60 YEARS OF
SOCIAL SURVEY
1941–2001
© Crown copyright 2001
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Acknowledgements
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Frutiger Condensed
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Paper: Consort Royal Satin, 135g/m2
Inks: cmyk
2
Art Director:
Designer:
Fred Pollnitz
Michelle Franco
Picture Research: Frances Riddelle
© Crown Copyright Imperial War Museum: TR 1543
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Survey interviewer talking to an ATS Corporal about ATS
recruitment. Wartime Social Survey. 1944
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
5
SOCIAL SURVEY IN THE 1940s
7
SOCIAL SURVEY IN THE 1950s
21
SOCIAL SURVEY IN THE 1960s
33
SOCIAL SURVEY IN THE 1970s
47
SOCIAL SURVEY IN THE 1980s
61
SOCIAL SURVEY IN THE 1990s AND BEYOND
73
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
3
This is a blank page.
4
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
Foreword
This book commemorates the 60th Anniversary
of the founding of the Government Social
Survey, part of the Office for National Statistics.
It is not intended as an official record, as that
has been amply covered for the period
1941–1981 in The Government Social Survey A
History by Louis Moss. Rather, it is intended as a
miscellany of those elements that appealed to
us as we delved in the archive.
Some of the earlier surveys seem remarkably familiar to staff working in
Social Survey today. Others, particularly those conducted early on, may
appear rather quirky. The diversity of the subjects covered in the 60 years
of the Survey’s existence is breathtaking, and we hope the surveys
mentioned will stir memories and show the continuity of policy issues in
the post-war period. While some of our predecessors’ specific concerns
may not be identical to our own, we still share those about nutrition,
housing, health, employment, education, transport and crime.
Looking at the practice of taking social surveys, it has been quite
interesting to observe that there was remarkably little development in the
mechanics of survey production during the first few decades. The use of
information technology in social surveys marks a clear watershed in the
history of survey-taking, and has resulted in rapid change in the survey
process through the use of computer-assisted interviewing.
Many thanks to all those who contributed.
6
SOCIAL SURVEY
IN THE 1940s
Social Survey began life in the spring of 1941 as
the Wartime Social Survey. It was originally part
of the Ministry of Information’s Home
Intelligence Division and consisted of a handful
of researchers, mostly recruited from the new
field of market research, and 50 interviewers,
who were split into two groups. One group was
based in selected towns and carried out short
studies, the second was mobile and was sent to
work in areas regarded as specially relevant to
particular topics.
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
IN THE
Reports 1941 to 1949
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
MOI Films and the Public
-
1941
The Kitchen Front Broadcast Programme
1941
-
ATS
The Survey’s first task was to gain public acceptance of its work. In fact,
this wasn’t a problem: social surveys were still a novelty and most people
were happy to support the war effort in any way possible. Despite a media
campaign attacking surveys, with interviewers nicknamed ‘Cooper’s
Snoopers’ after the Ministry of Information Minister Duff Cooper, less
than 1 per cent of respondents refused to co-operate with government
survey staff.
1941
Foundation Garments
-
1941
Feeding of Young Workers 14–18 Years of
Age in Factories, Shops, Offices
1942
-
Publicity Media Enquiry
1942
-
1942
-
1942
-
1942
-
Sanitary Towels
Salvage
Heating of Dwellings Inquiry
Clothing Needs in 15 Occupational Groups
1942
-
Pottery, Holloware and Gas Lighter enguiry
1942
-
Food during the War
G Wagner
1942
-
1942
-
Diphtheria Immunisation enquiry
1942
-
Dig For Victory
Credit Buying
1942
-
1942
-
Lighting of Dwellings
Manufactured foods, an investigation
G Wagner, A H Reynolds
1942
-
Investigation into Houshold Cooking habits for
certain vegetables
G Wagner, A H Reynolds
1942
-
Food shortages were one of the government’s most pressing problems
during the early war years. The range and volume of food on sale was very
limited, and the government was concerned that public tastes acquired
during peacetime would prevent people from making the best of what was
now available. For example, the government knew it would have to stop
millers making white flour because it wasted too much wheat. However, a
Social Survey study of 1941 showed that wheatmeal bread was bought by
less than a quarter of all households, while another, conducted in 1944,
found that just under half of those interviewed said they had developed a
taste for it, or had got used to it, and that a quarter actually disliked it.
Information gathered from these food surveys also showed the
government how it might help the public develop new eating habits. The
1941 study revealed that housewives trusted the radio more than the
newspapers for advice on nutrition. Another survey, A Typical Day’s
Meals, produced in 1942, examined eating patterns and attitudes to eating
in canteens, restaurants and cafes at a time when the government was
planning to restrict the amount of food restaurants could serve.
The government also used these surveys to find out how nutritious the
British diet was. In A Typical Day’s Meals housewives were asked how
they prepared and cooked meals so that scientists could replicate these
methods and calculate how much nutrition was available from bought
food once it had been cooked (a similar survey was carried out specifically
on vegetables).
1941
■
1942
Wartime Social Survey formed as part of Ministry of Information (MOI)
■
Germany invades the USSR
■
Attack on Pearl Harbor
■
Britain declares war on Japan
■
Central Statistical Office (CSO) established
■
8
First official estimate of National Income
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
Women’s Timber Corps Training Camp. Culford, Suffolk.
A Land Army girl, on a tractor.
© Crown Copyright Imperial War Museum: MH 13417
In 1942, the spread of VD among British troops prompted the government
to launch a campaign warning people about the risks of catching the disease.
There was much criticism of ministers for sponsoring the campaign and it
took a Social Survey enquiry to show that 92 per cent of the 14- to 50-year
olds surveyed agreed that the issue should be publicised, while 86 per cent
recalled one or more of the adverts. The Ministry of Health was
encouraged to place more advertisements and a second survey run soon
afterwards showed 90 per cent of respondents supported the campaign.
© Crown Copyright Imperial War Museum: TR 909
Consumer goods were also in short supply and, between 1942 and 1945,
surveys were carried out to assess the availability of such items as
hardware, crockery, clothing and household linens. Almost one in ten
households didn’t have the minimum number of cups necessary for
essential use, defined as less than one for each member of the family. This
extract from the results of another survey, Wartime Shortages of
Consumer Goods, gives an interesting insight into the problems of
everyday life: ‘The shortage of scrubbing brushes seems to have been
extensively felt. From 22% to 30% of housewives tried to buy scrubbing
brushes each month but only about 8% succeeded.’
1942
■
1943
The Beveridge Report
■
Casablanca is released
■
Barbara Streisand is born
■
The government sets maximum clothes prices; a suit must cost no more than £4 18s 8d
■
Rose-hip syrup goes on sale nationwide
■
The new Waterloo Bridge is opened
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
9
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
Reports 1941 to 1949 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Manufactured Food Enquiry
1942
-
1942
-
The Battle for Fuel
Fuel Stocks
1942
Public Attitudes to Health and the Autumn
Health Campaign
1942
-
Food Problems
1942
-
1942
-
1943
-
1943
-
1943
-
1943
-
1943
-
1943
-
Fuel Rationing
Getting to Work
K Box
Typical Wartime Meals (Food)
The Health Ministry was also keen to use surveys to assess the level of
health education among mothers with babies. As today, there were
concerns about the number of mothers who did not have their children
immunised, although in this case against diptheria. Surveys held in 1942
and 1945 showed that despite a ‘considerable amount of ignorance as to
the cause of diphtheria’ mothers still had their children immunised against
the disease. Although only 13 per cent of parents knew that diptheria was
caused by a germ on the throat, in almost half the families interviewed all
the children had been vaccinated and in only a third of families had no
children been immunised.
Research was carried out into other aspects of child health. For example,
the government feared that air raids stopped children from getting enough
sleep so questions were included in the immunisation survey on the
sleeping patterns of children of different ages.
Brushes
Getting to Work
Food
Average number of hours children slept a day in 1942 by age
Oatmeal and Potato enquiry
Location dwellings in Scottish Towns
D Chapman
1943
-
Salvage
G Wagner, V Glover
1943
-
MOI Publications
L Moss, K Box
1943
-
Buying and baking
G Wagner
1943
-
20
18
16
The Campaign against Venereal Disease
1943
-
14
Hours
12
10
8
6
4
School Meals in Scotland
Newspapers and the public
L Moss, K Box
1943
-
1943
-
2
0
Under 1 year
1-2 years
2 -4 years
4-5 years
Age of child
5-10 years
10-14 years
Source: Diptheria Immunisation Enquiry
1943
■
1944
Roger and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! opens
■
The ‘Wings for Victory’ savings campaign is launched
■
Goebbels declares Berlin the ‘city free of Jews’
■
The government announces the introduction of ‘pay-as-you-earn’ taxation
■
Polish trade union leader Lech Walesa is born
■
10
Jazz pianist Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
© Crown Copyright Imperial War Museum: TR 2664
IN THE
During the latter stages of the war, Social Survey became involved in
planning the post-war welfare state set out in the Beveridge Report of
1942. In 1943, with plans for a national health service under way, the
General Register Office expressed concerns about a reported increase in
the number of people seeking medical attention and the demands this
would place on the new service. The Chief Medical Statistician was later to
write that ‘The need for some index of the amount of illness, loss of ability
for work and demands made on doctors in the civilian population became
obvious when alarmist rumours of deterioration in health began to
circulate and were difficult to refute. It was unsatisfactory that the
Ministry of Health and the Government generally should have no reliable
information about the total amount of illness and the effects it was
producing.’ By the winter of 1943, pilot surveys had been organised to
measure the amount of illness among the British population and, in 1944,
the Survey of Sickness was developed, the Social Survey’s first continuous
study. The survey was soon being used to estimate demand for specific
services, like the supply of hearing aids.
Royal Air Force resettlement training.
A class of Women’s Royal Air Force personnel studying child
welfare visits a clinic and day nursery run by Edmonton
Local Authority. Edmonton, London. 1943
Respondents also believed that the school curriculum should be expanded
in subjects that might prepare children for adult life. These included
current affairs (19 per cent), sex education and hygiene (16 per cent),
technical subjects (12 per cent) and manners (8 per cent). Among those
who wanted sex education and hygiene taught in school, 56 per cent
Mary Evans Picture Library
In the wake of the 1944 Education Act, Social Survey also undertook work
relating to public attitudes towards the expansion of state education. In
1945, the Ministry of Education wanted to find out whether people shared
the government’s views about the purpose of education and would accept
a large increase in educational expenditure. Social Survey was
commissioned to study public opinion on this matter. The survey showed
that most people wanted their children to have a better education than
they themselves had received. Two thirds of respondents were dissatisfied
with their own education and half of those interviewed supported raising
the school leaving age to 15 or 16.
Dining hall, Devonshire Hill School, Tottenham. 1944
Mural by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant
1944
■
1945
Butler’s Education Act raises the school leaving age to 15
■
Survey of Sickness established as first continuous survey
■
D-Day
■
Dutch artist Piet Mondrian dies
■
MPs vote to give women teachers the same pay as men
■
Troops drive London buses during a drivers’ strike
■
French author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
11
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
Reports 1941 to 1949 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Cinema Audience
L Moss, K Box
1943
-
1943
-
1943
-
1943
-
Price (£)
Consumption of Milk
Vegetables
Eat More Potatoes
The Attitudes of Women Towards Nursing
K Box, E Croft-White
1943
-
Sound in Dwellings
D Chapman
1943
-
Recruitment to Nursing
K Box, E Croft-White
1943
-
Women at Work
G. Thomas
1944
-
Agricultural Information and the Farmer
D Chapman, K Kidner, G Thomas
1944
-
Windows
D Chapman
-
1944
Supply and Comsumption of NAMPCO
G Wagner
1944
-
National Wheatmeal Bread
G Wagner
1944
-
1944
-
1944
-
thought it would improve moral standards. Sixty-one per cent of those
who wanted lessons in manners thought it would improve children’s
behaviour, which they thought was very bad.
Housing design was another area to which Social Survey turned it
attention. As early as 1942, it worked with the Building Research Station
on studies of heating, lighting and noise in domestic buildings. Interviews
were conducted with people living in the kind of dwellings likely to be
built in large numbers after the war. A third of respondents said they had
their sleep disturbed by noise, such as that from road and rail traffic and
from domestic animals. In 1943, the Department for Health in Scotland
asked Social Survey to examine the attitudes of slum dwellers to being
housed in new towns. Over the next few years similar planning studies
were undertaken in places like Glasgow, Middlesbrough and London.
The government also measured public reaction to other social changes
that would occur in peacetime. During the war, large numbers of women
Household size 1942
Bicycles
30
Social Survey of Middlesborough (Part I, Part
II and Part III)
D Chapman
1945
Domestic Food Production
S Thomas
1945
-
Vegetable Consumption in four selected towns
G Wagner
1945
Furniture
1945
-
Attitudes to road accidents and the Highway
code
L Moss
1945
25
20
Percentage
Food Supplements
G Wagner, A H Reynolds
15
10
5
0
-
One
Two
Three
Four
Household size
Five
Six
Seven or more
Source: British Household Survey
1945
■
1946
Clement Attlee elected Prime Minister after a Labour landslide
■
Hiroshima Bomb
■
World War II ends
■
Film adaptation of Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra is released
■
Anne Frank, author of the ‘Diary’, dies at Bergen-Belsen
■
12
Animal Farm published
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
The gradual return of troops to civilian life after the war led to an increase
in marriage and the post war ‘baby bulge’ which, in turn, caused a
dramatic increase in the demand for housing. However, because the 1941
Census had been cancelled, Britain lacked even the most basic information
on household composition so, in 1945, a survey based on a sample of
11,000 households was used to produce household composition tables. A
similar report on The British Household was produced in 1947.
© Crown Copyright Imperial War Museum: TR 660
had entered the workplace to fill in for the men away on service. When the
war ended, those jobs would once more be taken by men. However, a
survey carried out for the Office of Reconstruction in 1943 showed that 60
per cent of women in wartime civilian employment wanted to continue
working after the war. The main reason for this was economic, although
women in the professions preferred to stay on because they found their
jobs fulfilling.
Women checking 25 pdr shells at a small arms factory in
the West Country. 1943
A determination to avoid the economic problems that had dogged the
inter-war period led the Attlee government to pursue a more
interventionist economic strategy. Its policies in support of full
employment and fair wages led to the commissioning of numerous
surveys on the movement of women into the labour market, recruitment
to certain industries and labour mobility. In the mining industry, for
example, some pits had been exhausted by the war effort and the miners
needed to move to where new ones were being sunk. The Scottish Mining
© Crown Copyright Imperial War Museum: TR 1312
Neither of these studies was done at the request of the authorities
responsible for housing. The post-war shortage of building materials made
the Ministry of Housing cautious about promising any new construction
and even in 1948 it was still refusing to carry out housing surveys. The
following spring, when an urgent survey was undertaken on housing
waiting lists, it was commissioned by the Ministry of Health rather than
Housing. About 1.5 million households turned out to be registered on
local authority waiting lists, although 80 per cent of them had been on the
list for three years or less.
The wardrobe mistress of the Shakespeare Memorial
Theatre of Stratford-on-Avon curling a wig. 1943
1946
United Nations is founded
■
Social Survey transferred to new Central Office of Information
■
Free School Milk Act
■
©Hulton Archive
■
1947
The first GI brides arrive in the US from Britain
■
The first post-war bananas arrive in Britain
■
A United Nations flag.
Footballers threaten to strike for a minimum wage of £7
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
13
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
Communities Survey examined the attitudes of miners and their families
and revealed the disconcerting fact that they were willing to relocate but
mainly to find alternative employment for themselves or their sons.
Reports 1941 to 1949 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
(£)
Year
Diphtheria Immunisation
K Box
-
1945
Food Facts
G Wagner, M Gentles
-
1945
Demobilisation Coupons
K Freemantle
Price
1945
Improving the measurement of the cost of living was a priority and the
Social Survey developed rigorous methods for gauging household
spending which later evolved into the Family Expenditure Survey.
Although the decision to spend or save was a luxury for many,
macroeconomists at the Treasury had begun to take an interest in the
savings ratio and, in 1946, the Social Survey started a series of surveys with
the Oxford Institute of Statistics to study personal savings.
-
Stoke and Salford Dietary Survey (School
Children)
G Wagner
1945
-
Education and the People
L Moss
1945
-
Betting habits
W F F Kemsley, W Oswald
1945
-
Wartime Shortages of Consumer goods
K Box
1945
Despite the austerity measures in place during the late 1940s, after six
years of conflict people had begun to expect a better life that included a
greater amount of leisure time. The Demand for Holidays in 1946 and
1947 showed that 50 per cent more people wanted holidays in 1947 than
had had them in 1946. Foreign holidays weren’t a realistic aspiration for
the majority of the population – in fact, people generally didn’t want to
make long journeys and only 2 per cent planned to go abroad. What most
people wanted was more choice in the timing of their holidays.
