Family Resources Survey 2001-02
Data collection methods
The Consortium of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the National Centre for Social Research (formerly SCPR) have been conducting fieldwork for the FRS since 1992. In September 1996 and September 2000 the FRS contract was tendered as part of the good practice in government programme. The consortium was successful both times and currently holds the contract until 2004 with the option of a two year extension.
Interviews are carried out jointly on behalf of the DWP by interviewers from ONS and the National Centre for Social Research. Each month the PSUs are systematically divided between the two organisations and then assigned to the field staff.
Before interviewers make contact with the selected addresses, a letter is sent to the address, explaining that it has been chosen for the survey and that an interviewer will call. Participation in the FRS is voluntary.
The interviewers are asked to call at the address. A lower limit of four calls is set and these calls have to be made at different times of the day and on different days of the week. In 2001-02, FRS interviewers averaged 7.7 calls per address before returning it as a non-contact.
The FRS was one of the first Government surveys to use Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). There are advantages to this over the traditional paper interviews, primarily:
- in-built checks for consistency can be made at the time of the interview,
- respondents are automatically routed only to those questions relevant to them,
- there is no need for a data input stage as the data are already in electronic form,
- questions with alternate wordings (e.g. is/was, his/her) can be automatically tailored to the situation,
- interviewers receive and transmit work via a modem in their own homes.
The average interview length is around one hour and 14 minutes, but the time will vary according to the size of household and its circumstances. Less than 7 per cent of interviews lasted more than two hours.
The questionnaire itself is divided into three parts. The first part is the household schedule which is addressed to one person in the household (usually the head of household, although other members are encouraged to be present) and which mainly asks household level information, such as relationship of individuals to each other, tenure and housing costs. Next is the individual schedule which is addressed to each adult in turn and asks questions about employment, benefits, pensions, investments and other income. A final section goes on to ask the value of investments for relevant respondents.
To limit the length of the overall questionnaire, and to reduce the respondent burden of an overlong interview, FRS users have agreed to rotate off blocks of questions. 'Rotated' sections of the questionnaire will be asked every other year, rather than every year.
Rotated off for 2001-02 are "NHS treatment" and "Travel to work". Rotated off for 2001-2 will be "Vehicle ownership" and "Household Durables".
Interviewers new to the FRS are briefed on the questionnaire and an annual re-briefing is given to all interviewers on changes to the questionnaire. Those who have been working on the survey for some time also complete a written field report each year, describing their experiences with particular parts of the questionnaire, and commenting on how changes are received in the field.
