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Household Transport in 1999 and 2000: Some Scottish Household Survey results

A Notes and Definitions

A.1 Totals may appear to differ slightly from the apparent sums of their component parts, in cases where they have been calculated by adding up the "unrounded" values of the components and then rounding each figure independently. Similarly, percentages may appear not to sum to 100%.

A.2 In tables which analyse the results of questions for which multiple answers were allowed, the percentages may total more than 100%, because some interviewees gave more than one response.

A.3 The underlying sample numbers shown in different tables may not be the same. In some cases, this is because the tables relate to different populations (such as all households, all adults and all people). In addition, the SHS only collects certain kinds of information for particular sub-groups of the population (which are identified in the relevant tables' headings), and therefore some questions were not asked of all respondents because they only applied in certain circumstances (eg questions about children would not be asked in a household without any children). In some cases, the bases differ because some people were unable to, or did not want to, answer certain questions (e.g. some households did not wish to provide details of their income).

A.4 Highest Income Householder: the household reference person for the first part of the interview. This must be a person in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented, or who is otherwise responsible for the accommodation. In households with joint householders, the person with the highest income is taken as the household reference person. If householders have exactly the same income, the older is taken as the household reference person.

A.5 Adult: for the purposes of the SHS, an adult is someone who was aged 16 or over at the time of the interview; a child is someone who was aged 15 or under.

A.6 Household types

A single pensioner household consists of just one adult of pensionable age (60+ for women, and 65+ for men) and no children

A single parent household contains an adult of any age and one or more children.

A single adult household consists of an adult of non-pensionable age and no children.

An older smaller household contains either (a) an adult of non-pensionable age and an adult of pensionable age and no children or (b) two adults of pensionable age and no children.

A large adult household has three or more adults and no children.

A small adult household contains two adults of non-pensionable age and no children.

A large family household consists of either (a) two adults and three or more children or (b) three or more adults and one or more children.

Small family households consist of two adults and one or two children.

A.7 Social class: the social class categories shown in this bulletin were developed for the analysis of the results of the 1991 Census of Population, and have been used since then. The basis of the groupings is given in the OPCS and Employment Department Standard Occupational Classification, Volume 3 (HMSO, 1991). The method used is designed to group together, as far as possible, people with similar levels of occupational skills. In general, each occupation group is assigned as a whole to one social class, and no account is taken of differences between people within the same occupation group (such as differences in education). However, those who have the employment status of a manager or a foreman may be allocated to a higher class than other people who have the same occupation. The six occupational social classes are as follows, with examples of the occupations in each which are taken from Regional Trends (no. 35 / 2000 edition, pages 242-243):

• professional occupations - includes (e.g.) doctors, solicitors, chemists, professors and clergymen;
• managerial and technical occupations - includes (e.g.) school teachers, computer programmers, personnel managers, nurses, actors and laboratory technicians;
• skilled non-manual occupations - includes (e.g.) typists, clerical workers, photographers, sales representatives and shop assistants;
• skilled manual occupations - includes (e.g.) cooks, bus drivers, railway guards, plasterers, bricklayers, hairdressers and carpenters;
• partly-skilled occupations - includes (e.g.) bar staff, waitresses, gardeners and caretakers;
• unskilled occupations - includes (e.g.) refuse collectors, messengers, lift attendants, cleaners and labourers.

Because the SHS only collects occupational information for people in employment, and for people who are not in work but who have been in paid work in the five years prior to the survey, the social class is not known in many cases (e.g. people who have been retired for many years). For the purposes of classifying households, the social class of the Highest Income Householder is used.

A.8 Annual net household income: this is the total annual net income (i.e. after taxation and other deductions) from employment, benefits and other sources, which is brought into the household by the highest income householder and/or his/her spouse or partner. This includes any contribution to household finances made by other household members (e.g. for "digs"). Because of refusals or "don't knows", full information for the main components of household income was not collected from about a third of households. Subsequently, the SHS contractors have imputed the missing components of income for almost all these households, using information that was obtained from other households that appeared similar. Depending upon the component of income, the contractors used either "hot deck" imputation (where the sample is divided into sub-groups based on relevant household characteristics, and the imputed values are obtained from randomly-chosen "donor" cases) or "predictive mean" imputation (where the data are used to construct a statistical model of the relationship between income and other household characteristics, which is then used to "predict" the income in cases where a value is to be imputed). The analyses by income given in this bulletin therefore cover all but a couple of percent of households.