-
Scottish Mining Communities
Cot Bedding
K Box
1946
-
1946
-
Employment of men with Pneumokoniosis
G Thomas
1946
-
Recruitment of boys to the mining industry
G Thomas
1946
-
The Defence Medal
P Slater
1946
-
Recruitment to the Civil Service
K Box
1946
-
A test of carpet use
L Moss
1946
-
Demand for Holidays in 1946/47
P Slater
1946
-
The Cinema and the Public
K Box
-
1946
Recruitment to the Territorial Army
L Wilkins
1946
-
Road Safety Campaign
L Moss, K Box
-
1946
1947
■
1948
Coal mines nationalised
■
India becomes independent
■
Princess Elizabeth marries Philip Mountbatten
■
The Biro is launched
■
Al Capone dies
■
Car maker Henry Ford dies
■
14
18 die in a train crash in Yorkshire
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
When Social Survey was set up the methods and infrastructure to take
true random samples were still in their infancy. Where suitable registers
were available random sampling was used but often other methods
such as quota samples had to be used despite their limitations. In the
years up to 1946 about a quarter of the surveys conducted included an
element of non-probability sampling. By 1948 only 3 per cent of surveys
relied on these methods and had almost disappeared as a method by the
end of the decade.
© Crown Copyright Imperial War Museum: TR 1546
Working Methods
This new activity of taking social surveys to support policy was starting
from only the most tenuous of foundations drawing on what expertise
and experience existed in conducting sample surveys. Compared with
today, the early surveys seem very narrow in focus and sought to answer
clearly defined research questions.
Wartime Social Survey. 1944
A survey interviewer talking to a family
While within the Division there was much effort invested in developing
and improving survey methods there was little interest in the outside
world in the mechanics or theory of survey-taking. The desirability of
covering the whole population using probability methods did not seem
to generate much interest compared with the results from the surveys
© Crown Copyright Imperial War Museum: TR 1305
The small fieldforce of just 50 interviewers and the need for information
quickly meant that many of the surveys did not attempt to take
nationally representative samples but rather focused on particular cities
or regions. Samples were typically 2000 to 5000 respondents, small by
today’s standards. The professionalisation of the discipline as the Survey
became more established was evidenced by the growing specialisation
within the various functions. In the field area for example, by the end of
the decade the fulltime fieldforce had been supplemented by part-timers
to provide increased flexibility and responsiveness, recruitment tests for
interviewers were introduced and the first interviewer handbook was
produced in 1948.
Peeling potatoes for a meal in a Young People’s Summer
Camp. Summer 1943
1948
National Health Service established
■
Gandhi is assassinated
■
Release of Hamlet, starring Laurence Olivier
■
The Olympics are held in London (Britain wins 45 medals
including 6 Golds)
■
Gerard Depardieu is born
■
Prince Charles is born
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
©Hulton Archive
■
1949
Picture Post cover. ‘US Strains
for Olympic Victory’.
Published 1948
15
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
Reports 1941 to 1949 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Population and Housing in England and Wales
G Thomas
1947
Water Heating Appliances
1947
themselves. What engagement there was with the external research
community was mainly on the statistical front with detailed technical
papers presented to the Royal Statistical Society on various aspects of
sampling.
-
Some factors effecting design of small
dwellings
P G Gray
1947
-
Shopping Hours
D Ginburgh
1947
-
Fill the Ships
L Moss, K Box
1947
-
Willesden and the New Towns
By the end of the decade the range of topics covered had been greatly
extended, the Social Survey’s budget had doubled and the staff had risen
to 90, although the organisation was still much smaller than it was to
become. There were now dedicated staff (14) concerned with the
organisation, recruitment and training of interviewers and 38 in the
design and reporting of surveys.
1947
The British Household
P G Gray
1947
-
Survey on the prevelance of deafness
L Wilkins
1947
-
Domestic Fuel Survey
1947
-
Re-enlistment in the Royal Air Force
L T Wilkins
1947
-
Domestic Crockery Survey
D Ginburgh
1947
-
Meter reading and the Fuel Target
D Ginburgh
1947
-
Children out of School
J Ward
-
1947
‘Come and Make it’ (Leicester exhibition)
A Beltram
1947
The Employment of Older Persons
G Thomas
1947
-
The second stage of the production campaign
1947
-
The tabulation of survey results was a slow process and reporting of
results was primitive by modern standards. Data were coded by a team
of clerical staff and then processed mechanically. Although tables were
usually simple their production was generally a bottleneck in the
reporting process. Data was hand punched on to cards, sorted and
tabulated. The tabulation process described in the methodological
section of Food During the War gives an insight into the practical
problems of analysing the data once collected.
Reports, which were typically about 30 pages long with the
questionnaire and field instructions attached were handwritten and
then transcribed by specialist typists. Charts where they were included
were hand drawn. In the wartime context the Home Intelligence
Division were not predisposed to publish any reports though by 1942
The Times was saying that ‘some at least’ should be published.
Attitudes to Road Safety and the Road Safety
Campaign
H G Willcoc
1948
Glasgow and North Lanarkshire Housing and
new towns Survey
B M Osbourne
1948
-
1949
■
1950
NATO is formed
■
Republic of Eire is established
■
Britain’s first ‘launderette’ is opened
■
Meryl Streep is born
■
RCA announces a system for broadcasting colour television
■
16
The Second Sex is published
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
From the coded form for each informant ... some 105 cards are punched for
each individual – a total of about 50,000 detail cards for 500 informants.....
The 50,000 detail cards are mechanically sorted with the ready reckoner
cards on foodstuffs and the quantity within each foodstuff group. Nutrient
values on the ready reckoner cards are then mechanically reproduced on to
the appropriate detail cards.
The next operation is to sort the detail cards on a sorting machine to each
person’s number, after which two tabulations are prepared which give (a)
a list of total quantities of every foodstuff eaten by each informant during the
week of seven days and 9b) the total daily nutrient intake of each individual.
Finally, the summary cards are sorted and tabulated to give the total
nutrient intake... A table is made by had from tabulation (a)... The
Hollerith machines used are: Hand Punches, Gang Punches, Reproducing
Punch, Sorting Machine, Rolling Total Tabulator.
Mary Evans Picture Library
Comptometer totals from the forms are checked against tabulation (a).
Tabulation (b) consists of 3,500 lines (500 persons x 7 days) and a
summary card is hand punched for every line of this tabulation. Thus these
summary cards contain the sociological information relating to each person
in the sample and his/her total daily nutrient intake.
Advertisement in Britannia magazine, 1944
Food During the War, p25
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
17
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
Reports 1941 to 1949 (cont.)
Reports 1941 to 1949 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Women and Industry
G Thomas
1948
Price (£)
Men and Mining
G Thomas
1948
-
Lighting of Office Buildings
P G Gray, T Corlett
1948
-
Pilot Census of Distribution in High Wycombe
D Ginburgh
1948
Demand for Holidays in 1947 and 1948
P Slater
1948
-
Public Opinion on Colonial Affairs
G K Evens
1948
-
-
Public Opinion in Lancashire Cotton Towns
G Thomas
1948
-
Expenditure on Social Insurance
1948
-
COI Health of the People Exhibition at Marble
Arch
H D Willcock
1948
Audience Reaction to the Film A Yank comes
back
H D Willcock
1948
-
The Survey of knowledge and the opinion
about the Economic Situation (10 Reports)
1948
-
1948
Demand for House coals
L T Wilkins
Price (£)
-
1948
-
1948
-
An estimate of the demand for domestic house
coal
L T Wilkins
1948
Expenditure on household textiles,furnishing
fabric and household repairs
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1948
Clothes and Coupon Expenditure May–July 1948
W F F Kemsleg, D Ginsbiru
1948
Clothes and Coupon Expenditure May–August
1948
1948
Recruitment to Agriculture
B M Osborne
The Family Guide to the National Insurance
Scheme
H G Willcock
1948
18
Year
Childrens Clothing Coupons
-
Prediction of the demand for campaign stars
and medals
L Wilkins
1948
-
Economic Publicity Surveys
G K Evens
Report Title
Author
1949
-
Depopulation and rural life in the Solway
Counties
B Hutchingson
1949-Children and
the Cinema
J C Ward
1949
Mobility of Labour
G Thomas
1949
Recruitment of Hospital nursing Staff by
advertisement
G Thomas
1949
-
Schoolboys Diets
A Beltram
-
1949
Housing Waiting Lists (England and Wales)
P G Gray
1949
-
Housing Waiting Lists (Scotland)
P G Gray
1949
-
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1940s
IN THE
Reports 1941 to 1949 (cont.)
Reports 1941 to 1949 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Investigation
G Kevens
1949
Price (£)
-
The Touring ‘On Our Way’ Exhibition at Dudley
and Neath
M D Willcock
1949
A Second Survey of Public Opinion in
Lanarkshire cotton towns
A Beltram
1949
-
The Electoral Register
1949
The Survey of knowledge and the opinion
about the Economic Situation (5 Reports)
K Box
1949
Depopulation and rural life in the Tweed
Valley
B Hutchingson
1949
-
-
-
Depopulation and rural life in Aberdeen and
Banff
B Hutchingson
1949
Depopulation and rural life in Scotland
B Hutchingson
1949
-
Domestic utilization of heating appliances and
expenditures of fuels in 1948/49
L T Wilkins
1949
Expenditure on household textiles, furnishing
fabric and household repairs
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
Expenditure on laundries, dyeing and cleaning
mending and alterations and shoe repairing
services
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Expenditure on laundries, dyeing and cleaning
mending and alterations and shoe repairing
services
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
Expenditure on repairs and alterations to
domestic service and pets (3 Reports)
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
Expenditure on medicines and allied
pharmacetical products
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
Expenditure on meals in catering
establishments
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
Expenditure on meals in catering
establishments
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
Expenditure on cosmetics and soap
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
Expenditure on hairdressing, cosmetics and
toilet necessities
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
Holiday and Holiday expenditure
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
Holiday and Holiday expenditure
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
Betting habits
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
Betting in Britain
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1949
-
19
This is a blank page.
20
SOCIAL SURVEY
IN THE 1950s
Despite Social Survey’s success in the 1940s,
there were difficult times ahead. An economic
crisis in the early 50s led to cuts in government
spending, and Social Survey Division suffered
worse than most public bodies. In 1952, its
budget was reduced by 16 per cent and 20 per
cent of its posts were lost.
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1950s
IN THE
Reports 1950 to 1959
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Sampling for the Social Survey
P G Gray, T Corlett
1950
-
The nutrition of older people
B M Osborno
1950
-
Recruitment to the Civil Defence Services
J E Fothergill, D L Lamberth
1950
-
The employment of elderly workers
G Thomas, B Osborne
1950
-
Civil Defence publicity in Paisley and
Dumbarton Council
K Evens
1950
-
General Publicity Surveys
1950
-
1950
-
Festival of Britain
The Mendresco Hearing Aid
P G Gray, A Cartwright
1950
-
Monthly Release of COI Films
J Ward
1950
-
Utility and the Public
K Box
-
1950
The Housing Requirements of special groups
(older people)
P G Gray, A Betham
1950
Audience Reaction to the Film “The
undefeated”
B Hutchinson
1950
One of the early casualties was the Survey of Sickness. The Treasury
pressured the Ministry of Health to cancel the Survey, resulting in a
further loss of jobs at SSD. By October 1952 the Division had lost 40 per
cent of its staff.
The Treasury also insisted that SSD should seek its agreement before
starting any new projects, and this veto was used to stop many proposals
for survey work. Career prospects in the Division diminished rapidly and
many of SSD’s most promising staff left to find jobs elsewhere.
Yet there were countervailing forces at work to rebuild Social Survey.
There was a great need for information to help formulate welfare
policies and measure their impact once they were in place. Furthermore,
SSD was now widely recognised as a centre of excellence and it had
taken over the technical development of surveys begun in other
government departments.
Percentage of energy from carbohydrate, fat and protein
60
-
The Survey of knowledge and opinion about
the Economic Situation (3 Reports)
H D Willcock
1950
1950
-
Tipping in catering establishments
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1950
-
Betting in Britain
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
-
1950
Expenditure on durable goods, including hire
purchase maintenance & decorating of
domestic property & on purchases, sales and
maintenance of private motor vehicles
(3 Reports)
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1950
-
40
Percentage
Employment of Adolescents
L T Wilkins
Energy from carbohydrate
50
Energy from fat
30
20
Energy from protein
10
0
1940
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
Year
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
Source: National Food Survey
1950
■
1951
Korean War breaks out
■
Petrol rationing ends
■
First overseas TV broadcast
■
George Bernard Shaw dies
■
22
First kidney transplant operation performed in US
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1950s
IN THE
Most notable of these studies was the National Food Survey, the
government’s oldest continuous survey, which had started life as the
Ministry of Food’s Wartime Food Survey. The Survey, which was
transferred to SSD in 1953, was the only way of gathering information on
diet at a time when rationing was still in place and the risk of malnutrition
was a major government concern.
Another survey in which SSD became involved in 1953 was the Household
Expenditure Survey, which was designed to provide up-to-date weights for
the Retail Price Index. The government wanted to expand the Survey’s
coverage, so that spending could be related to family circumstances and
income. The Ministry of Labour wanted to use its local office staff for the
fieldwork, but the Treasury decided that Social Survey’s trained researchers
would provide more reliable data. The Division subsequently played a
large part in developing the Survey and, in 1957, it was relaunched as the
Family Expenditure Survey (FES).
Mary Evans Picture Library
Over the years, the NFS has reflected the considerable changes in Britons’
diets and the way they cook and serve food, as well as recording long-term
nutritional trends. People now eat far fewer carbohydrates, while the
amount of fat consumed, after rising sharply for some time, stabilised as
the health risks became known. The NFS, which adopted a truly national
sample in 1950, was the longest-running continuous survey until its recent
60th anniversary, when it merged with the Family Expenditure Survey to
become the Expenditure and Food Survey.
Britain is still being rationed – eight years after the end
of the war!
Since then, the non-expenditure parts of the FES have expanded to the
point where many departments analyse the database with little reference
to its spending data. Nevertheless, this information is still important and
the diagram overleaf, which examines household expenditure, shows that
as incomes have risen people have spent proportionally less on basic
necessities and more on services and leisure activities.
1951
■
1952
Winston Churchill elected Prime Minister (Conservative)
■
Festival of Britain opens
■
First H-bomb is tested
■
Cereal tycoon William Kellogg dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
23
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1950s
IN THE
Reports 1950 to 1959 (cont.)
Price (£)
Expenditure on durable goods, including
ownership of domestic appliances
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1950
-
Expenditure on clothing (3 Reports)
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1950
-
Expenditure on clothing at different types of
shops
W F F Kemsley
1950
Diets of Young Children
-
1951
-
Recruitment to Civil Defence Services part 2
D L Lamberth
1951
-
Some aspects of the Use and Supply of
Stationery in Government Offices
L T Wilkins
1951
-
Some estimates of the proportion of Local
Authority tenants prepared to buy a house
P G Gray, A Betham
1951
-
Public Knowledge of Colonial Affairs and the
public
B M Osborne, H D Willcock
1951
-
40
-
1997-98
1999-2000
1993
1991
1989
1987
1985
1983
1995-962
Year
-
1981
1979
0
1977
The Survey of knowledge and the opinion
about the Economic Situation (5 Reports)
H D Willcock
1951
5
1975
An acturial approach to the problem of Borstal
treatment of male offenders
1951
-
10
1973
-
15
1971
The uptake of welfare foods
J E Fothergill
1951
20
1969
-
25
1967
Diphtheria Immunisation in 1951
P G Gray, A Cartwright
1951
30
1965
-
The Effects of a Local Road Safety campaign
on behaviour of road users
H D Willcock
1951
-
35
1963
The puchase of new bread
1951
Percentage of total expenditure on selected categories 1957 to 1999–2000
1961
The audience at a Productivity Exhibition in
Birmingham
H D Willcock
1951
At a time of high immigration, the British government became
increasingly concerned about ignorance of, and prejudice towards,
‘coloured’ people. Although most Britons had grown up thinking the
Empire was a great achievement and that the colonies had supported the
UK during the war, the government was unsure how they would receive
the growing numbers of colonial immigrants coming to take up unfilled
vacancies. In 1951, the Colonial Office organised a series of public
1959
Domestic Storage Space
G Thomas
1951
1957
Year
The NFS and FES provided a regular supply of work that kept the Division
in business while the demand for ad hoc surveys grew. In the early 50s,
many surveys were done for COI, SSD’s parent department, to evaluate the
impact of the Office’s public information and advertising campaigns.
There were other COI surveys, including one about recruitment
advertisements for the Civil Defence Services and another on attitudes to
war and the atom bomb.
% of total household expenditure
Report Title
Author
Housing
Fuel and power
Clothing and footwear
Food
Motoring and fares
Leisure goods and services
Source: Family Expenditure Survey
1952
■
1953
George VI dies
■
Survey of Sickness dropped after new government halves the size of Social Survey Division
■
National Food Survey transferred to Social Survey
■
The British Standards Institution Kite Mark is introduced
■
The cheese ration is cut to an ounce a week
■
24
Anne Frank’s Diary is published
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1950s
IN THE
The study confirmed the Colonial Office’s suspicions. Nearly 60 per cent
of respondents couldn’t name a British colony. Although three quarters of
the sample thought Britain would be worse off without the colonies, there
was clear evidence of prejudice, particularly among older people. One in
three respondents said they disliked coloured colonials, though most
claimed that while other people were prejudiced, their feelings were
perfectly legitimate – justified by immigrants’ allegedly unpleasant habits.
The report was marked confidential and remained in the files until the
classification was lifted 30 years later.
Stockwave/COI
exhibitions to promote positive images of coloured people and
commissioned ‘a study of public knowledge of the Colonies and of
attitudes toward coloured people’.
