assessment of the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) is shown. This notes that assessment will start in July 2009, but for the SHS this process will not start until September. The assessment itself will look at our "final product" - the SHS Annual Report. Any further reports and outputs, such as Culture and Sport module reports, will be assessed separately.
The assessment process is multi-tiered and will include an element of the self-assessment by the SHS Project Team alongside consultation, led by the UK Statistics Authority Assessment Team, with users, stakeholders and suppliers of SHS results.
When we have confirmed plans of when this assessment will kick off and what it will fully involve, we will provide an update. If you have any queries about this process, then please contact the SHS Project Team for further information.
Forthcoming Publications
Please note the following forthcoming publications for the Scottish Household Survey (SHS).
SHS Methodology Review: Weighting
Publication date: Unconfirmed, but will be in early August
In the past year, the SHS contractors were asked to make proposals for developing and implementing a revised weighting strategy for the survey. The key driver behind this strategy is to account for any non-response bias in the estimates, and for the strategy to include the production of grossing factors to allow the survey to provide numerical, population based, estimates for survey measures. This publication will outline the methodological review process which was undertaken, the implications of implementing the new weighting strategy, and an assessment of the impact of change on key estimates.
SHS Annual Report 2007-2008
Publication date: Wednesday 26th August 2009
This report is the key SHS release, and presents reliable and up-to-date information on the composition, characteristics and behaviour of Scottish households and individuals on a range of issues, in particular supporting the work of the Scottish Government's transport, communities and local government policy areas. The report will provide analysis and commentary on national level estimates, and will be supported by detailed analysis across all local authorities through accompanying web tables.
Following the release of this publication we will be undertaking work to prepare the underlying data for release through the UK Data Archive. We do not have an exact data for release yet, though we will publish updates about this on our website.
SHS 2009 Quarter 1 Data Release
Publication date: Monday 31st August 2009
The quarterly trends are a series of quarterly statistics publication notices which announce the availability of the SHS for a particular quarter. These are accompanied by a set of data trends charts and tables on the SHS website. We will shortly be reviewing user requirements for this release, so any comments would be gratefully received.
For further information please see the SHS publications page.
We will need to scale down our ad-hoc request service over the next two months to complete this range of work. we are very happy to receive any comments or enquiries about the SHS that you may have.
March 2009
Data Sources and Suitability
In line with other Scottish government Statistician Group activities, we have published information on SHS Data Sources and Suitability. The aim is to direct users to valuable sources of information and draw attention to any interesting aspects or peculiarities they contain so that future utilisation of the data is well-informed.
Please refer to our How to Get Results - Data Sources and Suitability page for information on geographical availability, national and sub-national estimates, and international comparisons.
We have also published a Data Sources and Suitability - Summary page, providing further information about various quality aspects of the SHS.
February 2009
Website review - Online survey
To raise awareness and understanding of SHS data, a number of work streams are being put in place to enhance our dissemination practices. One element of this work includes reviewing the SHS website to ensure it delivers the full range of information which suits the needs of the broad user requirements.
An SHS Website Review online survey has been set up to allow users to express views on the usability and accessibility of the SHS website. The survey should only take 5 minutes to complete. The closing date for providing responses is Wednesday 18th March 2009.
Please be assured that all responses will remain completely anonymous.
Thank you for taking the time to participate.
Quarterly Trends - 2008 Quarter 3
The latest quarterly trends information announcing the availability of the Scottish Household Survey up to and including quarter 3 of 2008 have been released.
This release is published through a Statistics Publication Notice accompanied by a series of Data Trends providing commentary, charts and tables on key trends. Further information is available from our Quarterly Trends publication summary page.
Accessing Data - New pro-formas
To ease the process for requesting access to SHS data, we have produced a series of standardised guidance and pro-forma documents for the following resources:
For each of these, a pro-forma should be completed and submitted to the SHS Project Team, who will then review whether the required information is suitable for release.
A to Z
To help site users navigate around the SHS website, we have produced an A to Z list providing links to the key resources. This lists terms and keywords which are of relevance to the SHS, and provides a link to the page(s) with supporting information.
A link to the A-Z is available through the "SHS Help" module on the left-hand column of each page.
This is very much a work-in-progress, so we would be happy to take on board any comments you may have as to how to improve this resource - or for new terms to include.
Your Questions Answered
Not all questions unfortunately! Just those which which are relevant to households (and hence the householders) who have been randomly selected to participate in a Scottish Household Survey interview.
We have now published the Your Questions Answered leaflet through our website. This leaflet is made available to participating households, and provides a summary of the background to the survey and the subsequent use of the captured data.