A.9 Distance between home / work, and home / school: the interviewer asks for the location of the place of work. If the respondent does not know the postcode, the contractors subsequently try to deduce it, using whatever information was obtained by the interviewer (e.g. the name and address of the employer): in some cases, this may be sufficient only to indicate (say) the postal district (e.g. "EH1"). The interviewer asks for the name of the random school child's school, and the Scottish Executive later use this to obtain the postcode of the school. This will sometimes be wrong - for example, if there are two schools with the same (or similar) names in the same council area, the postcode of the wrong one may be taken. The distance between home and work and home and school is the estimated distance "as the crow files", based upon the grid co-ordinates of the "centres" of the postcodes (or whatever types of area were recorded) of the home, place of work and school. Therefore, the distance would be zero in the case of a journey from home to school if exactly the same postcode (or other type of area) was recorded for both the home and school. For example, if it was known that the journey from home and school involved travel from (say) "EH10" to "EH10", the estimated distance would be zero. However, if it was known that the journey from home to school was from "EH10 6UD" to "EH10 6XE", the "crow files" distance between the "centres" of the two postcodes would be calculated. Clearly, the percentage error in the estimation of distances will tend to be smaller for longer journeys - such as a journey from "EH1" to "G1". There will be cases where the "crow files" distance will understate considerably the distance actually travelled (e.g. for someone who commutes between Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh). The results suggest that small percentages apparently walk or cycle very long distances to work or to school. In some cases, this may be due to errors in the information which was recorded - for example, if the respondent provided only the name of a company or a school or a place, the postcode assigned at a later stage in the processing may be that of another location for that company, or of another school with the same name, or another place with the same name. In such a case the estimated distance could well be far too high. Or, it might be that the interviewer recorded the wrong mode of travel in the interview. There may also be cases where the person lives far from work / school, and stays away from home during the working week, or the school week, so is able to walk to work / school despite the long distance.

A.10 Motor vehicles: when the interviewer asks about the motor vehicles that are normally available for the private use of one or more members of the household, the following types of vehicle are covered: car, van, motor cycle, moped, and any other motor vehicle.

A.11 The SHS urban /rural classification

A11.1 The urban / rural classification shown in the tables was developed for use in analysing the results of the SHS. It is based on settlement sizes, and (for the less-populated areas) the estimated time that would be taken to drive to a settlement with a population of over 10,000. The classification is based on postcodes. First, each postcode in Scotland was classed as either "urban" or "non-urban" on the basis of its "density" (measured in terms of the numbers of [a] residential and [b] non-residential addresses per hectare). Then, clumps of adjacent "urban" postcodes, which together contained more than a certain total number of addresses, were grouped together to form "settlements". (Any apparently "non-urban" postcodes which were entirely surrounded by "urban" postcodes, or by a combination of "urban" postcodes and coastline, were reclassified as "urban", and included in the relevant settlements.)

A11.2 Six categories were then defined:

• Large urban areas - settlements with populations of over 125,000. These are around - but are not the same as - Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Because of the way in which settlements are defined, this category may (a) include some areas outwith the boundaries of these four cities, in cases where the settlements extend into neighbouring local authorities, and (b) exclude some "non-urban" areas within the boundaries of these four cities.
• Other urban areas - other settlements of over 10,000 population
• "Accessible" small towns - settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people, which are within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of over 10,000 people
• "Remote" small towns - settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people, which are not within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of over 10,000 people
• "Accessible" rural areas - settlements of less than 3,000 people, which are within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of over 10,000 people
• "Remote" rural areas - settlements of less than 3,000 people, which are not within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of over 10,000 people

A.12 Possible sampling variability, and "95% confidence limits" for SHS estimates