West Indians arrive in Britain. Circa 1950s
More work was done on the use of the welfare state, much of it focused on
testing politicians’ fears that the public might abuse the system. In 1953,
SSD designed a survey for the Ministry of Pensions and National
Insurance, to be conducted by Ministry staff among people becoming
eligible for retirement pensions during a particular four-week period. The
Reasons for Retirement Survey showed that people were more likely to
stop work because of ill-health and employers’ compulsory retirement
rules rather than a desire to rely on a state income.
©Hulton Archive
SSD’s continuing work with the Building Research Station was far less
controversial. Studies were conducted on domestic heating, domestic
storage space and sound insulation in flats. In 1952, the Sound in Flats
Survey asked the residents of three blocks, each with a different type of
party wall, what noises they could hear from their neighbours and which
sounds annoyed them. The noises that could be heard were measured and
compared with respondents’ reactions. The survey showed that the
physical level of noise did not correlate with what people said they heard
or how much it annoyed them.
Atomic cloud. US atom bomb tests at Yucca Flat, Nevada.
1952
1953
Coronation of Elizabeth II
■
Hanging of Derek Bentley, who was found guilty of killing
a policeman, a crime of which he was posthumously cleared
■
©Hulton Archive
■
1954
Stalin dies
■
Hillary and Tensing climb Everest
■
John F Kennedy marries Jacqueline Bouvier
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in
Westminster Abbey, London. June 1953
25
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1950s
IN THE
Reports 1950 to 1959 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
National service and enlistment in the armed
forces
L T Wilkins
1951
Night Baking in canteens
1951
-
Expenditure on meals in catering
establishments
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1951
-
Expenditure on durable goods, including hire
purchase maintenance & decorating of
domestic property & on purchases, sales and
maintenance of private motor vehicles
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1951
Beer prices and consumer expenditure on Beer
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1951
Consumer’s Expenditure on Cigarettes and
Tobacco
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1951
-
Consumer’s Expenditure on Entertainment
W F F Kemsley, D Ginsburg
1951
-
Noise in three groups of flats with different
floor insulations
P G Gray, A Cartwright
1952
-
By the mid-50s there was increasing demand for research about the
National Health Service. Among the surveys done by SSD were studies of
hearing-aid users conducted on behalf of the manufacturers of these
devices. The surveys were almost like market research and showed that
some people would rather manage without an aid than use one that didn’t
work very well.
One of the most unusual NHS surveys involved observing nurses at work
in hospitals. Under proposed new working methods, nurses would be
assigned to particular patients rather than performing particular tasks for
all the occupants of a ward. ‘Before and after’ measures, involving
observations every 15 seconds of sample half-hour periods, were used to
compare the two styles of nursing. The results showed the effectiveness of
the new approach, which seemed to generate fewer complaints.
In 1957, the Royal Commission on the Remuneration of Doctors and
Nurses asked Social Survey to measure doctors’ and dentists’ pay. It was
one of the largest-ever postal surveys and, with over 30,000 replies, proved
a very efficient method of collecting data.
Scientific Manpower
1952
-
Use of heating appliances and expenditure on
fuel
P G Gray
1952
Dissemination and Technical information in
Industry
H D Willcock
1952
-
British Industries Fairs
H D Willcock
-
1952
General practice under the National Health
Service
P G Gray, A Cartwright
1952
-
Older people and their employment parts 1, 2
and 3
G Thomas, B Osborne
1952
Ascorbic acid in young children’s diets
J G Fothergill
1952
-
The diets of young children
J G Fothergill
-
1952
Then as now, the welfare state was supplemented by voluntary work and
there was a tendency to overestimate the contribution of this sector. The
Meals on Wheels Survey (1958) was commissioned to examine the
service’s scope and operation and the extent to which it met customers’
needs. It also identified the sorts of people likely to use the service. The
sample included current recipients over retirement age and a general
population sample of the same age. The survey revealed that only 3 per
cent of customers received a daily meal from the service and 40 per cent
had just one a week. The number wanting more meals was far larger than
that currently being served and only 4 per cent of recipients had their
meals free.
1954
End of rationing
■
Bannister breaks the four minute mile barrier
■
First colour televisions were introduced
■
Lord of the Flies first published
■
26
Artist Henri Matisse dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
©Hulton Archive
■
1955
Family relax in front of their
colour television. Circa 1954
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1950s
IN THE
The late 1950s gave Social Survey one of the best opportunities it had ever
had to show the value of survey research. The government was planning to
start deregulating rents that had been controlled since World War One.
The 1956 White Paper that paved the way for the Rent Act was largely
based on administrative records, not an ideal source. The Ministry had
made educated guesses about the current level of rents and the number of
tenancies likely to be affected by the legislation, so a survey was conducted
to gauge the legislation’s impact. The research was repeated 20 months
after the Act was passed in 1957.
©Hulton Archive
The survey showed that about 380,000 accommodation units would
be affected by the legislation, roughly half what the Ministry had
estimated. More importantly, the measure of rents before and after the
Act was passed showed that tenants moving on caused bigger rent rises
than deregulation.
The Survey’s success in providing data that couldn’t be found elsewhere
transformed the Ministry’s attitude to commissioning surveys from SSD
and it became a regular client.
Preparing boxes for the Meals On Wheels programme.
By the end of the 50s, the need for Social Survey’s work far outstripped its
capacity to deliver. The Division was allowed to recruit more staff, and
senior posts were upgraded to reflect the increased level of responsibility
associated with them. But this modest expansion was to prove far too
small for the growth in demand that was to occur in the 1960s.
1955
■
1956
Anthony Eden elected Prime Minister (Conservative Party)
■
Blue jeans first arrived in Britain
■
Ruth Ellis is hanged, the last woman sentenced to death in Britain
■
ITV launched
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
27
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1950s
IN THE
Reports 1950 to 1959 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Incentives and Industry
G Thomas
Working methods
New topics meant that there was ongoing development of
methodologies and procedures. Work continued on improving
sampling methods including the development of the ‘J Index’ as a
stratifier (the proportion of the electorate who were jurors, for which
there was a property qualification) which would make fieldwork
cheaper by allowing greater clustering. Continuing clerical shortages
meant that the Survey had to demonstrate the ability to cope with the
demanding clerical tasks created by some of the surveys. One solution
was to allow Social Survey to use part-time staff at times of particular
pressure. Field staff began to work at headquarters but the practice soon
ran in to problems. At a time when staff numbers were being cut the
Civil Service unions were suspicious of the use of fieldworkers for work
which in other circumstances would have been done by clerical staff.
The practice was allowed to continue for a short period which allowed
the completion of large projects such as the Household Budget Survey
and the National Food Survey.
Price (£)
1952
-
Domestic pig and poultry keeping
P G Gray, T Corlett
1954
-
Consumers expenditure on repairs,
decorations, improvements to domestic
property and removals
1954
-
The adolesents in Britain 1955
L T Wilkins
1955
-
Scientific and Engineering Manpower
in Great Britain
1955
-
Domestic Heating
P G Gray
-
1955
The Slough experiment and road safety
H D Willcock
1955
-
The Mendresco Hearing Service
P G Gray, E Parr
1955
-
The take up of welfare foods
J E Fothergill
1955
-
Post office services
G Thomas
-
1955
Tabulation and analysis of data were still problematic. When the
Ministry of Labour took greater control over the Family Expenditure
Survey, it insisted on processing the data itself, even though it faced the
same technical restrictions as SSD and most other government
departments. The following extract from the FES report for 1957–59
shows that mechanical tabulators were still the main method used and
that computers were only just being introduced.
Expenditure on laundries, dyeing and cleaning
mending and alterations and shoe repairing
services
1955
Consumer expenditure surveys in 1955
1955
-
Consumers expenditure on repairs,
decorations, improvements to domestic
property and removals
1955
-
Studies in the causes of deliquencies and the
treatment of offenders
L T Wilkins
1956
Medical Services in the Armed Forces
M Harris
1956
-
Car parking generation and frustration
L T Wilkins
1956
-
Technical Assistance facts and figures on
mission organisation
1956
-
1956
■
1957
Suez Crisis
■
John Osbourne’s Look back in Anger is first shown. Osbourne is one of a generation of playwrights
nicknamed ‘angry young men’
■
Family Expenditure Survey started on behalf of the Department of Employment
■
Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco
■
Artist Jackson Pollock dies
■
Britain’s first full-scale nuclear power station is opened at Calder Hill
■
28
Playwright Bertolt Brecht dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1950s
IN THE
‘The machine capacity necessary to produce most of the requirements
of the Central Statistical Office was not available from the sorting and
tabulating resources of the Ministry of Labour, which were already
heavily committed, and the arrangements mentioned in the
Introduction to this report were therefore made to produce the required
tables on an electronic computer. Table 10 and the standard errors given
in Appendix VII were produced by this means. The Ministry of Labour
now has its own electronic computer, which will be used to process the
results of the Family Expenditure Survey from 1961 onwards. The
experience gained in writing the programme (the detailed instructions
for the computer) for the processing of material for the Central
Statistical Office has been of considerable value in connection with the
programming of the Ministry of Labour’s computer. An electronic
computer is very necessary to produce analyses of the variety and
complexity required from a multi-purpose survey of this nature.’
1957
Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister (Conservative Party)
■
Treaty of Rome establishes the European Community (EC)
■
Women are admitted to the House of Lords
■
The first artificial satellite, Sputnik, is launched
■
Life Peerages Act is passed
■
First Eurovision song contest (Switzerland won)
■
The Seventh Seal is released
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
©Hulton Archive
■
1958
Sputnik I,the first satellite to
enter Earth’s orbit.
October 1957
29
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1950s
IN THE
Reports 1950 to 1959 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Reports 1950 to 1959 (cont.)
Year
Price (£)
The promotion prospects of manual workers
in selected manufacturing industries
1956
The use of technical literature by industrial
technologists
C Scott
1956
A consumer survey of the telegraph services
C Scott
1956
Consumers’ expenditure on meals and other
food eaten outside the home
1956
Consumers’ expenditure on domestic service
and purchases of cleaning material such as
soap, soapless detergents and polishes
1956
Year
Price (£)
Consumers expenditure on repairs,
decorations, improvements to domestic
property and removals
1957
-
The Housewife and the Garchey system of
refuse disposal
M Harris
1958
-
-
The higher national certificate of 1952
G Thomas
1958
-
-
Formal training and agriculture
D Sheppard
1958
-
Meals on wheels services
A Harris
-
-
Hospital nursing
1956
Report Title
Author
-
-
Survey into consumers’ expenditure on
durable goods hire purchase
1956
-
Food Retailing and the Housewife
L Moss
1957
-
1958
Postal services and the business user
C Scott
1958
-
Postal services and the general public
C Scott
1958
-
The 1957 internal recruiting survey
1958
-
Consumers’ expenditure on repairs,
decorations, improvements to domestic
property and removals
1958
-
Children in care and recruitment of foster
parents
P G Gray, E A Parr
1957
-
Nursing Methods in a General Hospital
H D Willcock
1957
-
Domestic pig and poultry keeping
1957
-
The Employment of Women Scientists in
Industry
G Thomas,R Morton Williams
1959
Further Education
M Harris
1957
-
Access arrangement in high blocks of flats
D Sheppard
1959
-
Services Recruitment
H D Willcock
1957
-
Public behaviour under the influence of
alcohol
H D Willcock
1959
-
Consumers’ expenditure on entertainment and
betting on football, horses and dogs
1958
-
Young men’s attitudes towards the regular
army
H D Willcock
1957
-
Play spaces for children on estates
D Sheppard
1959
Survey among grassland farmers
D Sheppard
1957
-
A survey of residential caravan life
P G Gray,E Parr
1959
-
Some effects of 1957 Rent Act
P G Gray,E Parr
1957
-
Subscribers opinion of the telephone service
S Jackson,C Scott,G Thomas
1959
-
Accidents to young motorcyclists
C Scott,S Jackson
1957
-
Consumers’ expenditure on entertainment
and betting, on football, horses and dogs
1959
-
1958
Seven members of Manchester United are killed in a Munich air crash
■
First motorway is built
■
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) formed
■
European Economic Community (EEC) established
■
30
Stockwave/COI
■
1959
A BMA article associates cigarette smoking with
lung cancer
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
The M6, Britain’s first motorway.
Howgill Fells, Cumbria. Circa 1961
Scroll to bottom of page.
1959
■
1960
North Sea oil discovered
■
Vietnam War begins
■
Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba
■
Buddy Holly dies in plane crash
■
The Mini, a compact four-seater car is launched on the market
■
31
Monkeys become first animals in space
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
31
This is a blank page.
32
SOCIAL SURVEY
IN THE 1960s
The 1960s were very fruitful years for the Social
Survey. The Division expanded and, for a short
while at least, became a government
department in its own right. SSD’s position as
the focus of British social research was
bolstered by the findings of the Heyworth
Committee, set up in 1963, which advocated
better co-ordination of work in this field.
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
Reports 1960 to 1969
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Domestic pig and poultry keeping
C Scott
1960
-
Housing for old people in urban
redevelopment
A I Harris
1960
-
The Housing Situation in 1960
P J Gray,R Russell
1960
-
Attitudes to Greeting Cards
1960
-
Relations Between the Police and the Public
1960
-
Motives in the timing of holidays
A C McKennell
1960
-
Composite working in Post offices
C Scott
1960
-
Business Telephone services
G Thomas
-
1960
Consumers’ expenditure on entertainment and
betting, on football, horses and dogs
1960
Consumers’ expenditure on accomodation
while away from home
1960
-
Parliament Past and Present Exhibition
H Orlansky
1961
-
Technical Information in light engineering
industry Birmingham
G Thomas
1961
-
Origin and Destination survey of commercial
traffic in greater London
1961
Accommodation in post war blocks in Central
London
E Fisher, C Scott
1961
Recruitment of aircrew officers
G Thomas,H D Willcock
1961
-
Health and welfare of older people in
Lewisham
A Harris
1961
-
Heating methods in dwelling after the
introduction of smoke control
D Sheppard
1961
-
One of the most important events for SSD during this decade was the
launch of the International Passenger Survey (IPS) in 1961 - a study that’s
still running today. It was begun in response to a huge rise in overseas
tourism and growing public concern about immigration. The IPS gathered
information that would be used to assess the impact of foreign tourism
on the UK’s Balance of Payments and provided data to supplement
population estimates.
At first, information was collected from passengers at points of entry and
departure on just a few air routes, but the Survey was later extended to all
the principal sea and air routes. The location and nature of the survey
population caused a number of problems. Access to the sample had to be
negotiated to ensure as little interference as possible with the normal
workings of the ports and airports. The sheer size of the survey (between
200 and 250 thousand interviews), and the hours and locations that had to
be covered, meant that a dedicated team of IPS interviewers had to be
established and a special SSD branch set up to organise and manage this
new undertaking.
The government was concerned with other aspects of travel during this
period. A phenomenal rise in private motoring led to worries about
increased risk of road accidents and the strain on Britain’s transport
infrastructure. Between 1961 and 1964, a series of surveys was conducted
to investigate these concerns. The surveys were household-based but since
only about a third of households owned a car, interviewers first had to sift
for eligible candidates. Information was collected using driving diaries and
mileometer readings, gathered over a week.
The surveys’ primary focus was road safety, so data were collected on the
availability and use of seat belts, a rather new invention at the time. The
proportion of cars fitted with seat belts increased very slowly: only one in
five of the cars first registered in 1963 had belts. Even where seat belts were
available they often weren’t used, particularly on short journeys.
Passengers in cars equipped with belts didn’t wear them on three quarters
1960
Lady Chatterley’s Lover ruled not obscene
■
European Free Trade Association (EFTA) established
■
First episode of Coronation Street broadcast
■
Building of Thames Barrier announced
■
34
©Hulton Archive
■
1961
First NHS hearing aids are issued
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
Test for seat belts at the British
Standards Institution, Hemel
Hempstead. 31 May 1962
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
of journeys of five miles or less, although they were worn on 88 per cent
of journeys of 51 miles or more. The demand for information on
travelling increased, and eventually the National Travel Survey (NTS) was
launched in 1965.
In the 1950s, Social Survey had started some research on the criminal
justice and legal systems, and this work continued throughout the 60s.
Much of this work was done to provide evidence of how young offenders
were treated for a review undertaken by the Home Office Standing
Committee on Penal Matters. Between 1950 and 1967, more than 50
projects were conducted under this research programme.
Mary Evans Picture Library
In 1960, the Royal Commission of the Police asked Social Survey to study
relations between the police and the public. The survey found that 40 per
cent of people aged under 21 had had an unsatisfactory experience with
the police, as had 44 per cent of motorists. Meanwhile, two thirds of the
police officers interviewed thought the public’s opinion of them had
changed for the worse in the previous ten years.
Proportion of household cars with safety belts
25
20
15
10
5
0
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
©Hulton Archive
Pre 1954 1954
Source: Private Motoring Survey
Circa 1960
1961
Berlin wall erected
International Passenger Survey began
■
Contraceptive pill goes on sale
■
South Africa leaves Commonwealth
■
First man in space (Yuri Gagarin)
Soviet tanks at the Checkpoint
Charlie sector crossing point in the
Friederichstrasse, Berlin.
28th October 1961
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
©Hulton Archive
■
PA Photos
■
1962
The Pill.
