Scottish Household Survey User Engagement Report 2020

2. Introduction

The Scottish Household Survey has run every year since 1999 and is the Scottish Government’s largest face-to-face population survey, interviewing over 10,000 households per year on a range of different topics. This information is paramount for the Scottish Government when measuring progress towards the National Performance Framework (NPF). The survey data is also important for local authorities in terms of developing and evaluating Single Outcome Agreements. Furthermore, findings from the survey have played a key role in informing different policy areas, such as Housing, Fuel Poverty, and Climate Change.

Data dissemination of the Scottish Household Survey results has previously involved publishing a 300 page annual report and shorter key findings reports accompanied by MS Excel files containing all the data presented in the reports at national level for each of the 32 local authority areas in Scotland. The time needed to created MS Excel files for local authority data meant that this was released later than the national data. Furthermore, the MS Excel files were very large in size and cumbersome to navigate around.

In 2020, there were significant changes to the Scottish Household Survey reporting, some which had been planned and part of strategic long-term development and others which have been necessitated by the COVID-19 crisis. Throughout the change process and modernisation of the reporting, user views have been sought. This report details the methods and results of user engagement before, during and after the reporting changes were implemented.