A.12.1 Although the SHS's sample is chosen at random, the people who take part in the survey will not necessarily be a representative cross-section of the people of Scotland. For example, purely by chance, the sample could include disproportionate numbers of certain types of people, in which case the survey's results would be affected. In general, the smaller the sample from which an estimate is produced, the greater the likelihood that the estimate could be misleading. As an example, suppose that the percentage of people in a particular population sub-group (those aged 16-19, say) who travel to work in a particular way (eg by bicycle) is calculated from SHS data for a total of only 300 or so commuters from that sub-group. Should the SHS sample contain, purely by chance, just half a dozen more 16-19 year olds who cycle to work, the resulting estimate would be two percentage points higher. Results produced from a small sample could therefore be greatly affected by sampling variability. The larger the sample, the less likely it is that the results will be affected greatly by sampling variability.

A.12.2 The likely extent of sampling variability can be quantified, by calculating the "standard error" associated with the estimate of a quantity produced from a random sample. Statistical sampling theory states that, on average:

• only about one sample in three would produce an estimate that differed from the (unknown) true value of that quantity by more than one standard error;
• only about one sample in twenty would produce an estimate that differed from the true value by more than two standard errors;
• only about one sample in 400 would produce an estimate that differed from the true value by more than three standard errors.

By convention, the "95% confidence interval" for a quantity is defined as the estimate plus or minus about twice the standard error (from sampling theory, the interval is plus or minus 1.96 times the standard error), because there is only a 5% chance (on average) that a sample would produce an estimate that differs from the true value of that quantity by more than this amount.

A.12.3 There is no simple "rule of thumb" for the size of standard errors: the standard error of the estimate of a percentage depends upon several things:

• the value of the percentage itself;
• the size of the sample (or sub-sample) from which it was calculated (i.e. the number of sample cases corresponding to 100%);
• the sampling fraction (i.e. the fraction of the relevant population that is included in the sample); and
• the "design effect" associated with the way in which the sample was selected (for example, a "clustered" random sample would be expected to have larger standard errors - but lower fieldwork costs - than a simple random sample of the same size).

A.12.4 Table 20 shows the "95% confidence limits" for estimates of a range of percentages calculated from sub-samples of a range of sizes (NB: the confidence limits for estimates of x% and for (100-x)% are the same). The table was produced in the same way as the tables of "95% confidence limits" in the "Annual Report" volumes of Scotland's People (see section B4), but has a more detailed breakdown of the smaller sample sizes.

A.12.5 The interpretation of an entry in Table 20 is best explained by an example:

• the value in the cell at the intersection of the "45% or 55%" column and the "800" row is 3.8;
• this means that the "95% confidence limits" for an estimate of 55% which is produced from a sub-sample of 800 are +/- 3.8%-points;
• so the "95% confidence interval" for the estimate is 55% +/- 3.8%-points (i.e. from about 51.2% to around 58.8%, assuming that the value of the estimate is 55.0%);
• or, on average, only 1 in 20 sub-samples of size 800 would produce an estimate that differs from the (unknown) true value of this quantity (if it is around 55%) by more than 3.8%-points.

A.12.6 As an example of the use of this table, it will be seen from Table 1 that there were 872 households with an annual net income of "over 40,000" in the survey in 1999/2000, and that an estimated 79% of such households had an up to 6 minutes walk to the nearest bus stop. Because that estimate was produced from data for only 872 such households, sampling variability could (by chance) produce an error of several percentage points. The entry in the cell at the intersection of the "20% or 80%" row and the "900" column in Table 20 shows that the confidence limits for the estimate will be about 2.9%-points. This means that there is a 1 in 20 chance that the estimate differs from the true value by more than 3.6%-points. It follows that there is roughly a 1-in-3 chance that the estimate differs from the true value by more than about 1.5%-points. Clearly, estimates based on small samples have wider confidence limits.