31st December 1965
35
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
Reports 1960 to 1969 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Private motoring in England and Wales
P G Gray
1961
-
The holiday maker in Wales
M Horton
-
1961
Results of an advisory campaign among dairy
farmers
D Sheppard
1961
Staffing of local authority Residential Homes
for Children
S Monsky
1961
Aircraft noise annoyance around London
Airport
A C McKennell
1961
-
The wearing of crash helmets by motorcyclists
C Scott
1961
Committee on Higher Education: Students in
universities undergraduates and PostGraduates
1962
-
Post Office Services and the General Public
H D Willcock
1962
-
Drivers Understanding of the Road Traffic
signs
P G Gray, R Russell
1962
-
“No reply” Calls
M Horton
1962
-
Gift cards for postal orders
H D Willcock
1962
-
Stamp buying habits
H D Willcock
1962
-
Motor Transaction survey
W F F Kemsley
1962
15s od
Attitudes towards a career in the regular army
K K Sillitoe
1963
Higher education (Appendix one)
1963
An important piece of research, the Young Offenders Study, was
undertaken in 1960 with the help of psychologists from University College
London and the Prison Commission. It focused on the social and family
background of young people in prison. In 1963, Social Survey produced
Deterrents and Incentives to Crime amongst Boys and Young Men aged 15 to
21 on behalf of the Home Office. Among other things, it studied the
penalties for nine offences and examined for each one the perceived
chance of ‘getting away with it’. When respondents were asked to rank
eight things that worried them about getting caught, the three most
important were what their families would think, the chance of losing their
jobs, and the shame or publicity associated with having to appear in court.
18s od
Higher education (Appendix two(A))
1963
£1. 0s. 0d
Higher education (Appendix two(B))
1963
£1. 7s. 0d
Attitudes towards a career in the regular army
amongst young men aged 15-21
K K Sillitoe
1963
-
Following the 1957 Rent Act, and with a growing demand for housing,
SSD undertook a significant amount of work on housing. In 1960, it
conducted the Housing Survey, the first major study covering the whole
national stock of dwellings. The study focused on overcrowding and
under-occupation, patterns of tenure and the distribution of amenities. In
1962, a ministerial review recognised the value of data from the survey in
policy-making, and suggested repeating the study every few years to
supplement information from the census. It was repeated and extended in
1964, while a Scottish housing survey was conducted the year after,
followed by further regional surveys.
There was particular concern about rented housing, especially in London.
Reports of ‘Rachmanism’ – overcrowding, poor conditions and steep rent
rises, sometimes two or threefold – led to surveys of tenants and
landlords. The results were heavily used in the deliberations of the 1963
Milner Holland Committee and in the formulation of the 1965 White
Paper on housing.
The relatively poor quality of London’s privately-rented accommodation
in 1963 and 1964 is shown in this table, which compares the capital’s
rented housing with the entire housing stock.
1962
■
1963
Night of Long Knives (seven cabinet ministers sacked)
■
New cathedral built in Coventry
■
Cuban Missile Crisis
■
Death of Marilyn Monroe
■
Lawrence of Arabia released
■
36
That was the week that was is broadcast
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
Among the ad hoc work carried out at this time was the 1963 survey
Attitudes to Greetings Cards. This revealed that people sent an average of
35 Christmas cards a year – an early indicator of social capital, perhaps?
There were also surveys about holidays in Wales and in Scotland, the use
of postal services and mothers’ concerns about their children’s safety on
the road.
Slum at Kirklea Terrace, East Kilbride, Scotland,
which is falling apart after being occupied for only
52 years. Circa 1963
Stockwave/COI
Noise pollution was a growing problem and one that Social Survey
continued to monitor. In some areas, sound from traffic and neighbouring
houses was exacerbated by the increase in air travel and, in 1962, Social
Survey conducted a survey of noise around London airport. As in previous
surveys, this study compared physical noise levels with the number of
complaints it generated. The survey highlighted the variability in the
perception of noise and the reporting of noise as a nuisance, but it also
allowed for the identification of areas where soundproofing grants should
be given.
The cautious comments made by the Ministry of Health (MoH) in the
mid-50s about associations between smoking and lung cancer were
followed, in 1964, by a government decision to sponsor major publicity
campaigns to alter the public’s attitude to smoking. The design of these
campaigns was influenced by the findings of surveys carried out by SSD
for the MoH. These examined smoking behaviour, and attitudes to
smoking, among different population groups, such as men, boys and
medical students. The surveys provided information on the reasons for
starting smoking and why some smokers gave up while others did not.
Comparison of amenities in private rented accommodation in London with
all types of accommodation
No fixed bath or shower
No WC in or attached to building
No ventilated food storage facilities
All types of accommodation
in England & Wales
39%
3%
69%
Mary Evans Picture Library
Privately rented in London
17%
1%
39%
Dancing in the Swinging Sixties.
Source: 1964 Housing Survey for England and Wales
1963
■
1964
First Beatles’ number one (‘From Me to You’)
■
Profumo Affair
■
Heyworth Committee on social studies established
■
Beeching Report recommends the closure of about 5000 miles of railway track and
2128 stations
■
John F Kennedy assassinated
■
Sir Alec Douglas-Home is elected Prime Minister (Conservative)
■
Doctor Who is first broadcast
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
37
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
Reports 1960 to 1969 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Deterrants and incentives to crime among
youth aged 15–21yrs
H D Willcock,J Stokes
1963
-
Results of campaigns to improve oral hygiene
D Sheppard
1964
Higher education (Report)
1964
15s 0d
Postal Services and the Business Users
M Horton
1964
-
Privatly rented accommodation in London
P G Gray,J Todd
1964
-
The number of men and women marked for
jury service on the electoral register
P Gray
1964
-
Survey of Scottish Tourism
A Hunt
-
1964
Housing Survey in England and Wales 1964
M Woolf
1964
Expenditure on accommodation while away
from home 1964
W F F Kemsley
1964
-
1965
-
Survey of Women’s Employment
A Hunt
1965
-
The Clydebank anti-smoking campaign
F Martin,G Stanley
1965
-
Medical Student’s attitudes towards smoking
J Bynner
1965
Mobility and reading habits of the blind
P Gray, J Todd
1965
Planning for leisure
K K Sillitoe
-
1965
£1. 15s. 0d
Management of Local Government
(Vol 1 Report of the Committee)
1965
15s od
Noise annoyance in Central London
A C McKennell, E A Hunt
1966
The election of a Labour government in 1964 resulted in a raft of reforms
and liberal legislation, and led to SSD’s dramatic expansion to
accommodate an increasing demand for social research. In 1965, the
Division received a 40 per cent increase in its funding and 28 new posts. A
graduated scale for interviewers, recognising and rewarding their
experience with Social Survey, was introduced in the same year.
-
Survey on the use of Radiosotopes in British
Industry
DFO. Stuart, F Birch
1965
Gambling 1964
W F F Kemsley
The survey report Adult and Adolescent Smoking, published in 1964,
looked at how people started smoking and how the habit grew among
different groups, and examined the effect of social and parental influences.
The analyses led to suggestions for various deterrents targeted at different
groups of smokers, a strategy that was considered more effective than
general appeals. The 1967 Young Smoker survey, conducted among 11- to
15-year-old schoolboys, revealed that the main appeal of smoking to this
group was ‘the toughness that it represents’.
-
On 1 April 1967, the Government Social Survey Department was created,
reporting to HM Treasury and with Louis Moss at its head. By 1967, it had
72 research posts and 158 staff – double its capacity in 1961. In 1969,
Moss’s vision for the Government Statistical Service was realised when, in
response to a parliamentary question it was announced that the Social
Survey and the General Register Office would be merged to form the
Office for Population, Census and Surveys (OPCS) as a centre for
population statistics. The new office would start in May 1970 although the
details still remained rather vague.
The increase in resources allowed the expansion of existing surveys and
the development of new areas of research. In 1967, the sample size of the
Family Expenditure Survey (FES) doubled from 5,000 to over 10,000
household interviews a year. Although the FES originally focused on
expenditure, at a time of rapid wage and price increases there was pressure
to provide more detailed income data. The larger sample size allowed
more research to be conducted on low-income households, an important
policy concern at a time of high inflation.
1964
■
1965
Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister (Labour)
■
BBC2 launched
■
Radio Caroline first broadcast
■
ITV launched
■
Beatlemania grips the US
■
38
Indian Prime Minister Nehru dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
Further evidence of changes in family spending and consumption was
provided in the Household Food Consumption & Expenditure surveys of
1962 and 1969. The index of food and retail prices showed a 22 per cent
increase between 1964 and 1969, compared with a 6 per cent increase
between 1958 and 1962. The biggest changes in British diets between 1962
and 1969 were the decrease in the amount of potato and bread eaten, and
a rise in vegetable consumption (other than fresh, green veg).
In 1969, an increase in drinking prompted the Ministry of Health to
commission surveys on alcohol and its effects. The MoH wasn’t the only
department interested in this subject and, in 1968, the Home Office asked
Social Survey to investigate the social factors behind the substantial
increase in offences of drunkenness.
But other areas of SSD’s work showed that the 60s weren’t as libertine or
as revolutionary as is generally thought. During a period of so-called
sexual liberation, women’s primary roles were still seen as wife and
mother, with paid work fitting in around these. In 1968, 34 per cent of
women said their husbands minded – or would mind – their working
outside the home. The general attitude to women working is illustrated by
a mid-sixties nursing recruitment advertisement, headed by the question
‘You’d like to have lots of dates wouldn’t you?’ The ad then went on to
explain that a job in nursing provided endless opportunities to meet people.
Percentage increase in earnings and prices
% Increase between
1958 and 1962
% Increase between
1964 and 1969
Average weekly earnings
22
42
Index of retail food prices
6
22
Source Household Food Consumption & Expenditure
1965
■
1966
Death Penalty abolished
■
Winston Churchill dies
■
First space walk
■
Edward Heath elected as leader of the Conservatives
■
Author William Somerset Maugham dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
39
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
Reports 1960 to 1969 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Undergraduates’ attitudes to school teaching
as a career
R Williams,S Finch,C Poll
1966
UGC Survey on undergraduate use of Libraries
1966
Workplace Industrial Relations
1966
-
Schools Council Sixth Form Enquiry: Phase 1 –
Sixth form Pupils and Teachers
1966
Labour movility in Great Britain
A Harris,R Clausen
1966
-
Scottish Housing Survey 1965
J B Cullingworth
1967
15s d
Electoral registration for parliamentary
elections
P Gray,F Gee
1967
-
Regional Weather Centres
1967
-
Secondary school teachers’ attitudes towards
service overseas
1967
Information for the Prescriber
J Todd,P Gray
1967
-
Home Help Service in England and Wales
A Hunt
1967
£2.00
Family Intentions
M Woolf
1967
£1.70
Adults and Adolescents Smoking habits and
attitudes
A C McKennell,R K Thomas
1967
-
Management of Local Government (Vol 2 The
Local Government Councillor)
1967
£1. 5s. od
Management of Local Government (Vol 3 The
Government Elector)
1967
15s od
Management of Local Government (Vol 4 Local
Government Administration Abroad)
1967
12s od
Even during this period of peace and prosperity, there were problems with
Britain’s economy. Industrial relations were fraught in the late 60s. In the
first nine months of 1968, 3,874,000 working days were lost through
strikes – almost three times the figure for the whole of the previous year.
While there was a boom in consumer spending, there were also wage and
price restraints imposed by the Wilson government.
Relatively few people took part in the hedonism normally associated with
the sixties – rock and roll and ‘free love’. A survey of leisure activities in
1969 showed that most people’s free time was dominated by the television.
Both men and women spent 23 per cent of their leisure time watching the
box, with the second most common leisure pursuits among men being
gardening and sport. Women enjoyed reading, crafts, hobbies and socialising.
There were some distinct changes in Britons’ social mores, although it was
a while before they were reflected in government surveys. Despite the
public debate attending the introduction of the pill in 1961, contraception
wasn’t covered in surveys until the late 60s. In 1966, the General Register
Office (GRO) asked SSD to devise a survey to help improve demographic
projections based on historic data. The Family Intentions Survey collected
information about the population’s behaviour and attitudes with regard to
pregnancy, births, contraception, marriage and plans for their families.
This research was continued in studies conducted between 1966 and 1975.
One noticeable feature of these surveys was the change in sample
definition as contraceptive services became available to wider sections of
the population. There was another shift in government attitudes to family
planning in 1968, when the DHSS’s Chief Medical Officer emphasised the
importance of family planning for family well-being. This was a distinct
shift from earlier government opinion, which held that the need for family
planning related solely to women’s health.
Changes in sexual attitudes led to an increase in illegitimate births and a
big rise in the number of adoptions, from 16,000 in 1961 to almost 24,000
by 1969. The 1958 Adoption Act was unsatisfactory in many respects for
1966
Barclay’s introduces first British credit card
■
England wins the World Cup
■
First Census Quality Check carried out by SSD
■
Aberfan disaster (116 children and 28 adults are killed
when a coal waste tip slides onto the village of Aberfan)
■
40
©Hulton Archive
■
1967
Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
The Barclaycard. Circa 1966
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
Social Survey also continued its research on the National Health Service,
and carried out some pioneering work in this field. Two studies in
particular stand out: one on dental health and another on impairment and
disability. The first National Dental Health Survey was carried out in 1968,
a series that still continues today. The Survey involved an interview
followed by a dental examination and required close collaboration with
dental schools. The Survey showed that 37 per cent of adults were edentate
(had no natural teeth), and established a baseline for monitoring future
trends in dental health. By the time the survey was repeated in 1978 the
proportion of adults with no natural teeth had decreased to 29 per cent,
and was to fall again in subsequent surveys. In 1988, 20 per cent of
respondents were recorded as edentate and 12 per cent in 1998.
© Hulton Archive
dealing with the more varied situations that now arose. Prior to the
departmental committee review of adoption law, policy, and procedures,
the Home Office commissioned the Survey of Adoption in Great Britain.
Tooth loss by age 1968–1998, percentage edentate, adults England and Wales
100
Percentage
80
60
40
0
1968
1978
1988
1998
Year
16–24
25–34
35–44
45–54
55–64
65–74
75 and over
All
Mary Evans Picture Library
20
Source: Adult Dental Health Survey
1967
■
1968
Abortion is legalised
■
Social Survey created as a separate department responsible to the Treasury
■
Woburn Rock Festival heralds the era of Flower Power
■
First human heart transplant
■
Sterling is devalued
■
Six-Day Arab Israeli War
■
Cuban leader Che Guevara shot
■
Sexual Offences Act legalises male homosexuality
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
41
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
The Survey of the Handicapped and Impaired in Great Britain, also
conducted in 1968, set out to produce national estimates of the incidence
of impairment, disablement and handicap. Since the survey was mainly
concerned with service provision and the living conditions of people who
needed help, it was necessary to distinguish between degrees of handicap.
The survey, which was methodologically innovative, measured physical
ability using devices developed by Professor Jeffreys at Bedford College.
Methods were devised to measure the movements needed to perform the
activities of daily life – bathing and getting in and out of bed, for example.
A feasibility study showed that with some modification the tests were
suitable for use in household surveys, and a reliability study was
conducted on samples in private households and clinical settings.
Reports 1960 to 1969 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Management of Local Government (Vol 5 Local
Government Administration in England and
Wales)
1967
£2.2s. od
Social Welfare for the Elderly (Vol 1
Comparison of Areas and Summary)
A Harris,R Clausen
1968
19s od
Social Welfare for the Elderly (Vol 2 Area
Reports)
A Harris,R Clausen
1968
£3.17s.od
Operatives in the Building Industry
G Thomas
1968
-
Adult Dental Health in England and Wales in
1968
P Gary,J Todd,G Slack,J Bulman
1968
£2.25
Aid and overseas Development
I Rauta
1968
£2.00
Looking Forward to Work
R Thomas,Wetherell
1968
£4.60
The young smoker
J Bynner
1969
£1. 15s. 0d
There were difficulties in conducting the tests in private households. It was
important that standardised equipment be used, so Bedford College
designed a plastic case, 16 inches by 17 inches and 5 inches high, and
weighing approximately 16 pounds. The case also formed a platform that
could be used to find out whether informants could mount a step.
However, the tests and equipment were unpopular with interviewers. The
survey report mentions that despite assurances from doctors, interviewers
were ‘unreasonably not convinced’ that the actions involved in the tests
could not provoke a seizure in a respondent or exacerbate a condition.
The report also notes that ‘about half of interviewers used public transport
and to carry 16 pounds of equipment along with their questionnaires,
instructions and other official papers, as well as their handbags would not
be practical.’ In the end, the equipment for one of the tests was abandoned
in response to interviewers’ objections.
Factors associated with the movement of
qualified men teachers from maintained
schools
P Sharp,S Finch
1969
Disciplinary and Dismissal Practices and
procedures
1969
-
An Evaluation of early CAS courses
J Moss,J Bynner
1969
1968
■
1969
Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech
■
Commonwealth Immigration Act is passed
■
Martin Luther King assassinated
■
First Adult Dental Health Survey
■
Student riots in Paris
■
2001: A Space Odyssey is released
■
42
A Handbook for Interviewers first published
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
The report determined that just over three million adults aged 16 and over
had some physical impairment, and about 25,000 were so severely
handicapped they needed care or supervision night and day. A further
133,000 required constant day care. Almost two million were impaired,
but needed little or no support for everyday life. More than one quarter of
those defined as ‘handicapped’ were women aged 75 and over.
