Scottish Government

Minutes of meeting 27 JANUARY 2005

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Present

• Rob Wishart - Office of the Permanent Secretary
• Robert Williams- Office of the Permanent Secretary
• Biance Heggie - Office of the Permanent Secretary
• Sara Grainger - Communities Scotland
• Adam Krawczyk - Health Department
• Jack Vize - Health Department
• Katriona Carmichael - Office of the Permanent Secretary
• Margaret Davies - ISD
• Ganka Mueller - General Register Office for Scotland
• Duncan Gray - Development Department
• John Tibbitt - Development Department
• Marie Gallagher - Enterprise Transport and Lifelong Learning Department
• Katy Barratt - Justice Department
• Korin Lebov - Justice Department
• Donna Easterlow - Environment and Rural Affairs Department
• Sandra Campbell - Education Department
• Julie Wilson - Office of the Permanent Secretary
• Jan Freeke - Glasgow City Council
• Laura McDonald - East Dunbartonshire Council

Apologies

Marie Gallagher and Sara Grainger attended in place of Elaine Drennan and Andrew Robinson respectively.

Minutes of meeting held on 24 April 2004

1. The minutes of the previous meeting were accepted and action points were picked up in the agenda items.

Feedback from the new population and social statistics seminar held on 2 September 2004

2. The new population and social statistics seminar had been successful and had raised awareness about the ONS proposals for a continuous survey and wider developments on population and social statistics in Scotland. The views raised in the seminar breakout sessions about the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of integrated surveys had been used to develop the Scottish Executive's response to the ONS CPS proposals. The Office of the Chief Statistician would ensure that the delegates at the seminar continued to receive updates on progress made to develop the integrated surveys and also the opportunity to shape the direction of survey development.

Combined SE/GROS response to ONS CPS consultation paper

3. The response to the CPS consultation was generally positive. The Scottish Executive were open minded about what the CPS might look like in the future, the ONS plans were at an early stage and there were a number of issues that would need to be considered carefully during the development stage. An annex was also included in the response which included some information about population surveys currently funded by the Scottish Executive.

4. Information about the costs of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey included in the response needed to take account of developments and needed some clarification. The survey is run by the Scottish Centre for Social Research and the Office of the Chief Researcher have a contract in place for a core module on the survey for 2004 through 2007 at a cost of £150K. A costing structure is also in place to allow Analytical Service Divisions across the Scottish Executive to purchase modules on the survey at a cost of up to £50K per module.

5. It was noted that the Scottish Household Survey is used to monitor smoking rates rather than the Scottish Health Survey. Three omissions in the Scottish Executive response were also noted which were the need to: agree standard imputation techniques within an integrated survey; agree appropriate access to migration and travel to work data (and other origin destination statistics) across the UK; and agree responsibilities across Scottish Executive and with ONS for carrying out primary analysis on core and modular topics.

Joint SE/GROS letter which was sent to ONS which identifies key issues for subsequent discussion and provides more detailed information on the surveys operating in Scotland

6. The initial response to ONS about the CPS proposals was followed up with a more detailed letter. Julie Wilson had discussed the points raised in the letters with ONS prior to the November 2004 APS/CPS Steering Group. ONS recognised that implementing their CPS proposals by 2008 would require a significant amount of work. Julie Wilson highlighted the need for careful consideration of how the funding of Scottish boosts would impact on the design of the CPS and work on this was been taken forward by OCS and ETLLD. It was also noted that the APS/CPS Advisory Group was not a decision taking group, but ONS had provided reassurance about the role of the Scottish Executive in CPS decision making process.

7. ONS were yet to contact OCS about the CPS sample size, what questions the core would include or what modules would be included. ONS were considering responses from the CPS consultation and there was also a recognition that this process would be iterative and no final decisions on these matters would be made until later on in the process. Julie Wilson tabled a paper which listed potential questions in the CPS core, and said that ONS had recognised the need for the CPS in Scotland to meet the needs of the Scottish Administration.

8. On costs, the ONS CPS proposals identified precision gains from moving from clustered sampling to simple random sampling, and that this could potentially be achieved efficiently by having an integrated field force able to carry out interviews across all modules. There was a need to ensure that these proposals would hold-up in Scotland too and that the cost of the CPS would not be proportionately more expensive in Scotland.

Update on APS/CPS Steering Group

9. There were a lot of questions still to be answered about how the CPS would develop and we needed to keep our options open. OCS would continue to make APS/CPS papers available to SPSCC members.

Draft Long Term strategy

10. The group agreed the general approach set out in the draft long term strategy for the Scottish Population Survey Co-ordinating Committee was sensible. In particular, it was helpful to set out the short, medium and long term nature of this work in context to enable the Scottish Executive to be in a position to take maximum benefit from the opportunities as they arose.

Stage 1a: Ensuring that the ONS CPS meets Scottish Needs (2005-2008)

11. There will be opportunities for Scottish Executive departments to influence which questions are included in the core of this large integrated survey, and this is something that ASDs should be thinking about during the work at stage 1a to ensure that the CPS meets Scottish needs.

