Hate Crime and Social Attitude Surveys publications: FOI release
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
Information requested
Clarification regarding multiple problems with references and links in Scottish Government publications related to Hate Crime and Social Attitude Surveys.
- Where are all Social Attitudes Surveys complete, listed and sorted in rational order?
Provide direct working link. - Why are the 2014 and 2015 studies missing above?
Response
We have recently moved to a new Scottish Government (www.gov.scot) website. While publications dating from 2012 onwards were automatically moved across from the old website, and are findable using the search function on the new website, the creation of new ‘collection’ pages collating lists of linked publications for easier reference will take slightly longer.
A document with text and links for the new Scottish Social Attitudes survey collection page is attached for your reference (please see Attachment 1). This provides links to all the Scottish Social Attitudes reports we have published. It will be added, as a webpage, to the new Scottish Government website in the near future as the web team work through the remaining content to be transferred.
RE:
Why are the 2014 and 2015 studies missing above? [from the old Scottish Government website page https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Research/by-topic/public-services-andgvt/SocialAttitudesinScotland/SocialAttitudesReports]
The Scottish Government did not commission the core module in 2014. The 2015 core module report, along with a number of other topic publications reporting SSA survey data, was missing from the old collection page for the survey, although available via a search of publications on the website. We can no longer update that page, but have ensured that all publications will be available as links from the new collection page (see attachment above).
RE:
To which survey was the document referring? Provide working link to that specific survey.
The Report of the Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime, Prejudice and Community Cohesion was published on 23 September 2016. As you noted, page 8, paragraphs 10 and 11 refer to “Scottish Social Attitudes Survey: Attitudes to Discrimination and Positive Action” data from 2006 and 2010.
Please see the links to the reports, below:
2006 -
https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20170401194715/http:/www.gov.scot/Publications/2007/12/04093619/0
2010 -
https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20170401111048/http:/www.gov.scot/Publications/2011/08/11112523/0
Paragraph 11 also refers to an updated attitudes to discrimination and positive action module having been conducted in 2015, the findings from which were not yet published. The link to the 2015 report is here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-social-attitudes-2015-attitudes-discriminationpositive-action/.
For information, in addition to the reports from 2006, 2010 and 2015, an SSA report on attitudes to discrimination in Scotland was also published in 2002 (see:
https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20170401175432/http:/www.gov.scot/Publications/2003/09/18318/27570
RE:
What are the names and provide links to the latest Scottish Social Attitude surveys that specifically cover, for each topic, below:
1. Gypsies/Travellers
2. Sexual Orientation (specifically Heterosexuality. Homosexuality and Bisexuality, adult homo sapiens sexual attraction - NOT the T, not transgenderism, not genderism or other orientations)
3.a Transgenderism
3.b Cross dressing
3.c This second is important, I request specific precise references to the latest questions and responses on "cross dressing" where it is explicitly stated.
4. Gender Identity
5. Non Binary, and specific reference to questions and responses.
6. Variations in Sex Characteristics, and specific reference to questions and responses
7. Intersex / DSDs
8. Public displays of Sexual Fetish (any/all para/chrono philias extant)
9. Religion
10. Race
11. Disability
12. Age
Please state clearly where a subject has not been surveyed, and explain why not especially when incorporated in older laws and importantly, when the characteristic/the category is incorporated in the proposed Hate Crime bill.
The most recent Scottish Social Attitudes survey report that covers most of the characteristics listed above, with the exception of 5, 6, 7 and 8, was the 2015 attitudes to discrimination and positive action report (https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-social-attitudes-2015-attitudes-discriminationpositive-action/). The questions and response options for the survey are shown in the detailed tables annex: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-social-attitudes-2015-attitudes-discriminationpositive-action/pages/12/. Please also find attached a copy of the 2015 Attitudes to Discrimination (see Attachment 2).
Broadly the same set of questions has been asked in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2015. Asking the same questions at regular intervals provides valuable insights into how attitudes have changed over time. ScotCen works with the Scottish Government and key equality stakeholders, including the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), to develop and agree the questions to be included. The Scottish Government will be re-engaging with stakeholders to update these questions for the module re-running in 2021, and the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill will help inform our development of the new questions.
The Scottish Social Attitudes survey routinely collects data on religion (9), race (10), disability (11) and age (12) to enable exploration of attitudes to different topics by these and other demographic variables. SSA data is not usually reported broken down by religion or race because the sample size means that we cannot be confident enough in the reliability of the data broken down in that way.
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