Despite the sheer variety of the information gathered by SSD, by the end
of the 1960s it became clear that a large, continuous survey, covering
topics like health, housing and education, was needed to provide data for a
number of government departments. Preparations were made and pilot
work was undertaken for what, in 1971, would be launched as the General
Household Survey.
1969
Kray twins jailed
■
Concorde launched
■
Prince Charles becomes Prince of Wales
■
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
■
1970
Start of current ‘Troubles’ in Ulster
■
Neil Armstrong becomes first man to walk on the moon
■
Knox-Johnston becomes the first man to sail non-stop round the
world single-handed
■
Charter given to Open University
■
Woodstock Festival
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
43
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
Working methods
Although the production of survey reports largely relied on the same
processes and raw material used since the 40s, computerised dataprocessing of some sort was being used more widely. In the introduction
to the 1969 Planning for Leisure, the author notes that the report was
delayed ‘by protracted difficulties experienced with the computer and
the agency used for processing the data’.
Some of the large new surveys also required very different methods to
those used in household surveys. The IPS instead of asking a small
number of people lots of questions, asked a large number of people a
small number of questions. A special fieldforce was set up based at
points of entry to the country. Interviewing on IPS was a rather different
experience to today. International travel was still a novelty and flying
was a special event for which passengers would dress their best. Without
uniforms the interviewers were required to do likewise so as to blend
into the crowd. The IPS also offered an occasional peek into some of the
luxuries of life, interviewing passengers on board luxury liners such as
the QE2. The IPS interviewers were also the first to welcome the new
National Statistician Len Cook when he was sampled for the survey on
arrival here from New Zealand in 2000 to take up his new post. He did
of course agree to take part.
Surveys were becoming more varied and placed new demands on the
interviewer. New features were being introduced all the time: diaries for
the travel surveys, dental examinations by dentists and physical
measures of functioning in the survey of physical handicap, impairment
and disability.
In the 1968 Adult Dental Health Survey the second interview included a
dental examination. Interviewers accompanied the dentists and made
notes of the dental exam on dental charts. The briefings included
44
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1960s
IN THE
training in the vocabulary and dental terminology necessary to be able
to complete the dental records accurately.
In the same year the Survey of Impairment, Handicap and Disability
required interviewers to conduct physical examinations of respondents.
Since the tests had to be standarised some of the pieces of equipment
the interviewers had in their bag were a nylon bag and packet of washing
powder as a weight for respondents to lift, a set of nuts and bolts for
respondents to put together and a cardigan for respondents to put on to
do and undo the buttons.
The interviewer’s job had become so much more complex that the
Handbook for Interviewers was published in 1968 and would soon be
made available on public sale. Most interviewers were married women.
The introduction of contraception as a topic in surveys raised concerns
about whether unmarried interviewers would be acceptable to
respondents on such a delicate topic or would be able to able to discuss
the issues adequately.
Briefings were rather formal affairs. Interviewers were seated in strict
alphabetical order and came properly dressed for the occasion with both
hat and gloves. Interviewers had to pay for their own tea and coffee
during breaks at 2d a cup.
People were generally much more available to interviewers than today.
Most women with children did not work outside the home so making
initial contact with households was easier. There was a more regular
pattern to many people’s lives with people returning home for lunch
and evening meals at fixed times.
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
45
This is a blank page.
46
SOCIAL SURVEY
IN THE 1970s
The 1970s were a period of expansion for
Social Survey. After the Plowden Report was
published, government departments were
urged to plan their spending more carefully
and to use social research to shape policies
and assess their impact. More funding and a
growing pool of social science graduates
allowed Social Survey to meet increased
demand for its services.
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
The relationship between Social Survey and the government departments
it worked for was rather complex. SSD had its own budget for carrying
out surveys, so that departments that wanted a survey only took nominal
responsibility for the expense, provided SSD agreed to include the research
in its programme. Some departments also set up their own research units,
which generated further demand for surveys.
Reports 1970 to 1979
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
General Household Survey – Introductory
Report
L Moss
1970
1.80
Children and Alcohol
G Yahoda, Y Crammond
1.20
1970
The West Indian School Leaver (Vol 2
The next five years)
K Sillitoe, H Meltzer
1970
One of the most important events in Social Survey’s history was the
launch of the General Household Survey (GHS) in 1971, following a
successful pilot in the late 1960s and an extensive trial in 1970. This
multi-topic survey, which served a number of government departments,
was designed to provide data on the economic and social characteristics of
the British population, particularly in the periods between censuses, and
met ‘the growing need for more information than was available from
administrative statistics on many aspects of public policies and services in
this country’.
13.95
Famillies and their needs (Vol 1)
A Hunt, J Fox, M Morgan
1970
8.60
Famillies and their needs (Vol 2)
A Hunt, J Fox, M Morgan
1970
10.45
Family Planning Services in England and
Wales
M Bone
1970
4.00
Second survey of Noise Annoyance around
London (Heathrow) airport
1971
2.20
Handicapped and impaired in Great Britain
(Part I)
A Harris, E Cox, C Smith
1971
5.00
In its first ten years the GHS dealt with a wide range of topics, including
burglaries and thefts from private households, car ownership, smoking
and drinking, and education and employment. Family formation and
fertility, health, household composition, housing, income, leisure,
Work and Housing of Impaired People in Great
Britain (Part II)
J Buckle
1971
2.25
Effects of the Redundancy Payments Act
S Parker, C Thomas, N Ellis,
W McCarthy
1971
2.20
Car Driving at Night
E J Jenkins
1971
-
Matrimonial Property
J E Todd, L M Jones
1971
1.75
Sample Surveys in Local Authority Areas
A Harris, E Head
1971
The General Household Survey represents a welcome attempt to provide an integrated
portrait of the country and a basis for comparing the changes in it year by year.
Evening Standard
The publication of the first General Household Survey is an event of some importance in
British social research. It provides a wider range of information with greater speed than
the official Census could hope to do and is therefore a valuable contribution both to a
clearer understanding of the kind of society we are and to rational policy making.
The Times
-
Public attitudes to privacy
1971
-
1971
1.80
Motor Transaction survey 1971
A K Sirker
1971
2.60
Reserves of Nurses
J Sadler, T Whitworth
Some aspects of man management in the
Police service
J Stokes
1971
The latest governmental brainchild for keeping statistical tabs on the British between
decennial censuses. The enormous range of questions and the almost limitless range of
opportunities it provides for showing how any one social indicator affects any other
make it a new and amazingly productive statistical tool, an immensely rich mine of
social statistics.
The Economist
-
1970
■
1971
Edward Heath is elected Prime Minister (Conservative)
■
General Household Survey started
■
GRO and Social Survey combined to form Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS)
■
Geoffrey Thomas appointed Head of Social Survey
■
First Jumbo lands at Heathrow
■
Army uses rubber bullets for the first time in Belfast
■
48
Janis Joplin dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
Mean household size: Great Britain, 1971–1998
3.0
Mean household size
2.9
2.8
2.7
2.6
2.5
2.4
0.0
1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1996 1998
Source: 1998 General Household Survey
Percentage of households
100
©Hulton Archive
Percentage of households with consumer durables: Great Britain, 1972–1998
Kitchen appliances
93
92
Washing machine
80
79
60
52
Deep freezer
40
Tumble drier
Microwave oven
20
Two visitors examine a diagram depicting the effect of
smoking on the lungs, at the 2nd World Conference on
Smoking and Health, held at the Imperial College of
Science and Technology in London. 21 September 1971
24
Dishwasher
0
1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998
Other consumer durables and central heating
98
96
90
85
Percentage of households
100
Colour TV
80
68
60
Telephone
CD Player
Central heating
40
34
Video recorder
20
Home computer
0
1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998
Source: 1998 General Household Survey
1971
■
1972
Decimal Currency introduced
■
Industrial Relations Act is passed
■
Release of the film A Clockwork Orange
■
Garbielle ‘Coco’ Chanel dies
■
In Switzerland a referendum gives women
the vote in national elections
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
49
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
Reports 1970 to 1979 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Fire service and its personnel
M Thomas
1971
-
The Electoral Register
Sheila Gray
-
1971
The drunkeness offender in Britain
H D Willcock
1972
-
A Quality Check on the 1966 Census/the 1966
Ten per cent Sample Census of England and
Wales)
P Gray, F Gee
1972
2.30
Crime, Criminals and the Law
M Durant, M Thomas, H D Willcock
1972
-
Parental Attitudes to Education
J M Bynner
1972
1.75
Income and Entitlement to Supplementary
Benefit of Impaired People in Great Britain
(Part III)
A Harris, C Smith, E Head
1972
85p
Post training careers of Government training
centre trainees
A Hunt, J Fox, M Bradley
1972
3.00
The Youth Service and Similar Provision for
Young People
M Bone, E Ross
1972
3.00
Visitors to three London Museums
P Wingfield Digby
1972
90p
Employment of Art College Leavers
J Ritchie, C Frost, S Dight
1972
3.00
Children and Road Safety: A survey amongst
mothers
1972
1.15
Homes and jobs for Londoners in New and
Expanding towns
1972
1.30
Workplace Industrial Relations
S Parker
1972
Prison Officer Recruitment
R Morton-Williams, P Wilson
1.45
1972
-
Hostels and Lodgings for Single People
P Wingfield Digby
1972
6.50
Adult Dental Health in Scotland 1972
J Todd
1972
2.95
migration and voluntary work were among the other topics covered.
It provided for the first time a ‘means of examining relationships
between some of the main areas of social statistics’. By the end of the
decade the GHS had become one of the most extensively used sources
for government and academic research, which it remains today.
The GHS was launched at the start of a period of rapid social and
economic change. Inflation rose from 5.4 per cent in 1972 to 15.8 per cent
three years later, while the rate at which weekly earnings rose increased
from 16 per cent in 1972 to 26 per cent in 1974. This, combined with
rising unemployment and the Oil Crisis of 1973, led to the introduction of
a three-day working week in the same year. Miners’ strikes in 1974 and
two general elections led the government to apply to the International
Monetary Fund for assistance in 1976. Major cuts in public expenditure
and more unemployment followed.
During this volatile economic period, SSD was asked to study the
relationship between workers and managers. A survey, Industrial
Relations, was carried out in 1973 and examined workforce behaviour
following the passage of the Industrial Relations Act in 1971. Three years
later, SSD conducted Company Organisation and Worker Participation,
which was designed to find out more about existing practices and
attitudes, to explore the main forms of industrial democracy and to seek
the views of key workers, including board members, managers, foremen
and union representatives.
However, it had become clear that a specialist survey was needed to collect
information about the labour market and, in 1973, the EEC biennial
Labour Force Survey (LFS) was started. Within ten years, this study had
evolved into the UK’s largest household survey and covered 80,000
households. Because the LFS was so big and was conducted in just one
month a year, special arrangements were made for interviewing, with
much of the work carried out by the Census Division. Social Survey
1972
■
1973
Duties of Northern Irish Parliament taken over by Westminster
■
Bloody Sunday (13 civilians killed in Londonderry)
■
OPCS moved to St Catherine’s House
■
Unemployment reaches a million
■
50
Government introduces a freeze on wages and prices
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
There was also growing interest in men’s and women’s roles within the
labour market. In 1973, Social Survey was asked by the Department of
Employment to conduct a survey of employers to ‘find out in what field
differences in conditions and opportunities exist between men and women
and to define those differences’. The findings, published in the report
Management Attitudes and Practices towards Women at Work, illustrate
the prevailing attitudes of the time. Sixty-two per cent of people who
formulated personnel policy thought there were jobs that no woman could
do, while 14 per cent thought there were jobs no man could do. The
report stated: ‘the application of the principle of equal opportunities is
likely to meet with considerable opposition in practice’. Despite this
pessimistic conclusion, the Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act
were both passed in 1976.
©Hulton Archive
played an important part in controlling the quality of the LFS and for
some years did a substantial part of the fieldwork.
People in London using candles to read newspaper
headlines about the continuing miners’ strike.
11 February 1972
Social Survey continued its research into Britain’s health. Although the
General Household Survey provided a rich seam of information on health
trends, and included various measures of sickness, and data on the use of
GPs and hospitals, smoking and drinking, it did not afford the level of
detail required for some policy issues. A series of ad hoc surveys were
carried out to supplement its findings. In 1974, the Committee of Medical
Aspects of Food Policy at the DHSS conducted a review of infant feeding
Economic activity rates for people aged 16 and over: Great Britain 1973,
1975, 1977
Labour Force Survey
Men
Married Women
Other Women*
1973
80.3
45
41
1975
81.8
48.2
42.4
1977
79.7
50.5
40.8
©Hulton Archive
Year of Survey
Two men stand on the steps of the Employment Office in
Ipswich, Suffolk. 1972
* Single, widowed, divorced and legally separated
Source: Labour Force Survey 1973, 1975 and 1977
1973
■
1974
Britain joins European Economic Community (EEC)
■
Labour Force Survey (LFS) started on a biennial basis
■
VAT introduced
■
Three-day week due to fuel shortages
■
Watergate scandal
■
Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Philips
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
51
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
Reports 1970 to 1979 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Employment Services: Attitudes to Possible
Change
E Head, A Harris
1972
-
Naval Welfare Committee Report
1972
-
Workplace Industrial Relations 1973
S Parker
1972
4.30
Teenagers and Alcohol
J Davies, B Stacey
2.10
1972
Children’s Dental Health in England
and Wales 1973
J Todd
1973
4.60
Attitudes to the Employment Service
J Gregory, E Head
1973
1.85
Employers and Employment Services
K Dunnell, E Head
1973
1.00
Labour in the Construction Industry
M Wilders
1973
-
and concluded that human milk was the best food for babies. The first
Infant Feeding Survey was conducted in 1975, a survey SSD was to run
every five years until 1995. The survey established a baseline against which
the success of policies to encourage breast-feeding could be measured. In
1975, 51 per cent of mothers breast-fed their babies (a result that was
higher than expected). By 1980, it had risen to 67 per cent and has shown
little change since.
In 1973, a survey was conducted to examine schoolchildren’s dental
health. The study followed a similar survey of adults done in 1968 and
established a baseline for monitoring the health of children’s teeth and the
extent of dental decay. The sampling was done through schools and over
12,000 children took part – a 95 per cent response rate. The survey included
dental examinations carried out in school, followed by an interview with
each child’s mother. By the time the survey was repeated in 1983, there
had been a marked improvement in schoolchildren’s dental health.
Management Attitudes and Practices Towards
Women at Work
A Hunt
1973
5.00
-
Young People’s Employment Study Preliminary
Report No. 2
1974
Research into methods of anti-smoking
education amongst professional groups
ORC
1974
-
Existing and potential readership of the DE
Gazette
M Wilders
1974
-
Mean number of permanent teeth which are actively decayed, filled or
missing due to decay (England and Wales 1973, 1983, 1993)
10
8
1973
Pre-school children and the need for Day Care
M Bone
1974
4.00
6
Mean
Postal Survey of Long Distance Travel
1973
1983
4
Assisted Labour Mobility
S Parker
1974
-
Swansea Social Security Office: Survey of
Customers
1974
2
1993
-
Fifth Form Girls: Their hopes for the future
I Rauta, A Hunt
1975
3.30
0
6
7
8
9
10
11
10
13
14
15
Age
Source: Children’s Dental Health in the United Kingdom 1993
1974
■
1975
Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister (Labour Party)
■
Earl of Lucan disappears after his nanny’s murder
■
Miners vote for a national strike
■
Heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped
■
Georges Pompidou dies
■
52
Richard Nixon resigns
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
Sir Harold Wilson
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
The Division carried out work on a number of other social issues. It
studied the impact that legislation had on the availability, cost and
condition of unfurnished rented accommodation. It also researched
vacant properties and examined whether households that shared
Average distance travelled by mode of travel: 1975/1976 – 1998/2000
Walk
Bicycle
Car only:
driver
Car only:
passenger
Motorcycle/
moped
Taxi/
minicab
1975/76
255
51
1849
1350
47
13
1985/86
244
44
2271
1525
51
27
1989/91
237
41
2891
1915
37
42
1992/94
199
38
3001
1953
32
38
1995/97
195
39
3231
1956
30
43
1998/2000
186
38
3405
1950
30
62
©Hulton Archive
Miles per person per year
Source: National Travel Survey 1998/2000
A mother breast-feeds her child. Circa 1970
Full car driving licence holders by sex: 1975/76 – 1998/2000
100
Percentage
80
60
40
20
0
1975/76
1985/86
1989/91
1992/94
1995/97
1998/2000
Year
All
Women
Men
Source: National Travel survey 1998/2000
1975
British EEC Referendum on continuing membership of the EEC
■
Sex Discrimination Act & Equal Pay Act
■
Jaws and Rocky Horror Picture Show are released
■
Margaret Thatcher become first woman leader
of a political party
■
©Hulton Archive
■
1976
Aristotle Onassis dies
Rocky Horror Show cast. 16 January 1975
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
53
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
Reports 1970 to 1979 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Prolonged Sickness and the Return to Work
J Martin, M Morgan
1975
6.00
Scottish Drinking Habits
S Dight
1975
10.50
Undergraduate Income and Expenditure
S Dight
1975
3.75
Family Planning Services: Changes and Effects
M Bone
1975
5.25
Army Welfare
M Wilders
1975
2.25
Swansea: An experiment in participation –
Survey of Staff Attitudes
B Paley and J Ritchie
1975
-
Infant Feeding 1975: Attitudes and Practice
in England and Wales
J Martin
1975
7.00
People as Pedestrians
J Todd, A Walker
1975
7.50
Survey of Job Centres
I Knight,S Parker
1975
-
Ethnic Origins
NK
1975
-
Ethnic Origins 2
NK
1975
-
A trial of surgeon’s latex gloves
J Todd, H Green
1975
-
Trial of surgeon’s latex gloves – 2
H Green, M Smyth
1975
-
Shopping Habits and Attitudes to Shop Hours
in Great Britain
M Bradley, D Fenwick
1975
2.90
General Household Survey 1972
R Barnes, M Durant, F Birch,
R Paley, P Broad
1975
5.00
Families five years on
M Woolf, Sue Pegden
1976
7.00
Crown Court or Magistrate Court?