A.12.7 Because the survey's estimates may be affected by sampling errors, apparent differences of a few percentage points between the figures for two sub-groups of the population may not be "significant": it could be that the true values for the two sub-groups are similar, but the random selection of households for the survey has, by chance, produced a sample which gives a high estimate for one sub-group and a low estimate for the other. A difference between two sub-groups is "significant" at the conventional "5%" level if it is so large that fewer than one random sample in twenty would be expected to produce a difference of that size (or greater) purely by chance, if the two sub-groups' true values were the same. One way of assessing significance at the 5% level involves comparing the difference with the 95% confidence limits for the two estimates. Suppose that these are +/- 3.0%-points and +/- 4.0%-points, respectively. Clearly:

• a difference which is less than the magnitude of the greater of the limits (which, in this case, is 4.0%-points) is not significant; and
• a difference which is greater than the sum of the magnitudes of the limits (in this case 3.0%-points + 4.0%-points = 7.0%-points) is significant.

Statistical sampling theory suggests that a difference whose magnitude is between these values is significant if it is greater than the square root of the sum of the squares of the magnitudes of the limits for the two estimates - in this case, the square root of (3.0 ² + 4.0 ²) - i.e. the square root of (9 + 16) - i.e. the square root of 25, which is 5.0. So, in this case, a 5.0%-point difference would be considered significant. Similar calculations will indicate whether or not other pairs of estimates differ significantly.

A 12.8 The above information relates only to sampling variability. The survey's results could also be affected by non-contact / non-response bias: the characteristics of the people who should have been in the survey but who could not be contacted, or who refused to take part, could differ markedly from those of the people who were interviewed. If that is the case, the SHS's results will not be representative of the whole population. Without knowing the true values (for the population as a whole) of some quantities, one cannot be sure about the extent of any such biases in the SHS. However, comparison of SHS results with information from other sources suggests that they are broadly representative of the overall Scottish population, and therefore that any non-contact or non-response biases are not large overall. However, such biases could, of course, be more significant for some sub-groups of the population or in certain Council areas, particularly those which have the highest non-response rates. In addition, because it is a survey of private households, the SHS does not cover some sections of the population - for example, it does not collect information about many students in halls of residence (see paragraph B2.3). The "Technical Report" volumes of Scotland's People (see section B4) provide more information on these matters.

A.13 Changes to the method of recording the answers to some questions

A.13.1 The SHS interview includes a number of questions which ask why a person does (or did) something - e.g. why he/she uses a particular means of travel to work. Some of these questions were originally "open-ended", with the interviewer typing a summary of the person's answer into the computer. If there were a number of reasons, it could take a long time for the interviewer to type them all in. Therefore, once a few months' answers had been obtained, the SHS contractors scrutinised them, and identified the reasons that were given often. They then changed some of the questions to use pre-coded lists of reasons, so that the interviewer could simply "tick" each one that was given by the respondent, which is much quicker than typing them in. The option of typing in something that the person said was retained for use on those occasions on which some of the answer could not be recorded using the entries in the pre-coded list. In such cases, the contractors subsequently examine the typed-in answers, and decide how to code them and whether there is a need to add new entries to the pre-coded lists.

A.13.2 Comparison of the results of the two methods of recording the answers indicated that, on average, more reasons were recorded per respondent after the pre-coded lists of answers were introduced. Clearly, the data for the first part of 1999, which were collected using the "open-ended" forms of questions, are not on the same basis as the data for the second part of the year, which were collected using the "pre-coded list" forms of questions. Therefore, in such cases, the results reported in this bulletin relate only to the period (July 1999 onwards) for which the current forms of the questions were used.

B The Scottish Household Survey

B.1 Background, and topics covered

B.1.1 The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) started in February 1999. Its principal purpose is to collect information in its three main areas of Transport, Local Government and Social Inclusion, but other topics are covered, such as household composition, housing and amenities, overcrowding and sharing in housing, employment or unemployment, income, assets and savings, credit and debt, health, disabilities and care, and other topics. The SHS provides the first representative Scottish data on many subjects, such as access to the Internet, daily travel patterns, etc. The Annex lists the topics which were included when the survey started.

