Scottish Household Survey User Engagement Report 2020

3. Background

3.1 The data explorer

The Scottish Household Survey local authority data is much valued by, and important for the work of, Local Government and other agencies, who rely on it: to understand their local areas, for benchmarking and to develop and monitor Single Outcome Agreements. These data, known as the local authority tables, were previously produced using MS Excel, which was cumbersome and prone to error and corruption. The process resulted in local authority level data being published up to three months after national level data, causing frustration among some users. The risks associated with disseminating Scottish Household Survey data through MS Excel involved the issue of the data not being used to its full potential, prohibiting the survey team from developing other more useful products, and delay for local authority data analysis.

The change process began with risk identification in creating a new way of disseminating Scottish Household Survey data (Table 1).

Table 1: Risks in new tool development

• Not producing something fit for purpose Fully consult with users in advance of development phase
• No one knows about new product Have a comprehensive communication strategy
• Development takes longer than expected Learn from National Records Scotland who developed similar tool and Recruit additional staff dedicated to development

Based on this risk assessment, the decision was made to create a new data dissemination tool with extensive user engagement throughout the development process. The tool – the data explorer – was developed between 2019 and 2020. This is now the main platform for Scottish Household Survey data dissemination. It is an online, interactive data dashboard containing over 7000 tables that can be used for comparing survey results over time and between local authorities. The tables can also be modified and downloaded in various formats. Furthermore, the tool allows for users to download PDF topic reports with comparison functionalities incorporated. As such, the new data explorer does not only provide functions previously offered by the MS Excel local authority tables, but also offers new useful features. As such, the creation of the data explorer, which provides information about Scottish homes, neighbourhoods, and their views on various aspects of society, has led to annual cost and resource efficiencies for the SHS team and an improved product for our local stakeholders.

3.2 New annual report format

Annual findings of the Scottish Household Survey data have previously been communicated through an annual report, around 300 pages long. This report requires the input from several government lead analysts as well as the Scottish Household Survey team itself. Due to the COVID-19 crisis analysts previously involved in report production were unavailable. It was decided that production of the 2019 data tables and updating the National Performance Framework indicators would be prioritised.

This decision is consistent with the guidance published by the Office for Statistics regulation who are supportive of producers of National Statistics adapting what they publish due to the situation with COVID-19. It was also supported by the SHS Steering Group which includes the Chief Statistician and Chief Researcher. We have considered the impact on the coherence of the statistics and we believe it to be null. The data published remains consistent with that published previously, allowing users to make comparisons over time. The 2020 annual report format contains less commentary on the data but the commentary produced focuses on the key findings emerging from the survey.

Instead of the longer annual report, a number of shorter summary reports, focused topic reports and films were produced.

• Scottish Household Survey 2019: annual report headlines. (34 pages)
• Scottish Household Survey 2019: key findings . (infographic)
• Scottish Household Survey 2019: Childcare report
• Scottish Household Survey 2019: Culture and Heritage report
• Transport and Travel in Scotland 2019 Key Findings

The team experimented with new forms of dissemination such as an animation, films (2019 findings video in collaboration with YoungScot) and a quiz to bring more attention to the statistics.

• Scottish Household Survey quiz
• Young people’s voices about the Scottish Household Survey
• Scottish Household Survey animation (VIMEO link)
• Scottish Household Survey animation (youtube link)

Promotion of the statistics included additional forms such as Instagram, FaceBook, Twitter as well as the traditional email distribution list. Additionally, since the survey has been running for 20 years 1999-2019, a set of publications around Twenty years of Scotland's people were published.

• Twenty years of Scotland's people: summary report
• Twenty years of Scotland's people: data comic

Also we proactively published some of the requests asked for COVID policy making.

• Scottish household survey 2019: supplementary analysis

The new format of reporting offers a wider range of products, which has the potential of widening the survey’s audience and usage. The changes have overwhelmingly been endorsed by our users, which suggests that this new format could be adopted for future years, and as a result will bring forward other deliverables associated with the SHS, such as the Methodology and Fieldwork Outcomes report and release of data to the UK Data Service.