J Gregory
1976
6.35
Attitudes to an Anti Dazzle Fence
K Dunnell
1976
2.30
accommodation (‘concealed families’, as they were known) did so through
choice or because there wasn’t enough housing. Mobility, travel and the
effects of increasing road traffic were other subjects to which the Division
turned its attention. Social Survey carried out three cycles of the National
Travel Survey in 1972/1973, 1975/1976 and 1978/1979. These surveys
followed on from the first NTS in 1965/1966 and became continuous in
1988. Although the surveys provided accurate distances for travel by
motor vehicle, estimated distances for pedestrian journeys were much less
precise. There was particular concern about accidents, and the survey
People as Pedestrians was commissioned to help estimate the risk of adult
pedestrians being involved in accidents on public roads. After an interview
where respondents gave detailed descriptions of journeys they had made
on foot on a particular day, the interviewer retraced each journey making
detailed observations on the number of roads crossed, the number of safe
points and the number of paces the interviewer used to cross the roads.
SSD was also heavily involved in developing and testing questions for a
possible 1976 Census, in particular questions that would provide
information on Britain’s ethnic makeup. Extensive studies were conducted
on the feasibility and acceptability of asking respondents about their
ethnic origin, at a time when race relations were still affected by Enoch
Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. The Census was cancelled, but
work continued following the 1976 Race Relations Act.
A 1978 White Paper stated that there was a ‘need for authoritative and
reliable information about the main ethnic minorities . . . in order that the
Government and Local Authorities could carry out their responsibilities
under the Race Relations Act’. However, when a question on race was
tested in 1979, prior to its inclusion in the 1981 Census, a campaign was
mounted urging people not to reply because of fears over how the
information would be used. Although the General Household Survey had
been publishing information on ethnicity since it was launched, it wasn’t
until 1979 that direct questions on the subject were included on an SSD
1976
■
1977
Race Relations Act
■
Concorde makes its first passenger flight
■
James Callaghan becomes Prime Minister (Labour)
■
Oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty dies
■
Author Dame Agatha Christie dies
■
54
Bjorn Borg wins his first Wimbledon title
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
survey, when a question was added to the LFS. Nevertheless, the new
government under Margaret Thatcher announced that the 1981 Census
would not include questions on ethnicity and that the data needed for
monitoring the social and economic characteristics of the ethnic minority
population would be collected through voluntary surveys.
Other surveys carried out by the Division measured the impact that family
planning and divorce legislation had had on the population. The Divorce
Reform Act and the Family Law Reform Act, both passed in 1969, had
resulted in more divorce and remarriage. Women had gained greater
control of their fertility following the Family Planning Services Act of
1969, the Abortion Act of 1967 and the provision of family planning on
the NHS in 1974. By the mid-1970s, conception and live birth rates had
dropped and the proportion of women having large families had fallen.
Notified abortion rates and the proportion of childlessness during early
marriage had increased.
©Hulton Archive
The government was also concerned with how Britain’s European
inhabitants should be classified. The description used in the National
Dwelling and Housing Survey for people of European origin was simply
‘white’ but this term was considered unacceptable for use in the LFS, when
the question on ethnicity was added to it in 1979. As a result, four
categories of European descent were listed – English, Welsh, Scottish or
Irish; Polish; Italian; and Other European.
An Austin Mini motor car with a bodywork customised
with old penny coins. 7 May 1976
The Family Formation Survey of 1976 was conducted to monitor these
shifting demographic patterns. The Survey assessed people’s attitudes and
behaviour regarding family formation and child-bearing. It looked at the
histories of a sample of women and examined, in the context of their lives,
the pregnancies, live births, stillbirths and abortions they’d had, and
whether they used contraception. The Survey, which contained questions
on pre-marital sex and cohabitation, included single women in the sample
for the first time ever in Britain. They had previously been excluded
1977
■
1978
Queen’s Silver Jubilee
■
Elvis Presley dies
■
Frank Whitehead appointed Head of Social Survey
■
Star Wars is released
■
Punk hits Britain
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
55
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
Reports 1970 to 1979 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
The Elderly at Home
A Hunt
1976
Price (£)
7.00
The Elderly at Home: Supplementary Report
A Hunt
1976
Family Formation 1976
K Dunnell
1976
-
7.50
Company Organisation and Worker
Participation
I Knight
1976
8.25
National Health surgical footwear
S Bainbridge
1976
4.25
Attitudes to Letting in 1976
B Paley
1976
4.75
General Household Survey 1973
1976
4.00
Wheelchairs and their Users
D Fenwick
1977
3.65
Smoking and Professional People
1977
1.00
Pensioners and their needs
P Broad
1977
-
Older Workers and Retirement
S Parker
1977
7.00
Access to Primary Health Care
J Richie, A Jacoby, M Bone
1977
12.50
Empty Housing in England
M Bone
1977
9.00
General Household Survey 1974
1977
7.00
Adult Dental Health: Volume 1
J Todd
1978
8.00
Adult Dental Health: Volume 2
J Todd
1978
14.50
Restrictions at Stonehenge
S Bainbridge
1978
2.25
Drinking in England and Wales
P Wilson
1978
8.00
because ‘the public, informants and interviewers would find it
inappropriate for single women to be asked about behaviour that deviated
from what was conventionally regarded as acceptable’. The Survey found
that three-quarters of women who married between 1970 and 1975 had
had sex with their future husband and that one in ten had lived with him
prior to marriage. Despite these trends virtually all the single women aged
under 30 believed they would eventually marry.
Towards the end of the decade, and particularly after the 1979 election,
Social Survey found itself under attack, perhaps more seriously than at any
time since 1951. As part of the general cutbacks within the Civil Service,
Social Survey lost a significant proportion of its staff and had to reduce the
amount of fieldwork it undertook. An overall reduction in staff of 11 per
cent was envisaged, with most to be achieved by 1981/1982. There were no
cuts to the FES, but a reduction in the GHS sample size was accepted,
while it was also agreed that this Survey would be used more often to
replace ad hoc surveys. Other recommendations included reducing the
sample size of the IPS and merging the NFS and FES. It was also suggested
that Social Survey should contract out all ad hoc surveys that private
companies could conduct more cheaply – a recommendation that was to
have a significant impact on the Division’s work in the decades to come.
Ethnic Origins 4
1978
-
1978
■
1979
First test tube baby is born
■
Karol Wojtyla becomes Pope John Paul II
■
Inflation falls to single figures for the first time in 5 years
■
Princess Margaret seeks divorce from the Earl of Snowdon
■
56
A strike by bakers sparks panic buying of bread
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
Working methods
By the beginning of the 1970s the Division’s budget was over £1 million
and it had a staff of 177, divided into five branches – research, sampling,
field, coding and computing. Staff shortages continued to be a problem
and almost jeopardised the launch of the GHS. Later in the decade, the
Methods Design and Analysis Group was established as a separate
methodology unit to advise on techniques and design, and assist other
government departments.
A major task early in the decade was to make arrangements for the
introduction of decimalisation on all surveys in 1971. For those surveys
that collected very detailed income and expenditure data this was a
major undertaking. Similar adjustments had to be made in 1973 to take
account of the introduction of VAT.
Continuing high inflation and policy interest in people on low incomes
brought increased pressure to expand the scope of the Family
Expenditure Survey. However, the Survey’s critical role in the Retail
Price Index (RPI), and concerns over respondent burden, meant that the
income section of the GHS was widened to supplement FES data. The
income sections of the GHS and the FES were subsequently
harmonised, although the FES continued to be the main source of
information on income used for official economic statistics.
The practicalities of conducting surveys had changed very little in the 30
years since Social Survey was founded. Questionnaires were still drafted
by hand on foolscap paper and were redrafted by cutting up the
originals and sticking them together until the routing and continuity
were right. This process may have been repeated several times, so that
when the text was sent to the typing pool it was several layers thick with
sellotape or Cow Gum. Corrections were marked on the typed copy and
sent back. Once the master was ready it was copied for the interviewers.
1979
■
1980
Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister (Conservative)
■
Lord Mountbatten assassinated by IRA
■
Alien released
■
Shah of Persia flees and Ayatollah Khomeini heads Iran
■
Khmer Rouge overthrown in Cambodia
■
Monty Python’s Life of Brian released
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
57
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
Reports 1970 to 1979 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
General Household Survey 1975
1978
7.50
General Household Survey 1976
1978
10.00
Social Security Claimants
J Ritchie and P Wilson
1979
-
Postgraduate Income and Expenditure
S Dight, P Bush
1979
5.25
Women and Shiftwork
A Marsh
1979
5.50
Free School Meals
P Wilson
1979
2.00
Family Property in Scotland
T Manners, I Rauta
1979
8.50
General Household Survey 1977
1979
7.25
Samples were drawn by hand using the Electoral Register. Although this
was fairly straightforward in towns and cities, in rural areas the Register
tended to be in surname order and, to ensure that every address had an
equal chance of being selected, only the first person listed at an address
could be chosen. To ensure that this happened, staff (often interviewers)
had to go through the Electoral Register to see if anyone was registered
at the address before their chosen respondent. Address lists were written
out by hand, so neat handwriting was a much-valued skill.
From today’s perspective, the practices followed by interviewers seem
on the one hand rather casual, and very formal on the other. No advance
letters were sent, and interviewers weren’t provided with official
stationery. Interviewers were trained to introduce themselves as Mrs or
Mr in accordance with normal Civil Service practice. There were many
more open-ended questions and the interviewer’s most valued piece of
equipment was a pencil because ink was strictly forbidden. There was
more flexibility about the number of days or hours interviewers could
spend in the field to get the job done. The management of the fieldforce
was highly centralised. All the briefings were held in London and
interviewers weren’t necessarily aware of other interviewers living
nearby. Survey response rarely featured in any discussion with
interviewers.
SSD’s involvement in the biennial LFS demanded special arrangements
for interviewer recruitment and training. For the 1977 survey, 55 field
controllers were recruited and trained how to recruit interviewers (1.5
days) and on interviewing techniques, fieldwork monitoring and
control (3.5 days). Controllers were then required to recruit and train
between 14 and 23 interviewers each.
A review of sampling frames, conducted in 1977/8, was one of the
biggest changes to survey methods. The review found that using
postcodes from the Post Office’s computerised Postcode Address File
58
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
(PAF) would make drawing and listing samples much easier. The PAF
gradually replaced the Electoral Register for many purposes and remains
the preferred sampling frame for household surveys to this day.
A key document at this time was the ‘Master Schedule’, prepared by the
Research Officer, and the coding and punch-room supervisors. This
Schedule was a copy of the questionnaire containing additional routing,
extra codes and depth of multicoding, missing values, and the card letter
and column number. Once checked, the questionnaires would be taken
to the punch room where they would be keyed onto punch cards. Each
card had 80 columns and most surveys needed several cards per case to
accommodate the data. Once all the data was punched it was sent to the
machine room where the punch cards were put through card sorters.
Failure to stack the cards neatly in the card hopper resulted in a ‘wreck’,
and the individual responsible then had to piece together the wrecked
cards.
ICL computer room. 1971
The methods used for tabulation, analysis and reporting remained
much the same as ever. The data were still coded and edited manually
and then keyed onto cards by the punch-room operators. Staff used
holorith punchers, card sorters and ancient calculating machines that
had carriages like typewriters and sounded like sewing machines. For
small surveys, knitting needles were sometimes used to count the
number of cards containing a particular answer. The needle was used to
spear the appropriate hole and so pick up all the cards with that code.
Because Social Survey didn’t have its own mainframe computer the
cards were taken in boxes to the IBM datacentre on Berners Street in
central London. Great care was taken not to drop the boxes on the way
but, since the cards took about an hour to process, the courier could
relax on a jaunt to nearby Oxford Street. Sometimes the processing
failed and the job had to be resubmitted, thereby providing another
opportunity to shop for that must-have Mary Quant mascara!
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
59
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1970s
IN THE
One of the promised benefits of a merger between GRO and Social
Survey had been an improved computer capacity. Despite this,
technological difficulties in the early 1970s were responsible for a
number of embarrassing delays in completing projects, and the first two
General Household Surveys were only delivered when outside
contractors were brought in to do the data processing. Significant
improvements to the Division’s computing facilities took several years
to achieve and caused a log jam in the processing of surveys. OPCS later
acquired a large ICL computer for the census and it was agreed that
Social Survey’s work would be put onto it, although without direct
processing capability. The output was on paper tape that could tangle
if it wasn’t watched carefully. At this time research staff still didn’t do
their own computing, but wrote down which tables or derived variables
they wanted. A computing officer then carried out this work. The
process took a long time and provided endless opportunities for
misinterpretation.
Magnetic tape storage. 1971
60
The GHS was processed differently, and involved a package called
FILAN, which needed specialist programmers. In FILAN, the cells, and
the column and row totals were all programmed independently. The
outputs were then subjected to an extensive checking process to ensure
that the cells added up to the totals.
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL SURVEY
IN THE 1980s
The difficult economic climate of the early
1980s, when unemployment rose to more than
three million, led to a demand for labour
market statistics that lasted throughout the
decade. Despite an emphasis on ‘minimum
government’ such was policy-makers’ need for
good quality data on various issues to
supplement estimates from administrative
sources that Social Survey was commissioned to
do a wide range of national bench-marking
surveys. Many of these studies, like the survey
of disability, used new concepts and methods.
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
Reports 1980 to 1989
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
A Feasibility Study for a Wealth Survey
I Knight
1980
-
Nurses working in the community
K Dunnell, J Dobbs
1980
11.80
Women and Employment: A Lifetime
Perspective
J Martin, C Roberts
1980
9.50
Women and Employment: Technical Report
J Martin, C Roberts
1980
5.00
Infant Feeding 1980
J Martin, J Monk
1980
3.00
General Household Survey 1978
1980
7.00
Labour Force Survey 1973/1975/1977
1980
5.60
FES Handbook
W Kemsley, R Redpath, M Holmes
1980
11.60
Family Finances
I Knight
1981
2.00
Public Attitudes to Deafness
C Bunting
1981
6.80
Labour Mobility in the Construction Industry
A Marsh, P Heady, J Matheson
1981
12.00
Survey of Defenders in Debt Actions in
Scotland
J Gregory, J Monk
1981
12.80
Smoking Attitudes and Behaviour
A Marsh, J Matheson
1981
15.80
1981 Census Post Enumeration Survey
M Britton, F Birch
1981
15.50
National Homeworking Survey
1981
-
Electoral Registration in 1981
J Todd, B Butcher
1981
3.00
The reasons women gave for working revealed distinct differences in
attitudes to work among full-time and part-time employees. Forty-one per
cent of full-time employees said they worked because they needed money
for essentials such as food, rent and mortgages, a response given only by
only 28 per cent of part-timers. Around 15 per cent of female employees,
including both full and part-timers, said they worked mainly because they
enjoyed it.
Women’s main reason for working 1980
Main reason for working
Full time
Part time
Need money for essentials
41
28
Money for extras
13
28
Money of my own
15
13
4
11
Company of other people
Changing the definition of a household
J Todd, D Griffiths
1981
Women and Drinking
E Breeze
The labour market was a predominate theme. The number of working
women had increased steadily in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly after
the Equal Pay, Sex Discrimination and Employment Protection Acts were
passed in 1975. Concerns about the impact of recession and rising
unemployment on female workers led to the 1980 survey Women and
Employment. The survey gathered information about women’s
experiences, employment patterns and attitudes to work from 5,500
female respondents and 800 married men. An important and novel feature
of this survey was the collection of detailed histories covering women’s
entire working lives since leaving full-time education. Some quite clear
patterns emerged from this complex data. For example, each successive
cohort showed a higher level of workforce participation than the previous
one. This confirmed trends that women in their thirties and forties were
responsible for growth in the female labour force.
8.50
1981
14.10
General Household Survey 1979
1981
8.75
Enjoy working
15
14
To follow career
7
2
Other reasons
5
4
100
100
All reasons
Source: Women and Employment Survey
1980
■
1981
Iraq invades Iran
■
JR shot in Dallas
■
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre dies
■
Unemployment reaches 2 million
■
The Housing Act allows council tenants to buy their homes
■
62
John Lennon shot dead
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
In 1983, a survey of unemployment and living standards was conducted to
examine the different circumstances in which unemployed people found
themselves, and the changes in living standards that occurred during a
spell of unemployment. The survey monitored the changes that took place
during the first three months of unemployment, and those that occurred
during the following 12 months. The survey showed that most families
experienced a rapid and substantial decline in living standards but that the
degree to which this happened wasn’t the same in all areas of life.
