2023 Scottish Household Survey data: FOI release

Information requested

• Data provided to the Improvement Service for the purposes of them generating Local Government Benchmarking Framework indicators on satisfaction with local services in 2023/24 (street cleaning, refuse collection, schools, libraries, museums, parks and open spaces, leisure services) for all councils;
• The same dataset but filtered to show only the % (or number) responses in each category from people who said they used that particular service, for all councils.

Response

I attach an Excel file containing some of the information you requested.

This contains 2023 public satisfaction data on street cleaning; refuse collection; and parks/open spaces as this information is not publicly available. With street cleaning and refuse collection it is assumed that all survey respondents are service users, so there is no difference between service user and general population data. For parks/open spaces, data for both the general population and for service users are provided.

Most of the information you have requested is available from the published data for the 2023 Scottish Household Survey. Sources for it are as follows:

* The Scottish Household Survey Data Explorer (https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-scottish-householdsurvey-data-explorer/) contains local authority-level data on:

• Leisure services – Tables 5.22 (general population) and 5.23 (service users)
• Schools – Tables 6.5 (general population) and 6.8 (service users)
• Libraries and museums – Tables 9.40 (general population) and 9.53 (service users)

* Satisfaction with schools data are also included as supporting information to the Satisfaction in Schools 2023 report, published online at https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-householdsurvey-satisfaction-with-schools-2023/

Please note that single year local authority estimates are based on relatively small sample sizes, which increases the uncertainty around the estimates. For this reason, the Local Government Benchmarking Framework indicators that use data from the Scottish Household Survey combine data across several years in order to increase sample sizes and decrease the uncertainty around the estimates.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested, namely the 2024 data for the requested indicators. The reasons why we do not have the information are explained in the Annex to this letter.

Annex

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested

The Scottish Government does not have all the information you have asked for because the data for 2024 have not yet been processed. In your request you asked for 2023/24 data relating to user/nonuser satisfaction in various local services. We cannot provide data for the 2024 survey year because those data are not yet available – we will be processing and reporting on it later this year. The Local Government Benchmarking Framework, whose report you reference in your request, title their report as 2023/24. However the Scottish Household Survey data included in that report will only be from the 2023 survey year. Therefore the data supplied to you is all the Scottish Household Survey data relevant to that report.

As such, I hereby provide you with formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested for the 2024 survey year.

About FOI 

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202500468152 - Information released - Attachment

File type

Excel document

File size

52.2 kB