Proposal for granting access to HOUSEHOLD BUDGET SURVEYS (HBS) Working Group on Statistical Confidentiality Luxembourg, 22-23 October 2009 Item 5.4 of the agenda Peter Paul Borg Unit F3 – Living Conditions and Social Protection Statistics

Household Budget Surveys 1. General overview 2. Uses and users at national and EU levels 3. Survey timing and frequency 4. Survey structure 5. Content 6. Main household variables collected at EU level 7. Quality reports 8. Conclusion

1. General overview National sample surveys of private households carried out regularly under the responsibility of NSIs Cover information on household consumption expenditures on goods and services, in great detail and also information on income, possession of consumer durable goods and cars; basic information on housing and many demographic and socio- economic characteristics No EU regulation Consequence: Considerable freedom for each Member State to decide the objectives, methodology, programming of resource assignment

2. Uses and users at national and EU levels National level: Consumer Prices Indices (CPI) National Account Studies on living conditions EU level: Consumer protection: support to the political management of the area for DG SANCO Poverty and social exclusion: complementary information to elaborate indicators and carry out analysis for DG EMPL Control information for other statistics Raw data for research studies (economic, nutritional, social)

3. Survey timing and frequency Survey launched in most countries between 1950 and 1970 Survey carried out: Yearly in the majority of EU Member States (BE, BG, CZ, DK, EE, EL, ES, HU, IT, LT, LV, LU, MT, NL, PL, RO, SE, SL, SK, UK) Every five years in 7 Member States (AT, CY, DE, FR, IE, PT, FI) Eurostat collect the HBS micro-data approximately every five year rounds 1994, 1999, 2005 with 2010 being the next collection year

4. Survey structure Data collection involves a combination of (a) one or more interviews and (b) diaries maintained by the households or individuals usually on a daily basis Common model: Sample divided into representative sub-samples for interviewing and diary keeping at different times, distributed over the survey year to ensure that the survey is representative in space and time Income covered in the last interview

5. Content National HBS surveys very different in terms of frequency, content, structure, sampling Harmonisation of classification and coding system of essential variables (Data Transmission for the HBS round of the reference year 2005) Basic harmonised nomenclature used is COICOPHBS 1999 – identical to OECD COICOP up to third level of details (4 digits) but provided an additional level of detail (5 digits) Ex-post harmonisation of microdata files/aggregated tables carried out by Eurostat

6. Main household variables collected at EU level Expenditure (COICOP-HBS) Income Variables relating to the survey Characteristics of the reference person Housing Durables Household size and type Activity and economic situation

7. Quality reports Each Member State and EUROSTAT is encouraged to produce a quality report covering six dimensions, namely: Relevance Accuracy Timeliness and punctuality Accessibility and Clarity Comparability Coherence

8. Conclusion Consumption statistics are crucial for studies on Living conditions and Social Protection Analysis by researchers will feed back into the production process improving the quality and relevance The High Level Working Group on Statistical Confidentiality is cordially invited to give its approval so that HBS is included in Regulation 831/2002

http://epp. eurostat. ec. europa http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/living_conditions_and_social_protection/data/database http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/dsis/Home/main Peter-Paul.BORG@ec.europa.eu THANK YOU