Neighbourhoods and communities 2023: Scottish Household Survey findings

Annex B: Scottish Household Survey glossary

Housing Tenure

The SHS collects information on the ways in which households occupy their accommodation and from which organisation or individual their accommodation is rented, where this is the case. These are combined into a housing tenure variable, which is shown in the annual report broken down into four categories, namely:

• Owner occupied – Includes households who own outright and those buying with a mortgage or loan.
• Social rented sector – Includes households renting from a Local Authority or from a Housing Association or Co-operative.
• Private rented sector – Includes households renting from an individual private landlord or where they are renting their property from family, friends or their employer.
• Other tenure – Includes any other category of tenure such as living rent free.

Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is a relative measure of deprivation across small areas in Scotland. It is the Scottish Government's official tool for identifying those places in Scotland suffering from multiple deprivation. It incorporates several different aspects of deprivation, combining them into a single index.

It divides Scotland into 6,976 small areas, called data zones, each containing around 350 households. The index provides a relative ranking for each data zone, from one (most deprived) to 6,976 (least deprived). By identifying small areas where there are concentrations of multiple deprivation, SIMD can be used to target policies and resources at the places with greatest need.

SIMD uses seven domains to measure the multiple aspects of deprivation:

• income
• employment
• health
• education, skills and training
• housing
• geographic access to services
• crime

In the tables, the data zones are grouped as quintiles (from the 20% most to the 20% least deprived data zones).^[13]

The SIMD was updated in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2016 and, most recently, in 2020. The most relevant available version of SIMD for each year is used in outputs from the SHS. SIMD was used in the 2021 SHS outputs.

Urban rural classification

The Scottish Government Urban Rural Classification provides a consistent way of defining urban and rural areas across Scotland. The classification is based upon two main criteria: (i) population, as defined by the National Records of Scotland (NRS), and (ii) accessibility, based on drive time analysis to differentiate between accessible and remote areas in Scotland.

The six-fold categories are as follows:

• Large Urban Areas - settlements of 125,000 people and over.
• Other Urban Areas - settlements of 10,000 to 124,999 people.
• Accessible Small Towns - settlements of 3,000 to 9,999 people, and within a 30 minute drive time of a settlement of 10,000 or more.
• Remote Small Towns - settlements of 3,000 to 9,999 people, and with a drive time of over 30 minutes to a settlement of 10,000 or more.
• Accessible Rural Areas - areas with a population of less than 3,000 people, and within a 30 minute drive time of a settlement of 10,000 or more.
• Remote Rural Areas - areas with a population of less than 3,000 people, and with a drive time of over 30 minutes to a settlement of 10,000 or more

In the two fold Urban Rural Classification, ‘Rest of Scotland' includes large urban areas, other urban areas, accessible small towns and remote small towns and 'Rural Scotland' includes accessible rural and remote rural areas.

Sex and gender

Prior to 2018, the household part of the survey (where one person responds on behalf of all members of the household), asked the following question about each member of the household:

Is {name} male or female?

• Male
• Female

In 2018, the question was changed to the following:

How would you describe your gender identity/how would you describe the gender identity of {name}?

• Man/Boy
• Woman/Girl
• In another way (if you would like to, please tell me what other words you use) [Other specify]
• Refused (spontaneous)

This change was implemented following a broader review of user needs across the SHS the Scottish House Condition Survey and the Scottish Survey Core Questions undertaken in 2017. The review, which aimed to gather views on what changes users would propose to survey questions, was launched via the SHS website and was promoted more widely, for example through existing stakeholder contacts and on ScotStat and Twitter networks. The Scottish Government published the outcomes of the review and the rationale for changes.

The new gender identity question was asked in the 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 surveys.

For 2022 onwards, the survey asks the following questions, in line with the Scottish Government’s new Data collection and publication guidance – Sex, Gender Identity, Trans Status.

The household respondent is asked:

What is your sex? (Or “what is the sex of {name}?” when responding for another person)

• Female
• Male
• Prefer not to say

In addition, one randomly selected adult in the household is asked the follow-up question(s):

Do you consider yourself to be trans, or have a trans history?

• Yes
• No
• Prefer not to say

If you would like to, please describe your trans status (for example non-binary, trans man, trans woman):

• This is an open text response

The change in question is unlikely to have any material impact on the sex (previously gender) breakdowns of SHS data or comparability of these across time. This is because the results to date indicate that only very small numbers of respondents would be likely to answer differently depending on the particular sex and gender questions asked. In 2021, 0.3% of the random adults in the survey responded to the gender question with ‘identified in another way’. In 2022, fewer than 0.1% of the random adults in the survey responded ‘prefer not to say’ to the sex question, and 0.3% answered ‘yes’ or ‘prefer not to say’ to the trans status question.

Disability

Disability is defined in line with Scottish Government guidance.

The random adult respondent is asked the following:

Do you have any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expected to last 12 months or more?

• Yes
• No
• Don't know
• Refusal

If the answer is ‘yes’ the following is asked:

Does your condition or illness/do any of your conditions or illnesses reduce your ability to carry-out day-to-day activities?

• Yes, a lot
• Yes, a little
• Not at all
• Refusal (spontaneous only)

When producing disability breakdowns, respondents are categorised as ‘disabled’ if they answer ‘yes, a lot’ or ‘yes, a little’ to the second question. They are categorised as ‘non-disabled’ if they answer ‘no’ to the first question, or ‘not at all’ to the second question.

In the last 12 months

As interviews are completed continuously throughout the year, data published on the ‘last 12 months’ refers to the year prior to the respondent’s interview and not the calendar year January-December. The same will hold true for other time periods being reported on.