In 1984, significant improvements were made to the Labour Force Survey
(LFS). First, it became an annual, instead of a biennial, survey – a
recommendation of the Rayner Review of the Government Statistical
Service (GSS), which acknowledged that the two-year gaps between each
Survey limited its usefulness in tracking labour market trends. Secondly,
the sample size was increased. The main survey, which was conducted
from March to May, covered 60,000 households, including 45,000 in the
first quarter alone. A further 15,000 households were interviewed in a new
quarterly survey that was carried out throughout the year. The Survey’s
increased size meant that estimates could be produced for key population
groups, such as the employed, unemployed and the economically inactive,
according to standards agreed by the International Labour Office. The LFS
became a major source of labour force data, and also provided
information on other groups not covered by the ILO categories. For
example, it tracked the growth of self-employment year by year and
showed that in 1989 there were over one million more self-employed
people than in the previous decade.
Reported changes in housing and consumption following unemployment,
where the head of the family had previously been in full-time work
Improvement reported
Deterioration reported
26%
11%
Condition of dwelling
Sampled person’s clothing
5%
33%
Amount of food
3%
37%
Not applicable
67%
Less of some foods
Source: Living standards during unemployment
1981
Brixton riots
■
Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer
■
Yorkshire Ripper jailed
■
Attempted assassination of Reagan and John Paul II
■
Chariots of Fire released
■
PA Photos
■
1982
Unemployment reaches 2.5 million
■
Bob Marley dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
A police vehicle is overturned at Brixton in
South London during race riots. 1981
63
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
Many of the key areas of health policy were reviewed during the 1980s.
Much of the research focused on lifestyle and risk factors, like obesity, diet,
smoking and drinking, which were closely linked with illness and death. As
a result, Social Survey had to find ways of measuring aspects of health that
hadn’t previously been included in national surveys of the general population.
Reports 1980 to 1989 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
The Privately Rented Sector in 1978
J Todd
1982
The 1979 Christmas Bonus
D Lievesley
12.60
1982
3.00
The Electoral Registration Process in the
United Kingdom
J Todd, P Dodd
1982
In 1980, for the first time ever, a national survey was conducted to measure
the height and weight of the adult population. The study, which contributed
to research on obesity, was carried out on behalf of DHSS on the advice of
the Committee on Medical Aspects (COMA) sub-committee on
Nutritional Surveillance. It found that the average height of 16 to 64 yearolds was 173.9cm (5’ 81/2”) for men and 160.9cm (5’ 31/2”) for women. The
average weight was 73.6 kilos (11st 8lbs) for men and 62.0 kilos (9st 11lbs)
for women.
3.00
Staff Attitudes in the Prison Service
A Marsh, J Dodds, J Monk, A White
1982
13.00
Family Planning in Scotland in 1982
M Bone
1982
10.50
Smoking among secondary school children
J Dobbs, A Marsh
1982
8.50
The Disabled Unemployed
S Parker
1982
-
General Household Survey 1980
1982
12.70
Labour Force Survey 1979
1982
7.40
1982
6.20
1983
7.60
1983
-
General Household Survey 1981
1983
11.70
Labour Force Survey 1981
J Gregory
Structure of labour market (not seasonally adjusted). Spring quarter
1984–2000
Recently Moving Households
35000
Disabled Job Seekers
E Goddard
30000
25000
Visiting Museums
P Heady
1984
Thousands
The heights and weights of adults in Great
Britain
I Knight
1984
9.70
13.00
Registration with General Medical Practitioner
in Inner London
M Bone
1984
9.20
The Consequences of Divorce
J Gregory, K Foster
1984
Adolescent Drinking
A Marsh, J Dobbs, A White
20000
15000
10000
5000
17.50
1984
1984
6.80
General Household Survey 1982
1984
13.70
1986
1988
1990
Employees
1992
Year
Self-employed
Unemployed
Inactive
1994
1996
1998
2000
Total economically
active
Source: Labour Force Survey
1982
Falklands War
■
Unemployment reaches 3 million
■
Release of Michael Jackson’s album Thriller
■
Channel 4 launched
■
E.T. released
■
The 20p coin is introduced
■
PA Photos
■
1983
Princess Grace of Monaco is killed in car crash
The Falklands War. 1982
64
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
More research was needed to develop policies on smoking. The General
Household Survey (GHS) had been used since 1972 to monitor smoking
among adults, but in 1982 the first national survey of smoking among
secondary-school children was devised, and conducted, for the
Department of Health. Originally a one-off, it later became a biennial
series and is still running today. Another survey was commissioned in the
mid-80s to find out why children smoke. It was particularly concerned
with children’s attitudes to smoking, how these attitudes developed and
whether particular attitudes could be associated with children’s starting to
smoke. The survey contacted the same sample of children three times over
a period of two years.
A survey was begun in 1983 to examine schoolchildren’s diets and the
nutrients they contained. Particular attention was paid to the source of the
food children ate. Parents and carers were asked to weigh every item of
food and drink children consumed over a week. Before the fieldwork was
carried out, there were rigorous tests to ensure that interviewers with no
medical training could collect information whose quality was good
enough for nutritional analysis. The methods and procedures developed
formed the basis for an extensive survey of adults’ diets conducted in 1986
and 1987, and a subsequent programme, the National Diet and Nutrition
Surveys (NDNS).
To help plan, develop and cost future policies relating to benefits and
services for disabled people, the DHSS commissioned a major programme
of surveys on disability in 1983 – the last national survey of disability,
which was conducted in 1969, was now out of date. A feature of this new
programme was the construction of an overall measure of the severity of
disability, which could be used to classify people with different numbers
and types of impairments. This classification was developed in
consultation with experts including doctors, physiotherapists,
psychologists and occupational therapists. Surveys of adults and children
1983
■
1984
Hitler Diaries Hoax
■
LFS becomes a continuous annual survey
■
Telephone interviewing introduced
■
Roma Morton-Williams appointed Head of Social Survey
■
Cabbage Patch Doll toy craze reaches Britain
■
Beginning of AIDS epidemic
■
Compact Discs introduced
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
65
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
were carried out in 1985 and provided information on the prevalence of
disability, overall and by type and severity. It also looked at the economic
and social consequences of disability, such as its effects on employment,
mobility and income, as well as the need for, and use of, various benefits.
The survey of children covered other aspects of disability that were
relevant to the 1981 Education Act. For example, it was used to examine
the provision of special education for disabled pupils. To complement
these two surveys, which only covered disabled people in private
households, in 1986 similar surveys were carried out in communal
establishments. Although they housed only 2 per cent of the population,
many of the residents lived there because they were disabled.
Reports 1980 to 1989 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
The West Indian School Leaver (Vol 1 Starting
work)
K Sillitoe, H Meltzer
1985
13.95
Differences in Drinking Patterns between
Selected Regions
E Breeze
1985
12.00
Children’s Dental Health in the United
Kingdom 1983
J Todd, P Dodd
1985
13.00
Smoking Among Secondary School Children in
1984
A Marsh, J Dobbs
1985
10.50
Visiting the National Maritime Museum
M Smyth, B Ayton
1985
7.60
General Household Survey 1983
1985
The surveys estimated that there were just over six million adults in Great
Britain with one or more disabilities, of whom around 7 per cent lived in
some type of communal establishment. Moreover, although the survey
showed that in most cases disability increased with age, the rate at which
this happened differed according to the disability.
13.70
Who would prefer separate accommodation
I Rauta
1986
13.00
Drinking and Attitudes to Licensing in
Scotland
E Goddard
1986
9.00
The Diets of British School Children
I Knight
1986
4.50
Recent Private Lettings 1982–1984
J Todd
1986
5.80
Recent Lettings in the Private Sector
1982–1984
J Todd, J Foxon
1986
13.00
General Household Survey 1984
I Rauta, H Green, J Matheson,
L Clarke, J Dobbs, A White
1986
11.70
Labour Force Survey 1983 and 1984
M Bradley
1986
6.80
Electoral Registration in Inner City Areas,
1983–1984
J Todd, J Eldridge
1987
5.40
Improving Electoral Registration
J Todd, J Eldridge
1987
4.60
Estimates of prevalence of disability among adults in Great Britain, by
type and age group (rate per thousand), 1985
16-59
Locomotion
Reaching and strethching
Dexterity
Seeing
Hearing
Personal care
Behaviour
Intellectual functioning
Young People’s Intentions to enter Higher
Education
R Redpath, B Harvey
1987
11.50
Visiting the National Portrait Gallery
B Harvey
1987
8.00
31
9
13
9
17
18
19
20
Age group
60-74
198
54
78
56
110
99
40
40
75 and over
496
149
199
262
328
313
152
109
Source: OPCS surveys of disability
1984
■
1985
Coal Miners’ strike
■
Annual Labour Force Survey began
■
Death of the poet John Bentjamin
■
Bob Barnes appointed Head of Social Survey
■
The first untethered space walk takes place
■
Comedian Eric Morecambe dies
■
66
Discovery of AIDS virus is announced
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
Following a series of ad hoc surveys in the 1970s, studies were carried out
to monitor changes in contraceptive practice. Particular attention was paid
to the use of the pill, which was thought to be falling following the
publication of research that showed links between prolonged use and
increased risk of cardiovascular disease. In 1983 the GHS included, for the
first time, a module on contraception, sterilisation and infertility, which
has been repeated regularly since then. The most significant change
identified by the GHS, however, was a marked increase in the proportion
of women who had been sterilised – from 4 per cent of married women in
1970 to 13 per cent in 1975 and 24 per cent in 1983.
Other studies of Britons’ health included the dietary and nutritional
survey of adults, conducted in 1986 and 1987, which was based on
methodology developed for the survey of children’s diets. The survey was
used to provide a baseline against which changes in nutritional habits
could be assessed. It also identified groups of people at risk from heart
attacks to help implement the findings of the COMA report on diet and
cardiovascular disease. In addition to asking respondents to record the
amount of food they ate, a number of other clinical measurements were
taken (blood pressure, anthropometric measurements) and respondents
were asked to provide blood and urine samples. The survey found that
only 12 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women had fat intakes that
met the COMA target of 35 per cent or less of food energy from fat.
The impact of divorce on British society was the subject of another SSD
survey. It was commissioned by the Lord Chancellor’s Department in 1984
to examine the financial and other consequences that divorce had on
couples whose decree had been granted before the Matrimonial and
Family Proceedings Act was passed that same year. The survey was to
provide a baseline against which the effects of the Act could be measured.
1985
Live Aid rock festival
■
Collapse of miners’ strike
■
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of USSR
■
©Hulton Archive
■
1986
Eastenders first broadcast
■
Boris Becker wins Wimbledon title aged 17
■
Poet Philip Larkin dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
David Bowie (David Jones) holding a copy
of the Live Aid programme. 13 July 1985
67
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
Reports 1980 to 1989 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Developing Questions on Ethnicity and related
topics for the Census
K Sillitoe
1987
3.50
Census Question Wording Tests 1985/86 –
Report on Ethnicity, Religion and Language
Questions
1987
-
Smoking Among Secondary School Children in
1986
E Goddard, C Ikin
1987
8.20
General Household Survey 1985
I Rauta, J Dobbs, H Green, J Matheson,
J Eldridge, A Wilmot
1987
Labour Force Survey 1985
M Bradley
10.70
1987
5.80
Scottish Children’s Dental Health 1983-1986
J Todd
1988
8.20
Infant Feeding 1985
J Martin, A White
1988
9.70
The Provision of Care in supported lodgings
and unregistered homes
P Young
1988
7.50
Drinking in England and Wales in 1987
E Goddard, C Ikin
1988
9.80
OPCS Disability Survey: Report 1 – The
Prevalence of Disability Among Adults
J Martin, H Meltzer, D Elliot
1988
10.70
OPCS Disability Survey: Report 2 – The
financial circumstances of disabled adults
living in private households
J Martin, A White
1988
11.50
General Household Survey 1985: Informal
Carers
H Green
1988
3.75
Labour Force Survey 1986
M Bradley
6.30
1988
Living Standards during Unemployment:
Volume 1 – Results
P Heady, M Smyth
1989
10.60
Living Standards during Unemployment:
Volume 2 – Technical Report
P Heady, M Smyth
1989
8.95
Several surveys of leisure time activities were conducted during the 1980s.
These included surveys of visitors to the V&A, Science Museum and
National Railway Museum, and to the National Maritime Museum and the
National Portrait Gallery. The main purpose of these studies was to help
improve the presentation of exhibits, the planning of museum services
and the promotion and organisation of museums and galleries. In 1987 a
study was carried out to examine the number and nature of one-day visits
to museums and galleries, and the money spent on them. The main
fieldwork was a trailer on the GHS in 1988 and the information gathered
was used by the Department of Employment to improve their estimates of
the number of jobs in this part of the leisure industry, and by the British
Tourism Association and the English Tourist Board to formulate policy on
day trips in different parts of the country.
A one-off survey carried out in 1987 looked at consumers’ experiences of
the funeral industry and, in particular, assessed the funeral directors’ Code
of Practice that was introduced in 1979. Several interesting facts were
revealed. For example, almost everyone arranging a funeral approached
only one firm of funeral directors. Of these, two thirds did so because of
personal recommendations or because they had used the firm before,
while less than a fifth chose the director because of cost or convenience.
The practice of repeating surveys to measure changes over time used in
the survey of smoking among schoolchildren, although not unique to the
1980s, became a common feature of survey work in this decade. Repeated
studies included the surveys of dental health, which continued a series
begun in the 1960s that monitored dental health over a 20-year period,
and surveys of infant feeding practices conducted in 1980 and 1985, which
followed the first national survey taken in 1975. The practice was also
adopted for surveys of drinking habits, which examined the effects of new
licensing laws, first in Scotland where legislation changed in 1976/7, and
then in England and Wales where it was altered in 1988
1986
Chernobyl disaster
■
Sampling Errors guide first published
■
Films Top Gun and Brazil are released
■
Space shuttle Challenger explodes just after take-off
■
Queen Elizabeth becomes the first British monarch
to visit China
■
68
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
■
1987
Prince Andrew marries Sarah Ferguson
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
Challenger accident. 28 January 1986
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
©Hulton Archive
IN THE
Methods developed for particular studies were being more widely applied.
For example, the 1988 survey of retirement plans continued work on the
use of life histories that began with the Women in Employment Survey.
Lifetime employment histories were collected from 4,000 people aged
between 55 and 69, who were also asked about the financial preparations
they had made, or were making, for retirement and the factors that
influenced when they were going to retire. This survey helped DSS to
evaluate the impact of possible changes in pension age and to make a
more effective assessment of what future pensioners’ needs might be. The
survey collected detailed information on why people retire when they do,
about their current financial situation and how this changed when they
retired. The survey confirmed that 55- to 64-year-old men were retiring
earlier than in the 1970s: one third of men in this age group were retired
compared with only a tenth in 1977 (when a similar survey had been
carried out).
A hearse driving through a derelict street in Stepney for a
funeral. Circa 1985
In 1987, SSD carried out a study of care in the community, its first
qualitative survey in some years. The survey covered the owners and
managers of nursing and residential care homes, and reported their
attitudes and approach to their businesses and patients. At the same time,
a national postal survey of social services departments was carried out to
obtain baseline data about these establishments.
A different kind of research project was required for the Maternity Services
Survey Handbook. The manual was based on postal surveys carried out in
four District Health Authorities and contained model questionnaires and
guidance on methods and analysis. Commissioned by the Department of
Health, the manual was used by District Health Authorities, which were
being encouraged to monitor consumers’ views on maternity services and
to help raise levels of satisfaction with the service. This type of model
survey development has once more become a feature of Social Survey’s
work with the growing demand from local and health authorities to
monitor progress against targets.
1987
■
1988
Zeebrugge ferry disaster
■
Black Monday stock market crash
■
Hurricane hits south-east England
■
Kings Cross Tube fire
■
Broadcaster Eamonn Andrews dies
■
Fred Astaire dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
69
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
Reports 1980 to 1989 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Women’s Experience of Maternity Care – A
Survey Manual
V Mason
1989
10.50
Mature Student’s Incomings and Outgoings
R Redpath, N Robus
1989
11.50
A Survey of Funeral Arrangements 1987
K Foster
1989
9.80
Smoking among Secondary School Children in
England in 1988
E Goddard
1989
9.00
Attitudes to the Public Search Room
T Dodd, B Gill
1989
3.50
OPCS Disability Survey: Report 4 – Disabled
adults: services, transport and employment
J Martin, A White, H Meltzer
1989
15.50
OPCS Disability Surveys Report 3: The
prevalence of disability among children
M Bone, H Meltzer
1989
The Division itself underwent major change during the 1980s. In 1984 the
recommendations of the Rayner Review were introduced and the method
of paying for ad hoc surveys switched from the old ‘allied service’
arrangements, where surveys were sponsored by other departments and
supported by SSD, to a repayment system. In 1986 the Machinery of
Government review of OPCS recommended that a more rigorous system
of repayment be introduced for survey work carried out by the
department. A full repayment system was introduced in April 1988
covering both continuous and ad hoc surveys.
In the financial year 1988/9 Social Survey submitted, for the first time in
its history, a competitive tender for survey work. It was for a survey of the
information needed and procedures followed by local authorities when
preparing statistical returns on the number of gypsies within their
jurisdiction. Social Survey’s bid was successful.