B.1.2 The SHS was needed because the existing surveys which cover such topics are often too infrequent, insufficiently detailed, or based on too small samples to provide reliable information for Scotland (or areas within Scotland). For example, prior to 2002, the National Travel Survey's sample included only about 300 Scottish households per year, so it could not provide any information about year to year changes in travel patterns, nor could it show how they vary between different parts of Scotland. The Scottish Executive will, initially, fund the SHS for four years: 1999 to 2002 inclusive. The contract for the survey was awarded following a competitive tender. The SHS is conducted jointly by two firms: System Three and MORI Scotland.

B.1.3 Where appropriate, the SHS uses the harmonised concepts and questions for government social surveys which have been developed by the Government Statistical Service, to facilitate comparison with the results of other government surveys. However, differences in sampling and survey methods mean that SHS results will differ from those of other surveys. It must also be remembered that the SHS is not designed to produce statistics on (eg) unemployment or income: it collects such information only for selecting the data for particular groups of people (such as the unemployed or the low-paid) for further analysis, or for use as "background" variables when analysing other topics (such as the means of travel or the frequency of driving).

B.2 Sampling arrangements

B.2.1 The SHS is a continuous cross-sectional survey: interviewing takes place all year round. Each year, about 15,500 households across Scotland are interviewed. The SHS is designed so that the interviews from each quarter will provide results which are representative of Scotland as a whole. In addition, the survey design is such that results will be available for each of the larger local authorities annually, and for all 32 Scottish local authorities, regardless of size, over two years. The SHS design therefore involves drawing a sample which will produce about 31,000 household interviews which are spread over two years. The requirement to produce results for every local authority, regardless of size, after two years, means that higher sampling fractions are used for Council areas with small populations, in order to ensure a minimum number of household interviews in each area over the two years. A reweighting process (described later) ensures that the variation in sampling fractions does not make the results unrepresentative of Scotland as a whole. The minimum number of household interviews over the two years is 550 (an "average" Council would have about 1,000 household interviews over the two years), and annual results are available for those Councils for which there are a sufficient number of interviews per year. Of course, the smaller the sample upon which the results for a Council are based, the more carefully they will have to be used, and there might be cases where they do not appear sufficiently reliable to be used.

B.2.2 The SHS is intended to be a survey of private households. For the purposes of the survey, a household is defined as one person or a group of people living in accommodation as their only or main residence and either sharing at least one meal a day or sharing the living accommodation. A student's term-time address is taken as his/her "main residence", in order that he/she is counted where he/she lives for most of the year.

B.2.3 The sample was drawn from the Small User file of the Postcode Address File (PAF), which is a listing of all active address points maintained by the Post Office. The Small User file excludes addresses at which an average of more than 25 items of post are delivered per day. (Blocks of flats etc, which have several dwellings at the same address, are not excluded from the Small User file: in such cases, the file's Multiple Occupancy Indicator is used to count each dwelling separately for the selection of the sample.) Therefore, people in certain types of accommodation (such as nurses homes, student halls of residence, hostels for the homeless, other communal establishments, mobile homes, and sites for travelling people) will be excluded from the SHS unless the accommodation is listed on the Small User file of the PAF and it represents the sole or main residence of the people concerned. So, the SHS's target population includes some - but not all - students, for example. People living in bed and breakfast accommodation may be included, if it is listed in the Small User file of the PAF and if it is their sole or main residence. Prisons, hospitals and military bases are excluded.

B.2.4 In order that the sample would be representative of each Council's area, the ten main summary groups of the Scottish MOSAIC geo-demographic indicator were used to define strata within each Council area, and a sample of an appropriate size was then drawn within each stratum within each Council area. Scottish MOSAIC is a neighbourhood classification system developed by Experian. It draws on a large number of Census variables, augmented by some published non-Census information, to distinguish between postcodes in terms of types of housing, housing densities and household characteristics. It uses statistical analysis of variables such as home ownership, car ownership, age, health, employment status and occupation to identify types of neighbourhoods with similar characteristics. All households within a given postcode are regarded as being in the same type of neighbourhood: that to which the postcode as a whole is classified. Further information about MOSAIC can be obtained from Experian (the company's Web site is at www.experian.com ).

