 Using SHS Lite in support of policy development in Fife Coryn Barclay Community Budgeting Project Manager, Corporate Research, Fife Council

 Why is SHS important to Fife?  Collects a range of information about Fife and other local authorities  Annual report comparing Fife with local authority areas  Reports every two years comparing Fife with individual local authorities  Data for Fife is available annually (1,000 interviews per year)

 Why do further analysis?  To provide a local picture  To test a particular theory  To focus on particular behaviours or household characteristics  To place primary research in context

 How analysis relates to policy  To provide a context to primary research in Fife and at a local level  To assess whether a sample is typical  To determine scale of behaviours observed  To test or challenge official views  To inform the evidence base

 Why use SHS Lite?  It’s easier!  Reduced flat file  Fewer variables, easier to find  More derived variables  Variables grouped into Sets  Separate files for household and random adult parts of the survey

 Using Variable Sets  Demographics  Community Involvement  Economic Activity  Health, caring and childcare  Household Resources  Housing  Local Council  Neighbourhoods  Transport  Survey Administration

 How have we used it in Fife?  Fife Findings: 2001/2002 Scottish Household Survey  Community Planning Milestones  Customer Contact Strategy  Substitute for Women’s Safety Survey  Community Safety Audit  Inform Fife DAAT of drug/alcohol issues  Standard question on-line consultation

 Limitations: Fife’s use of SHS (1)  Scottish Household Survey not designed to be representative below Local Authority Level  Cannot be used at small area level  Provides Fife context only

 Limitations: Fife’s use of SHS (2)  Specialist software needed (SPSS)  Effort involved in analysis  Need to build capacity amongst users  Knowledge of survey structure  Familiarisation with datasets

 SHS in the future  Make SHS Lite available annually  Make weighting variable easier to find  Build capacity to produce standard tables into SHS Lite, or  Make standard tables available via web  Enable linking of datasets across years

 How can you get the data?  COSLA -SPSS  SHS Team -SHS Lite  UK Data Archive  ESDS Government Nesstar -SPSS -STATA

 More about Research in Fife….  Knowledge Portal -Informing the Plan topic -Services, Scottish Household Survey -Fife Findings -Know Hows  Consultation