February 2012
Bus and Coach Statistics 2010-11
Transport Scotland released the Bus and Coach Statistics 2010-11 report on 29 February 2012. The report bring together a range of bus and coach data to provide a more comprehensive and complete understanding of travel trends and behaviours across these modes, and includes data from the SHS.
2011 Quarter 3 Data Release
This release announces the availability of SHS data up to and including 2011 Quarter 3. This release covers 3,845 household interviews and 3,471 random adult interviews from the third quarter of 2011. There will be no quarterly releases in the future.
SHS 2012
The new Scottish Household Survey commenced in the field in January 2012 following an extensive period of survey development. The survey combines the previous SHS with most of the data requirements from the Scottish House Condition Survey. Further information on the development of the new survey will be published on the SHS website due course, though if you have any queries in the meantime then please contact the SHS Project Team.
November 2011
2011 Quarter 2 Data Release
This release announces the availability of SHS data up to and including 2011 Quarter 2. This release covers 4,259 household interviews and 3,801 random adult interviews from the second quarter of 2011.
Please see the SHSQuarterly Data Release publication summary page for further information.
SHS Travel Diary Results 2009/2010
The bulletin "Scottish Household Survey Travel Diary Results 2009/10" was published 23 November 2011. It provides information about the journeys made by adults living in private households. The topics covered include the means of transport used by different types of people, the purposes for which people travel, the distances that they go, the times of day at which trips start, the duration of journeys, the days of the week on which people travel, and car occupancy.
October 2011
SHS 2009/2010 Local Authority Tables
Results at a national level were published in August 2011 in the National Statistics publication Scotland's People Annual Report: Results from 2009/2010 Scottish Household Survey. These were in turn supported by a series of Web Tables which provided more in-depth analysis at a national level, along with some analysis at a sub-national level.
The SHS 2009/2010 LA Tables present comparative analyses to those in the main annual report for each local authority, where appropriate. Results are presented in the format of tables and charts, without narrative, showing the results separately for each local authority alongside comparisons against the national average. These are available either through an interactive Excel workbook or as standalone PDF documents for each local authority.
The Excel workbook provides an opportunity for users to compare results for two local authorities at the same time. The ability to compare against previous users may also be added in the future to further enhance this resource.
September 2011
SHS Transport: Local Area Analysis
Transport Scotland have published updated local area transport tables via the Transport and Travel Statistics website. These tables use SHS 2009/2010 data and are presented alongside the 2007/2008 local area tables published last year.
These web tables present information similar to previous Transport Across Scotland bulletins. The tables are available in excel and in an easy-to-print pdf format.
Any enquiries on this release should be directed to the Transport and Travel Statistics team.
August 2011
Transport and Travel in Scotland 2010
Transport Scotland published the Transport and Travel in Scotland 2010 publication on 31 August 2011. This is a new publication which replaces both the Main Transport Trends and Household Transport publciations.
The bulletin summarises a broad range of transport statistics including road vehicles, traffic, casualties, bus and rail passengers, road and rail freight, air and water transport and personal travel as well as providing some comparisons with GB figures. Further breakdowns of Scottish Household Survey transport data including households' access to cars and bikes, frequency of driving, modes of travel to work and school, use and opinions of public transport and access to services are also presented.
SHS 2009/2010 Annual Report
The SHS 2009/2010 Annual Report was published on Wednesday 17 August 2011. The report provides an introduction to the survey and presents and interprets some of the key policy-relevant results at a national level. Please view our Annual Publications page for further information.
We will be publishing a series of Web Tables in due course which presents more detailed analysis, as well as Local Authority Tables which will replicate all of the tables and charts, where appropriate, for each local authority in Scotland.
This release announces the release of SHS 2011 Quarter 1 data meaning the data is now available for use in responding to ad-hoc requests or other secondary uses. If you have any enquiries about using SHS data then please Contact us and let us know what you require.
June 2011
Scottish Household Survey 2012-2015 Contract Award
The contract for the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) 2012-2015 has been awarded to Ipsos MORI.