B.2.5 In the areas of the ten Councils which have the highest population densities, the sample of addresses was drawn at random (within each geo-demographic stratum within each Council) at the start of the two-year period. The resulting addresses were then grouped into batches for allocation as interviewer assignments.

B.2.6 For cost-effectiveness, the design of the sample clustered the interviews in the remaining 22 Councils. Enumeration Districts (EDs) were used as the Primary Sampling Unit. An ED contains, on average, about 150 households. At the start of the two-year period, EDs were selected at random (within each geo-demographic stratum within each Council) with probabilities proportional to their numbers of addresses (taking account of the MOI values and the required variation in sampling fractions between Councils). Then, nearer the time that the interviews in an ED are due to take place, addresses within that ED are selected at random, using the current PAF.

B.3 Interviewing, response rates and reweighting

B.3.1 The survey interviews, which lasted an average of 42 minutes in 1999, are carried out in respondents' homes using Computer Aided Personal Interviewing (CAPI) by System Three and MORI Scotland. The interview has two parts. The first part of the interview is carried out with the Highest Income Householder (the household reference person - see section A.4) or his/her spouse or partner. This collects mainly factual information about the composition and characteristics of the household. Some questions are asked in respect of each household member. The second part is with a randomly-chosen adult (aged 16+) member of the household. This focuses more on individual attitudes and behaviours. Often, both parts of the interview are with the same person - this is always the case in a single adult household. The use of the two-part approach means that, after reweighting (and assuming that there are no non-response biases), the results from the first part interviews should be representative of Scottish households, and the results from the second part interviews should be representative of Scottish adults.

B.3.2 The response rate for the first part, after taking account of 'deadwood' in the sample of addresses (such as small shops and offices, and properties which have been demolished or are unoccupied), was 66% for the 1999/2000 two-year "sweep". Among households which participated, the response rate for the "random adult" part of the interview was 94%.

B.3.3 The data are then reweighted to take account of the unequal probabilities of selection inherent in the sample design: the over-sampling (relative to their numbers of households) of the Councils with smaller populations, in order to obtain a minimum number of interviews in each Council; and the under-sampling (relative to their share of the adult population) of adults living in multi-adult households, because only one "random adult" is interviewed in each household. Comparisons with data from other sources, such as the National Travel Survey and the 1996 Scottish House Condition Survey, suggested that the reweighted data are broadly representative of the Scottish household population; consequently, no further weighting has been carried out.

B.4 Published results, and anonymised data

B.4.1 The following SHS publications are available from The Stationery Office Bookshop, and are also available on the SHS website (see paragraph B5.3):

• Scottish Household Survey Bulletin - each edition covers different themes (5 per copy; ISSN 1467 7393)
• Scotland's People - the SHS annual report, which consists of two volumes per year:

(a) a detailed Annual Report, which provides many tables of SHS results:

volume 1 - 1999 report - 240 pages, 20 per copy, ISBN 1-84268-026-9
volume 3 - 1999/2000 report - 200 pages, 20 per copy, ISBN 0-7559-0230-0

(b) a Technical Report, which contains information about the survey procedures (such as the sample design and the method of reweighting), and an edited version of the questionnaire:

volume 2 - 1999 report - 92 pages, 15 per copy, ISBN 1-84268-066-8
volume 4 - 1999/2000 report - 96 pages, 15 per copy, ISBN 0-7559-0231-9

B.4.2 This bulletin is an update of a previous bulletin (called: Household Transport: some Scottish Household Survey results), which was published in January 2001. It is one of a series of Transport statistical bulletins which provide some Transport-related results from the SHS. The others are:

• Transport across Scotland: some Scottish Household Survey results for parts of Scotland, which was published in December 2001. It provided statistics for each Council area, and for each category of the urban/rural classification. The topics covered include the accessibility and frequency of bus services; people's views on the convenience of public transport; the availability for private use of motor vehicles, cars and company cars; people's possession of driving licences and their frequency of driving; people's frequency of walking and cycling; the usual method of travel to work; whether people work from home; whether car commuters could use public transport; where people who drive to work park; and travel to school.
• Scottish Household Survey Travel Diary results, which was published in February 2002. The topics covered include the means of transport used by different types of people, car occupancy, the purposes for which people travel, the distances that they go, the times of day at which trips start, the duration of journeys, and the days of the week on which people travel.