Stage 2: Boosted Scottish CPS (2008-2012)

12. It was recognised that stage 2 focused on realigning Scottish surveys for possible inclusion in the CPS after 2008, but this stage should develop other options for managing sample surveys in Scotland if decisions are taken not to boost the CPS. There was also scope to look at further harmonisation in this period also, for example, to look at the sampling frames used across the main surveys to ensure that respondent burden was been managed effectively. There was also scope for combining records from across surveys to produce better estimates for core questions.

13. A boosted CPS could also impact on local surveys carried out by Scottish Health Boards and Local Authorities. It was understood that in the main these local surveys provided results for local authorities and health boards, and potentially a boosted CPS could deliver. Communities Scotland were providing Community Planning Partnerships (SIPs have now been integrated in to CPPs) with guidance on carrying out local household surveys.

14. One of the main benefits of the CPS was its flexibility and the opportunities it would provide for adding in and amending modules on an on-going basis. There was potential here for exploring how social research modules might be included in a boosted CPS, and also how the management of these modules fitted in with the wider management of population surveys.

Stage 3: Continuous Population Survey as a Census Alternative (2005 onwards)

15. This was covered under the item on current issues on future census options.

Topic work

16. This work aims to improve harmonisation across the main Scottish population surveys and to provide a knowledge base for progressing the wider work of the SPSCC. The initial topic work would be carried out over the summer and would involve OCS taking the lead and working with topic and survey specialists. A number of the SPSCC members would be participating in this work.

17. This work will provide useful information for the Scottish Household and Health survey reviews, and OCS will work closely with the reviews to avoid duplication of effort.

Mapping exercise

18. In addition to investigating the frequency at which outputs are developed, the mapping exercise should also look at the time lag between the collection of data and the release of results.

Harmonised questions and outputs

19. For the questions and topics investigated, it is presumed that the topic specialists will be aware of the policy requirements for inclusion of questions in each survey. Consideration will also be given to the origin and reasons for including the question formats on particular surveys.

Preferred sources and overlap

20. The work recognises that there will be good reasons for including topics on a number of different surveys, but there is a need to improve guidance on preferred sources.

Current Issues on future Census options

21. GROS have a small team exploring options to produce census-type information and aims to develop a limited experiment which can be tested against the next census at 2011 The census delivers two main types of outputs: population counts at various levels of geography, and information about the characteristics of the people and households which make up these populations. The latter does not necessarily have to come from complete enumeration but can be estimated on the basis of samples and this is where the GROS interest in the CPS lies. GROS are primarily interested in the core element of the CPS, including its structure and sample size, and response patterns.

22. The comprehensive coverage of the population, or segments of the population, could potentially be delivered through administrative sources. GROS are investigating the potential sources which include the community health index, ScotXed, DWP databases on old people and child benefit, and the electoral register. This will be undertaken primarily through aggregate level comparisons with Census. A stronger approach would be to implement record linkage at the individual level, but the scope for this is limited by legislation at present.

23. There a several projects involving linkage that GROS is involved with: an experimental study which links Census and CHI data to allow an analysis of the prevalance of coronary heart disease by ethnicity, and the Scottish Longitudinal Study which links a sample of about 5.5 % of the Scottish population across the 1991 and the 2001. GROS are also aiming to set up a pilot project with DWP to link administrative benefit records with the 2001 census. To develop a robust alternative to conventional census enumeration would require some form of an underlying identification system. GROS is also working closely with the Scottish Executive and local authorities on the Definitive National Address project and the Citizen's Account, and are also in touch with population register developments at the UK level.

Scottish Household Survey Quality Review

24. The review of the Scottish Household Survey will be carried out during 2005. The Review Board includes policy and analytical officials from the Scottish Executive, and also an external expert. Much of the work of the SHS review will be contracted out to an external consultant who will report to the Review Board.

25. The review recognises that the SHS provides important information to support communities, housing, transport and local government policy interests. The review will also take account of CPS and harmonisation developments in Scotland.

26. Local authority and other users use of the survey is also important and these will be covered in a SHS seminar to be held in March 2005.

Scottish Health Survey Review

27. The last Scottish Health Survey was carried out in 2003. A review of the survey has just begun and it is unlikely that the next survey will commence before 2008. The review will be led by the Health Department and it is expected that ISD Scotland and Health Scotland will play a key role in the review.

28. The review will cover a number of key areas. At present the survey is held once every three to five years. Various survey model options will be considered as part of the review. The review will consider the frequency and geographic detail required for key outputs from the survey. There is potential to pool resources with local health surveys (which have a combined sample size of about 60 thousand). There are developments in administrative sources of information on disease prevalence and this, combined with developments on linking unit records from the health survey records and health administrative records mean that there may be scope to utilise this information and hence review the coverage of topics within the survey. There is also the opportunity to review the inclusion of the nurse visit element within the survey. The review will take account of the CPS developments.

Next Meeting

29. The next meeting will be in September 2005.