The main contract covers survey fieldwork from January 2012 to December 2015. The contract also includes the associated preparatory work in 2011, on-going survey and questionnaire development, all fieldwork including "mopping up" of interviews in 2016 (in order to complete the 2015 sample), and the finalisation and delivery of the survey dataset and associated outputs in 2016.
The contract includes an optional 2 year extension to cover additional fieldwork in 2016 and 2017, along with the "mopping up" and finalisation of the outputs in 2018. Granting of the extension will be at the sole discretion of Scottish Ministers.
The methodology will, in very broad terms, follow the template that has been established and developed since 1999 under the existing SHS. The survey will be a large, continuous sample survey designed to provide data that is representative of the household and adult populations of Scotland. The SHS will be fully modularised, and will integrate the current Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS). In particular, the physical survey of the SHCS will be run as a follow-up component of the main survey but incorporating electronic data capture rather than the pen and paper method currently used. Ipsos MORI will work in partnership with BRE, Alembic Research and MMBL in delivering the physical survey component of the survey.
The survey design will enable headline SHS statistics to be reported annually at both national and local authority levels where appropriate, though this will be balanced by a slight reduction in the precision of SHS estimates. The survey will be based on an annual sample of approximately 11,000 households, using a fully unclustered design, with an average interview length of 60 minutes. The details of the modular structure and questionnaire have yet to be finalised, and will be developed in partnership with Ipsos MORI over the coming months.
This will include undertaking the SHS 2012 Questionnaire Consultation exercise between July and August 2011 to agree the final questions and their wording, with further consutlation exercises in the new year to identify any associated dissemination and reporting requirements.
First results from the SHS 2012 will be available from late summer in 2013. All other outputs from the existing SHS, and the SHCS, will continue to be provided in line with current reporting standards.
Further information will be made available in due course.
April 2011
SHS 2012 Survey Development - Summary report on progress
A summary report on progress was published in April 2011, providing a broad-based summary of the SHS 2012 development work, which has been underpinned by the SHS Review 2010 project which was undertaken to scope the requirements for the SHS from 2012 onwards. This includes consideration of the multi-layered consultation activities undertaken in 2010 to identify the key priorities amongst users and stakeholders and identification of how these align against wider Scottish Government analytical priorities such as the Long Term Strategy for Population Surveys in Scotland 2009-2019.
February 2011
2010 Quarter 3 Data Release
This release announces the availability of SHS data up to and including 2010 Quarter 3. This release covers 3,774 household interviews and 3,376 random adult interviews from the third quarter of 2010.
Please see the SHSQuarterly Data Release publication summary page for further information.
Scottish Household Survey 2012-2015 Invitation to Tender
The Invitation to Tender (ITT) documents for the SHS 2012-2015 have now been released via the Public Contracts Scotland website.
UK Statistics Authority Assessment of SHS Outputs
The Written Evidence for Assessment and Final Response report provided as part of the assessment undertaken by the UK Statistics Authority of SHS outputs in 2009 have now been published. This provides useful background material on some current working practices within the SHS.
January 2011
Scottish Household Survey 2012-2015 Tender Arrangements
In February 2011 the Scottish Government will be initiating an exercise to re-commission the combined Scottish Household (SHS) and Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS), alongside the Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS), for the fieldwork period 2012-15.
Scottish Ministers have agreed to re-commission the surveys for a period of four years from 2012 on the condition that substantial efficiency savings can be achieved. In order to realise these efficiency savings the following actions will be taken:
- The SHS and SHCS will be combined into a single survey
- Reduction in annual combined sample size from 14,000 to 11,000 households
- Reduction in survey content and frequency of data collection
- Sampling and weighting to be done by Scottish Government statisticians
A Prior Information Notice for the tender project has been made available via the Public Contracts Scotland website:
Further information on the likely changes and proposals for implementation will be made available through the SHS website in due course.
Please see the News Archive page for any news articles prior to January 2011.