CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Aims and Objectives
1.1 This report presents the findings from the first year of the Scottish Executive's Core Module. The two main aims of the module are:
- to help maintain time series data on key questions of Scottish interest, mainly relating to devolution and broad constitutional issues, and
- to help inform the Scottish Executive's policy evaluation and policy making functions by providing robust measures of public attitudes towards the key devolved policy areas.
1.2 Some of these topics have been covered by the Scottish Social Attitudes survey on a number of occasions since it began in 1999 1. Funding for earlier questions about devolution mainly came from research councils and foundations and the core module was commissioned by the Scottish Executive Office of Chief Researcher ( OCR) to ensure that the topics would continue to be covered after this initial grant funding came to an end. The topics covered in this report address the following broad issues:
- How much do people know about the Scottish Executive and Westminster governments?
- Who is most trusted to look after Scotland's best interests: the Scottish Executive or Westminster?
- In what ways do people get involved in the political process and is the system judged to be receptive to their input?
- Is devolution delivering what people hoped it might?
- How do people rate the performance of public services in Scotland?
- Do the Scottish Executive's priorities match those of people in Scotland?
- What do people think about their local area?
1.3 The Scottish Social Attitudes survey typically covers around five main topics a year. The other topics included in the 2004 survey were: family law, environmental justice, young people and crime, and drinking and smoking.
Reporting conventions
Chapter structure
1.4 The chapters within this report follow a similar format. Each starts by stating the key questions addressed within it. This is followed by an introduction which provides a brief overview of the topic matter and presents the survey questions on which the analysis is based. A set of key points highlighting the chapter's main findings can be found at the end of each.
Data analysis and presentation
1.5 Two types of analysis are presented in the report. The tables and figures present the findings from simple bivariate analyses between two variables. To keep the presentation simple, for some variables (chiefly age, education and social class) the tables only show the results for a selection of categories. For example, the views of 18-24 year olds and those over 65 are shown but the intervening age groups have been omitted. Full versions of the tables are available from the Scottish Centre for Social Research on request.
Appendices
1.6 In many instances the decision as to what to present in each table was taken after multivariate modelling using logistic regression had been carried out. Annex 1 of this Report presents the full results of these analyses while the main body of the report simply comments on their findings. Annex 2 contains a description of logistic regression.
1.7 Annex 2 describes the technical details of the 2004 survey on which this report is based and has further descriptions of the analysis techniques used. Details of some of the classification variables used in the analysis, such as social class and urban / rural residence, are also included here. Annex 3 contains the 2004 survey questions and responses.