Overview of LFS survey changes in 2010 and preview of changes for 2011 Colin Hewat, ONS Social Surveys Division

If you want to make enemies, try to change something Woodrow Wilson He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery Harold Wilson Change

Need to address user requirements as they change over time But for such an established, long running and widely used data source, consistency of the data is also of high importance Need to adapt to ever changing social and economic situations

2010

Female state pension age On 6 th April 2010 the state pension age for women started to change Going up by one month every two months, until 65 is reached in April 2020 From August 2010 headline labour market estimates will be based on the population aged 16-64

Female state pension age Implications for labour market statistics the new headline employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 is around 1.8 percentage points lower than the old working age employment rate the new headline inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 is around 2 percentage points higher than the old working age inactivity rate

Reasons for coming to the UK Introduced in January 2010 – funded by Home Office Available on public datasets from January 2011 What was your main reason for coming to the UK (most recent arrival)…? 1. For employment 2. For study 3. To get married.. 4. As a spouse or dependent of a UK citizen… 5. As a spouse or dependent of someone coming into the UK… 6. Seeking asylum 7. As a visitor 8. Other

Efficiencies The LFS costs around £11 million a year Need to reduce cost but maintain data quality Efficiency ideas considered Removal of 75+ households

Questionnaire review 37 questions dropped Childcare Transport Redundancy Mobile workforce Method of job search Underemployment Reduce cost Reduce length

Concealed multiple occupancy From July 2010 the treatment of concealed multiple occupancies changed Rather than interviewing all concealed households, interviewers now select one

Household definition One person or a group who have the accommodation as their only or main residence. A group of people must either share at least one meal a day or share the living accommodation One person living alone or a group of people (not necessarily related) living at the same address who share cooking facilities and share a living room or sitting room or dining area

2011

Further efficiencies Need to keep developing ways to reduce cost whilst improving (or at least maintaining) the quality of data Moving wave 1 interviews into the telephone unit Refusal follow-up survey

Education review Long-running education and training review in partnership with BIS to improve the collection of education data on the LFS Chronological ordering No qualifications Vocational qualifications Foreign qualifications Adult education

Ethnicity To which of these ethnic groups do you consider you belong? What is your ethnic group? Some categories expanded and Gypsy or Irish Traveller option added

National Identity What do you consider your national identity to be? How would you describe your national identity? Northern Irish replaces Irish New coding frame being used

Religion What is your religion even if you are not currently practising? What is your religion? Re-ordered and country specific answer options Northern Ireland retains What is your religious denomination?

Occupation classifications From January 2011 the LFS will collect occupation data based on SOC 2010 Syntax provided to produce the new codes on the old datasets and the old codes on the new datasets Socio-economic class (NS-SEC) re-based on SOC2010

Agency working Changing perceptions of agency working Were you working as an agency worker, that is, employed through an employment agency?

Holiday entitlement Changing ways in which holidays are contracted May I just check, how many days of paid holiday are you entitled to per year including public holidays?

Internet usage ONS has become a partner organisation for raceonline2012 a campaign to help reduce the number of adults in the UK who have never been online When did you last use the internet, was it… 1within the last 3 months? 2between 3 months and a year ago? 3more than 1 year ago? or 4never used it? 5 don't know

Societal wellbeing Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? Overall, how much purpose does your life have?

User Guides Review of User Guides User consultation Content? Style? Comments?

Questions / Discussion Data issues? Efficiency ideas? Questions?

Links User Guides Performance and Quality Monitoring Reports Guide to Labour Market Statistics LMS_FR1.pdf LMS_FR1.pdf National On-line Manpower Information System (NOMIS) Economic & Labour Market Review