B.4.3 SHS results are also included in other Scottish Executive publications, such as Scottish Transport Statistics.

B.4.4 Anonymised copies of the survey data are deposited at the UK Data Archive.

B.5 Enquiries and further information

B.5.1 General enquiries about the SHS should be addressed to the survey's Project Team:

SHS Project Team
Central Research Unit
Scottish Executive
3rd Floor West
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh, EH1 3DG
Tel: 0131 244 8420
Fax: 0131 244 5393
E-mail: shs@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

B.5.2 Enquiries about the statistics in this bulletin should be addressed to:

Esta Torkington
Transport Statistics
Scottish Executive
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh, EH6 6QQ
Tel: 0131 244 1457
Fax: 0131 244 0888
E-mail: transtat@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

B.5.3 Further information about the survey can be found on the SHS website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/shs

This website provides some background to the survey, information about the progress of the survey, and the published results.

B.5.4 Please contact the Project Team if you wish to be added to an e-mail mailing list to be kept informed of any significant updates to the information on the SHS website. The Project Team will also, on request, distribute paper copies of information about the survey, and about significant developments when they occur, to people who are unable to access the website.

Annex Topics covered by the Scottish Household Survey

This is a list of all the topics which the survey has covered since it started in February 1999. It indicates which questions were asked in only some of the years.

Questions asked of the Highest Income Householder or his/her spouse/partner

H1. Household composition.

For each member of household: Date of birth; Sex; Ethnic group; Religion (from January 2001); Marital status; Relationship to Highest Income Householder; Main economic activity.

H2. Property.

Property type, Number of bedrooms, Tenure.

H3. Amenities.

Sharing/concealed households, Consumer durables in household.

Any central heating; if so, Full or partial (from January 2002).

Home access to e-mail or the Internet (1999 and 2000 only).

Who has access to the Internet for personal use; Where they access it (from January 2001).

Any broadband Internet connection; if so, What type (from January 2002).

H4. Transport.

Orange badge or Blue European Parking Card holders.

Time to nearest bus stop, Frequency of buses.

Bicycles available to household (1999, 2000 and 2002 only).

Number of vehicles available twelve months ago (from January 2000).

For each adult: Driving licences; Frequency of driving; Reasons for driving (1999 and 2000 only); Concessionary passes.

For each vehicle (if any): Vehicle type; own or company car; Vehicle Registration Mark (1999 to 2001 only); Main and other drivers; Annual mileage of vehicle (banded from 2002); Fuel costs (1999 to 2001 only).

H5. Children in household.

Use of childcare, paid or unpaid (1999 to 2001 only).

Reasons for using childcare (1999 to 2001 only).

For randomly chosen school child: School; Satisfaction with schooling;

Transport to school - Usual mode, Reason for mode choice, Suitability of public transport;

Transport from school (1999 and 2000 only) - Usual mode, Reason for mode choice.

H6. Health, disabilities and care.

Who in the household has a limiting long-term illness or disability.

Description of condition (from January 2001).

Who in household requires regular care or help, Who provides care, Frequency of care.

H7. Working status of Highest Income Householder

Number of paid jobs

If not in paid work: Whether on government training; Whether waiting to take up a job already obtained (from January 2000); Duration of retirement or Duration of unemployment; Whether ever had a paid job.

If unemployed less than 5 years: Number of spells of unemployment; Reasons for leaving last job; Time in last job.

For main job (or last job): Whether employee or self-employed; Full- or part-time; Temporary (seasonal) or permanent; Hours of work; SIC, SOC, SEG, RG Social Class.

H8. Household income.

Income from paid employment / self-employment (Highest Income Householder, and spouse / partner)

Amount from each benefit received (or total benefit income, if separate amounts not known).

Sources and amounts of other regular income.

H9. Assets and savings.

Whether has bank/building society account.

Amount saved/invested in accounts/shares etc.

