Scottish Social Attitudes Survey

Survey measuring and tracking changes in people's social, political and moral attitudes in Scotland.

Introduction

The Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey has been tracking changes in people's social, political and moral attitudes in Scotland since 1999. It is run by ScotCen Social Research, and funded by charitable donations as well as a range of organisations purchasing modules of questions in the survey.

We have funded a core module of questions tracking public attitudes to government, the economy and public services most years since 2004. A range of modules on other topics have also been commissioned over this period.

Survey content

The core module measures and tracks attitudes to the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament. Regular questions include:

  • trust - in Scottish/UK/local Government (to work in Scotland's best long-term interest, to make fair decisions)
  • influence – who does, and who should have, most influence over the way Scotland is run
  • listening – how good is the Scottish/UK/local government at listening to peoples’ views before it makes decisions
  • policy priorities - what our priorities should be
  • the economy and the NHS – perceptions of changes in standards and who is responsible for them
  • the Scottish Parliament - is it giving Scotland a stronger voice in the UK, is it giving ordinary people more say in how Scotland is governed
  • attitudes to voting

In addition to the core module, survey modules have been commissioned on a wide range of policy topics. Reports on the findings form these modules are listed below.

Topic reports

Contact

Further information about the survey, and links to reports based on the data, but not commissioned by the Scottish Government are available at: http://www.ssa.natcen.ac.uk/.

Contact: Social_Research@gov.scot

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