Stats in the UK

Question 1

What is the purpose of the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 1

• To provide information about spending patterns for the Retail Price Index (data) and the Consumer Price Index (for weighting).
• To provide data on income.
• Provide data over time about food consumption and nutrition (DEFRA)
• Used by DfT to look at car use and impact of car related taxation.
• Used by academics

Question 2

What is the sampling method for the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 2

Households are selected at random from the ‘small users’ (less than 50 a day) Postcode Address File. Each year approx. 12,000 addresses are selected and around 6,000 agree to participate and complete the necessary data collection forms.

A multi-stage stratified random sampling technique with clustering is used. Postcode sectors are used as
the Primary Sampling Units (PSUs), with 18 addresses selected from each PSU to form the monthly interviewer quota.

Stratum are decided based on the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) of the
Household representative person (HRP) and on car ownership.

Question 3

Who is included in the sample for the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey?

Answer 3

Adults (16+) and children aged 7-15.

Question 4

How is data collected for the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 4

• Household interview questionnaire on basic details and regular expenditure
• Individual questionnaire for 16+ asking about income
• Diary of all personal expenditure kept by adults for 2 weeks and of home grown or wild food brought into the house.
• Simplified 2 week diary kept by children aged 7-15.

Question 5

How is the data recorded for the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 5

• Face-to-face interview using CAPI using laptops and Blaise software package.
• Paper diaries

Question 6

What are the issues with the data collected for the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 6

• Approx. 50% response rate so findings are adjusted for non-response.A cash incentive is given to encourage completion.
• It uses PAF so could be some selection bias if some people are excluded, such as the homeless.
• Sample sizes vary from quarter to quarter - there are more in later quarters owing to initial non-respondents being issued to another interviewer. Quarterly grossing counteracts any bias from the uneven spread of interviews through the year.
• Respondent bias - might eat more healthily as they know it’s being recorded. Assurances of confidentiality could help.

Question 7

How often are new outputs published from the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 7

Every year - the survey is continuous.

Question 8

Who publishes information from the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 8

ONS Social Surveys Division report the income and expenditure data once a year in a Family Spending report. Datasets are produced on a quarterly and
annual basis. Interim monthly datasets are compiled and quality assured before being delivered to Defra.

DEFRA publish the detailed food and nutritional data.

Question 9

What data quality checks are there for the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 9

Consistency and range checks are applied to interview data provided by respondents as the data are collected.

Interview data are further checked at the edit stage by the coding and editing team when completed interviews are returned to ONS.

Manual checks of diary entries are made by interviewers
before they are returned to ONS on the last interviewer visit. Further checks of diary entries are made as they are coded by the coding and editing team and entered into the Blaise instruments.

Once edited and coded, systematic checks are applied to ensure consistency between diaries and interviews, and to examine the coding of types of diary entries known to have been inconsistently coded in the past.

Question 10

What is people cannot remember their spending when being interviewed for the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 10

There is a do not know option or respondents could check paperwork for the answer. The interview can prompt for a best estimate. Blaise software enables the interviewer to record a ‘note-pad’ notes and the data can be added in at a later date by the editing team.

Question 11

What are the sensitive issues around the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 11

People are sometimes reluctant to give income information. The interviewer is able to proceed even if complete information is not gained.

Also the sensitivities around revealing what you eat/ don’t eat.

Question 12

How is the quality of interviewing assured in the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey’?

Answer 12

Interviewers are trained specifically for this survey.

They keep the diary themselves for a week as a learning experience and feedback is given.

Question 13

What incentive is given to people who complete all required parts of the ‘Living Cost and Food Survey?’

Answer 13

Adults - £10

Children - £5

Question 14

What are the Consumer Price Index and the Retail Price Index?

Answer 14

• They are indicators of how the UK economy is performing.
• They represent the average change in prices across a range of products and services
  RPI no longer an official statistic so CPI main one

Question 15

Describe the Consumer Price Index.

Answer 15

• Like a big shopping basket of what people typically spend their money on from bread to holidays.
• The total cost of the basket varies and this is monitored over time to see what change is happening.
• It indicates what we would need to spend to buy the same sorts of things that we bought in an earlier period.
• Compiled from around 700 items
• Around the middle of the month prices are collected from visiting shops and on-line.
• Components are weighted according to how much people buy.
• Represent the average change in
  prices across a wide range of consumer purchases.

Question 16

How are data collected for the Consumer Price Index?

Answer 16

Data collection methods include visits to shops and central collection of prices for larger chain stores (weighted according to market share). Items are chosen to be representative of general expenditure across the whole of the UK. The content of the basket is fixed for a period of 12 months, however, as the prices of individual products vary, so does the total cost of the basket. The CPI, as a measure of that total cost, only measures
price changes. If people spend more because they buy more goods this is not reflected in the index.

Question 17

What are data from the Consumer Price Index used for?

Answer 17

The indices are used in many ways by the government, businesses, and society in general. They can affect interest rates, tax allowances, wages, state benefits,
pensions, maintenance, contracts and many other payments. They also show the impact of inflation on family budgets.

Question 18

In the Consumer Price Index, what happens if an item in that year’s ‘basket’ stops being sold?

Answer 18

When particular products do disappear from the market, care is taken to ensure that replacements are of broadly comparable quality so that price comparisons are not distorted. If this is not possible, prices are adjusted to take account of the change in quality.

Question 19

How does the Consumer Price Index account for the fact that we buy different amounts of different items?

Answer 19

We spend more on some things than others, so we would expect, for example, a ten per cent increase in the price of petrol to have a much bigger impact on the CPI than a similar rise in the price of tea. For this reason, the components of the index are ‘weighted’ to ensure that it reflects the importance of the various items in the average shopping basket, and the amounts we spend
in different regions of the country and in different types of shops.

Question 20

How does the Consumer Price Index show changes in prices?

Answer 20

The base year is set at 2005 at an index if 100. Any number expressed after that is relative to 100. For example, if it’s 125 in 2007, this indicates you’d need to have £125 to buy the equivalent goods as in 2005.

Question 21

How often are data from the Consumer Price Index published?

Answer 21

The figures are published each month on the Office for
National Statistics website, in a statistical Bulletin with accompanying detailed Briefing Notes on a Tuesday about a month after the index date. The publication dates are announced at least six months in advance.

Question 22

How could the ‘Living Cost and Food’ survey be improved?

Answer 22

Instead of completing paper diaries respondents could complete the diary on a tablet or computer. This could mean that the interviewer does not need to return to the house to collect completed diaries. Respondents could be sent a reminder to complete it for that day. The day could be automatically coded upon entry.