Whether has a credit union account (from January 2002).

H10. Housing costs

Mortgage / loan / endowment repayments.

Rent.

Whether has home contents and buildings insurance.

H11. Credit and debt.

Household money worries (1999 and 2000 only); Ability to manage financially.

H12. Permission to be re-contacted for follow-up research.

Questions asked of a randomly-selected adult

R1. Housing.

Time at current address, Any change in tenure of current property.

Tenure of previous home, Location of previous home, if moved in past year (1999 and 2000 only).

Experience of homelessness (from January 2001): How many times in past five years; Whether ever applied to Council; Whether ever had to sleep rough.

Whether wish to move to a separate home or household (from January 2001): How long looking; Whether name on Council or Housing Association waiting list; Whether looking to rent or buy.

R2. Local neighbourhood / community safety.

General satisfaction with local area, Particular likes and dislikes.

Perceptions of crime problems / 'incivilities'.

Experience of: Housebreaking / car theft (1999 to 2001 only); House fires (1999 and 2000 only); Vandalism (from January 2001); Physical assault / attack / mugging (from January 2001).

Perceptions of safety: When travelling by different modes (2001 only); When walking alone in neighbourhood after dark (from January 2002); When alone at home at night (from January 2002).

Fear of different types of crime and effects of fear on quality of life (from January 2002).

Social networks (from January 2000): Contact with relatives / friends / neighbours in past fortnight; Involvement in local community and with people living in the neighbourhood.

Disputes with neighbours (from January 2000): Number in past twelve months; Whether reported to Police or Council; if so, Satisfaction with Police / Council response

R3. Education, lifelong learning and Internet access.

Educational qualifications held, Whether currently in education or training, Which school / college / university.

Whether participated in education, training or learning in past five years (from January 2001), Likelihood of participating in next twelve months (from January 2001).

Internet access (from January 2001): Hours per week for personal use; Method of access; What it is used for currently and in future.

R4. Transport.

Annual mileage (if drives) (banded from 2002).

Reasons for not driving / never learning to drive (1999 and 2000 only).

Frequency of cycling and walking in past week.

Public transport fares in past week, Reasons for not using buses more often, Extent of use of local bus or train in past month (from January 2002), Attitude to aspects of bus and train services (from January 2002).

Whether involved in road accident in past year.

If in work or education: Location of (main) place of work/education, Mode of transport to it, Reason(s) for mode choice, Type of parking, Suitability of public transport

"Travel diary" - for each journey made on previous day: Purpose; Mode; Number of occupants (if car); Origin and destination; Start time and end time.

R5. Services and local government.

Contact with local Council and Satisfaction with way enquiry was handled (1999 to 2001 only).

Frequency of use of, and Satisfaction with, local services (1999 and 2000 only).

Knowledge of and contact with local Councillor (1999 to 2001 only).

Perceptions of local councils and convenience of local services.

Community participation / volunteering (from January 2000): Whether gives up time to help clubs, charities, etc; Number and type of organisations; Type of activity and Number of hours in past four weeks.

Donations to charity (2000 only).

Recycling (from January 2000): Whether recycles various things; Reasons for not recycling.

R6. Health.

Self-perception of general health, Number of cigarettes smoked per day.

Long-standing illness, health problem or disability, Limitations on daily activities (eg. climbing stairs, walking, using a bus), Special equipment or adaptations to home.

Whether provides regular help or care to non-household members; if so, Number of hours, Limitations on paid work.

Whether registered with GP, Number of visits in past year (from January 2002: distinguishing "at home" and "at surgery"), Satisfaction with service.

R7. Economic activity.

Similar to H7. Not asked if information for the person who is the Random Adult has already been obtained in the earlier interview with the Highest Income Householder or spouse/partner.

R8. Income.

Similar to H8. Not asked if information for the person who is the Random Adult has already been obtained in the earlier interview with the Highest Income Householder or spouse/partner.

R9. Social mobility (2001 only).

Job titles and staff responsibilities (if any) of father and mother when respondent was 14 years old.

R10. Permission to be re-contacted for follow-up research.

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