10.60
OPCS Disability Surveys Report 5: The
financial circumstances of families with
disabled children living in private households
M Smyth, N Robus
1989
9.00
OPCS Disability Surveys Report 6: Disabled
Children: services, transport and education
H Meltzer, M Smyth, N Robus
1989
14.30
Care in Private Homes
J Todd
1989
7.40
General Household Survey 1986
I Rauta, H Green, A Milne, J Eldridge,
A Wilmot, G Levy
1989
15.00
General Household Survey 1986: Drinking
H Green
1989
General Household Survey 1987
J Matheson, G Trevor
1989
Labour Force Survey 1987
M Bradley
1989
5.00
13.90
6.80
1988
■
1989
Lockerbie air disaster
■
Turin Shroud declared a mediaeval fake
■
SSD wins first competitive tender
■
70
George Bush is elected US President
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
Working methods
During the 1980s working practices changed rapidly largely due to the
increasing power of computers and their wider application to surveytaking. The new systems included those for automated field
management, database management and integrated tabulation and
analysis packages. While there were many minor improvements in
survey organisation and practice, the 1980s also saw work begin on
methods that would change the face of the industry completely.
An increase in telephone ownership meant that interviewing by phone
was now a realistic proposition. A centralised telephone interviewing
unit was established, and was first used for the Labour Force Survey and
then extended to other surveys. The telephone unit began work on
piloting, feasibility, validation, reminders, and carried out probity and
accuracy checks. The growing sophistication of the Postcode Address
File (PAF) meant that sample design could be improved significantly.
PAF was first used as the standard sampling frame in 1983, when it was
adopted for the LFS. It was soon introduced on other surveys, such as
the FES and GHS.
ICL computer room. 1980
The volume of fieldwork undertaken by the Division fluctuated during
the decade. Following a few relatively slack years, between 1983 and
1984 the number of face-to-face interviews SSD carried out rose by 150
per cent. Two major changes occurred in relation to fieldwork. In 1986,
‘advance letters’ were introduced telling prospective respondents about
the surveys before the interviewer’s first call. This was a major change
and interviewers welcomed the move. It also had a positive effect on
response rates, raising them by three to five per cent on the GHS and
FES. A year later, letters were introduced on the NFS, the LFS and some
ad hoc surveys. Interviewers also took on the coding of occupation and
industry instead of merely recording job descriptions verbatim and
sending them to be coded in the office. This development also improved
timeliness and accuracy.
1989
■
1990
Hillsborough Stadium disaster
■
Berlin Wall pulled down
■
Tiananmen Square massacre
■
Fatwa placed on author Salman Rushdie
■
Guildford Four are released
■
Comedienne Lucille Ball dies
■
Artist Salvador Dali dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
71
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1980s
IN THE
Although computers were being introduced into many survey
processes the analysis and tabulation sytems were still not very user
friendly. Nineteen eightysix however saw the beginning of the shift to
‘end user’ computing. This was partly in response to difficulties in
recruiting and retaining computing staff, when the annual turnover of
computing staff reached 50 per cent.
Undoubtedly the most significant change was the development of
computer-assisted interviewing for major household surveys in the
UK. The first small-scale test of portable computers for collecting data
in face-to-face interviews was conducted in 1987. Later that year a
computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system was tested.
The trials showed that interviewers and the public were happy with the
laptop computers, which helped improve data quality and processing
efficiency, although later, more extensive use revealed some problems.
A major trial, which included the transmission of data back to
headquarters, was carried out successfully on the LFS in 1988. The test
was conducted to support a business case accepted by the Department
of Employment, the LFS customer, and the Treasury. Intensive
development of the system in 1989 led to its adoption on the LFS
in 1992.
During the decade much work was done to improve the production of
sampling errors on a wide range of SSD surveys. A computer package
called EPSILON was developed to deal with complex sample designs,
while a manual on sampling errors, designed as a practical guide for
researchers, was published in 1986.
Although advances in computing brought significant improvements in
the timeliness of delivering survey results there were still inevitable
glitches. An unexpected problem arose in 1988 when the discovery of
asbestos while installing new computer cables led to severe delays on
some projects as the building was repaired.
72
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL SURVEY
IN THE 1990s
AND BEYOND
During the 1990s Social Survey underwent
greater change than at any time in its history.
There was a phenomenal growth in the number
of surveys launched, and several big, continuous
studies began in this period. But by far the
greatest changes were the use of information
technology in interviewing and the move to the
competitive tendering of surveys.
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
Reports 1990 to 1999
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
The Dietary and Nutritional Survey of British
Adults
J Gregory, K Foster, H Tyler,
M Wisemen
1990
40.00
Why Children Start Smoking
E Goddard
1990
12.85
Compiling the Electoral Register, 1988 and
1987
P Young, J Todd
1990
8.20
Private Renting in 1988
T Dodd
1990
12.40
Trading Down and Moves Out of Owner
Occupancy
T Dodd, P Hunter
1990
7.25
Customer Satisfaction with the Employment
Service
N Robus
1990
-
Standard Occupational Classification Volume 1
Structure and Definition of Major,
Minor and Unit Groups
1990
9.95
Standard Occupational Classification Volume 2
Coding Index
1990
5.50
General Household Survey 1985 and 1986:
Report on Sampling Error
E Breeze
1990
5.60
General Household Survey 1987: Voluntary
Work
J Matheson
1990
4.85
General Household Survey 1988
K Foster, A Wilmot, J Dobbs
1990
16.50
Adult Dental Health 1988
J Todd, D Lader
52.00
1991
Leisure Day Visits in Great Britain 1988/1989
T Dodd
1991
40.00
Drinking in England and Wales in the late
1980s
E Goddard
1991
12.50
Shared Accommodation in England 1990
H Green, S Holroyd
1991
Counting Gypsies
H Green
1991
8.70
10.60
The 90s were a time of change across the whole public sector, with
considerable emphasis on the better management and targeting of
resources. This affected Social Survey in two key and rather different ways.
On one hand, the drive for greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and
increased use of the private sector changed the way government surveys
were commissioned. By 1994 it was usual for household survey work to be
put out to tender, and Social Survey competed for it along with other
survey organisations in the private and voluntary sectors. There was also
intense pressure to cut the price of surveys.
On the other hand, new demands for very high quality information led to
a substantial increase in the need for surveys. In particular, performance
measures and targets were introduced across a whole range of social
policies. While information from administrative records could be used in
some cases, in others surveys were needed to provide baseline data for
devising targets and monitoring progress against them. Both ad hoc and
continuous surveys were needed. If research in the 80s was characterised
by repeat or serial ad hoc surveys, in the 90s it was marked by the creation
or expansion of large continuous surveys that focused on departmental
policies. Departments wanted their own continuous surveys, with the
flexibility to adjust the content from year to year depending on the
policies and targets of most interest and three new continuous surveys
were set up, covering health, social security and housing respectively. The
Labour Force Survey was expanded substantially to provide more
information about employment.
In 1991, the Health Survey for England (HSE) was launched on behalf of
the Department of Health. Dedicated to monitoring trends in the nation’s
health, it initially focused on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and, in
particular, on estimating the prevalence of risk factors for CVD, a major
cause of illness and premature death. In 1992, the Health of the Nation
strategy set out specific CVD targets, two of which were measured by HSE.
The targets were that by 2005, the government would have reduced the
average blood pressure of the adult population and the proportion of
1990
Nelson Mandela freed
■
Mrs Thatcher resigns and John Major becomes Prime Minister
■
Germany reunited
■
Iraqis invade Kuwait
■
Poll tax riot in London
■
74
PA Photos
■
1991
Benazir Bhutto sacked as Pakistan’s PM
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
Nelson Mandela
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
obese adults aged 16 to 64. Social Survey worked with the Department of
Health to design the survey. Extensive piloting and development work had
been carried out to test the feasibility of the Survey, which involved an
interview and a physical examination.
The Health of the Nation strategy identified mental illness as one of the
five key areas for action. The government wanted to ensure that the health
and social functioning of people with mental illness improved
significantly. Baseline data were required and so, in 1993, SSD carried out
the first nationally representative survey of psychiatric morbidity in Great
Britain. Its goals were to estimate the prevalence of mental illness and
identify the social disabilities associated with it. In addition, the Survey
1991
■
www.JohnBirdsall.co.uk
The Health Survey began a new data series on health and nutrition that
Social Survey managed for the next three years. For the first time,
information was collected regularly about the prevalence of the four main
CVD risk factors: smoking, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and the lack
of physical activity. The 1991 survey showed that 12 per cent of men and
11 per cent of women had none of these four main risk factors. Just over
20 per cent of respondents were found to have high levels on three or
more of the risk factors, and 2 to 3 per cent had high levels on all four. The
proportion of men and women with high levels on three or four risk factors
increased with age. The Survey also provided measures of obesity. Between
1991 and 1993, 13 per cent of men and 16 per cent of women were found
to be clinically obese. By 1998 the proportion of people classified as obese
had risen to 17 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women.
www.JohnBirdsall.co.uk
Householders were first visited by an interviewer who asked about their
health and lifestyle and took height and weight measurements. The second
visit was by a qualified nurse, who measured respondents’ blood pressure,
demi span, and waist and hip measurements. Anyone over 18, except
pregnant women, was asked to give a blood sample. In the first two years
of its existence, the survey covered between 3,000 and 4,000 households,
but rose to 16,500 in 1993.
1992
Second Gulf War
■
Omnibus Survey began
■
The Silence of the Lambs is released
■
Health Survey for England began
■
Margaret Thatcher resigns as leader of the Conservative Party
■
Dame Margot Fonteyn dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
75
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
Reports 1990 to 1999 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Customer Satisfaction with the Employment
Services, 1990
P Hunter
1991
-
Smoking Among Secondary School Children in
1990
D Lader, J Matheson
1991
15.50
Compiling the Electoral Register, 1989
P Young
1991
5.00
Compiling the Electoral Register, 1990
M Hickman
1991
9.80
General Household Survey 1987: Participation
in Sport
J Matheson
1991
6.15
General Household Survey 1989
E Breeze, G Trevor, A Wilmot
1991
18.50
Labour Force Survey 1988 and 1989
M Bradley
1991
8.10
Retirement and Retirement Plans
M Bone, J Gregory, D Lader, B Gill
1992
16.00
Infant Feeding 1990
A White, S Freeth, M O’Brien
1992
12.50
Private Renting in England 1990
I Rauta, A Pickering
1992
10.20
The National Prison Survey 1991
T Dodd, P Hunter
1992
10.80
Attitudes to Charitable Giving
P Hunter
1992
3.20
Compiling the Electoral Register, 1991
M Hickman
1992
8.00
General Household Survey 1990
M Smyth, F Browne
1992
looked at the use of mental health services and the relationship between
care and diagnosis. The links between stressful life events and mental
illness, and those between mental illness and smoking, drinking and drug
use, were also examined.
This study of psychiatric morbidity was the first in what became a major
series of surveys, and was a substantial part of the survey programme.
Later studies covered specific populations, such as those in institutions,
and homeless people who were often excluded from surveys, but were of
special interest because of the relatively high levels of mental illness
among this group. Since then, Social Survey has carried out surveys on
mental health and the well-being of various sub-populations, such as
prisoners, children and carers. In 2000, the survey of adults’ mental health
and well-being was repeated. It showed that between 1993 and 2000 there
was no significant difference in the rates of neurotic disorders among
16- to 64-year-olds. In 1993, 20 per cent of women and 13 per cent of men
had a neurotic disorder; in 2000 the equivalent figures were 20 per cent
and 14 per cent.
Prevalence of neurotic disorders in 1993 and 2000 among adults aged
16 to 64
18.50
Labour Force Survey 1990 and 1991
1992
1993
2000
Percentage reporting each disorder
9.40
Mixed anxiety/depressive disorder
7.8
9.2
Health Expectancy First workshop of the
International Healthy Life Expectancy Network
J-M Robine, M Blanchet, J E Dowd
1992
14.70
Generalised anxiety disorder
4.6
4.7
Depressive episode
2.3
2.8
Health Survey for England 1991
A White, G Nicolaas, T Browne,
S Carey, K Foster
1993
All phobias
1.9
1.9
27.50
Obsessive compulsive disorder
1.7
1.2
Panic disorder
1.0
0.7
National Travel Survey July 1988–
December 1991 – Technical Report
A Wilmot
1993
-
16.3
17.3
Any neurotic disorder
Source: Mental Health and Well Being of Adults Survey
1992
■
1993
Earth Summit in Rio
■
Survey of English Housing started
■
Queen declares 1992 her ‘annus horribilis’ following revelations about the royal family and a
fire at Windsor Castle
■
Bill Clinton elected US President
■
76
Eurodisney opens
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
After the successful Diet and Nutrition Survey of British Adults in the
1980s, a programme of similar surveys was launched as part of the NDNS
to cover pre-school children, schoolchildren, adults aged between 16 and
64 and those aged 65 and over. The programme began with a survey of
pre-school children in 1992. This survey of children aged 11/2 to 41/2 was
the first to collect data on the diet and nutrition of pre-schoolers since
1968. The most common items in children’s diets were biscuits, white
bread, non-diet soft drinks, whole milk, savoury snacks such as potato
crisps, chips and other types of potato-based snacks, and chocolate. All
these things had been eaten by 70 per cent of children during the four-day
recording period. The Survey also found that one in twelve children aged
11/2 to 41/2 was anaemic.
A survey conducted in 1997 recorded the food eaten by 4- to 18-year-olds
over a week. More than half the people in the survey hadn’t eaten any
citrus fruits, leafy green vegetables, eggs and raw tomatoes during the
seven-day period. Eleven per cent of 11- to 14-year-olds, and 16 per cent
of boys and 10 per cent of girls aged 15, had low levels of vitamin D. The
Percentage of households with no savings, or savings of £20,000 or more
1994/5
No savings
31
£20,000 or more
15
1995/6
32
14
1996/7
29
15
1997/8
30
14
1998/9
28
14
Source: Family Resources Survey
Percentage of people with stocks and shares
1994/5
12
1995/6
12
1996/7
12
1997/8
17
1998/9
16
Source: Family Resources Survey
1993
First survey of Psychiatric Morbidity conducted
■
Maastricht Treaty comes into force
■
Waco Siege
■
Church of England approves appointment of women priests
■
Jurassic Park released
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
PA Photos
■
1994
77
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
findings from both surveys have been the main impetus behind school
meal policies such as the school fruit scheme.
Reports 1990 to 1999 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Electoral Registration in 1991
S Smith
1993
6.85
Day visits in Great Britain 1991/92
T Dodd, J Hansbro
1993
7.65
A second continuous survey, the Family Resources Survey (FRS), was
launched in October 1992 on behalf of the Department for Social Security.
This survey of income and living standards was designed to provide
information on the take-up of benefits, to model the impact of changes in
taxes and benefits, and to project future social security spending. The
Survey has since recorded changes in how people manage their finances,
and the impact of privatisation and other policies on the number of
shareholders in the UK.
Smoking among secondary school children in
1992
M Thomas, S Holroyd, E Goddard
1993
12.70
Older People and Community Care
S Carey
1993
3.20
Compiling the Electoral Register, 1992
M Hickman
1993
8.40
General Household Survey 1991
A Bridgwood, D Savage
1993
20.70
The Health Survey for England 1992
E Breeze, S Carey, A Maidment,
N Bennett, J Flatley
1994
There was another major development in 1992, when the Labour Force
Survey was expanded so that the sample size increased to 60,000
households a quarter. These changes allowed a major redesign of the LFS
and were possible partly because of the introduction of Computer Assisted
Interviewing (CAI) – the LFS was the first major survey to use CAI. The
increase in telephone ownership and the Survey’s panel design meant that
some of the interviewing, which was conducted in five sessions over 15
months, could be done by phone. The Telephone Interviewing Unit was
expanded to undertake as many of the follow-up interviews as possible. In
2000, the Labour Force Survey was enlarged once more to improve labour
market information at a local level for the Department for Education and
Employment.
27.50
National Travel Survey 1992 – Technical Report
[OPCS]
A Wilmot
1994
Public Attitude to Liquor Licensing Laws in
Great Britain
M Bradley, D Fenwick
1994
4.00
The Prevalence of Back Pain in Great Britain
in 1996
V Mason
1994
6.15
OPCS Omnibus Survey Publications Report
No.2: National Fire Safety Week and Domestic
Fire Safety
J Dobbs, A Wilmot
1994
5.55
Day Care Services for Children
H Meltzer
1994
27.00
Private Renting in Five Localities
M Bone, E Walker
1994
13.70
The third new continuous survey, the Survey of English Housing (SEH),
began in April 1993. The Department of the Environment wanted to cover
a variety of housing topics and monitor changes over time. The Survey
provided key housing data on tenure, owner occupation and council
housing, as well as information about private sector housing, which wasn’t
particularly well covered by administrative statistics. The Survey was run
by SSD until 1999, and collected both factual and qualitative information.
It was also used to identify sub-groups for follow-up surveys. In 1996, the
Shared Accommodation in Five Localities
H Green
1994
12.25
Dental Crowns
J Todd, D Lader, T Dodd
1994
6.15
Census Validation Survey: Coverage Report
P Heady, S Smith, V Avery
1994
11.60
Children’s Dental Health in the United
Kingdom 1993
M O’Brien
1994
12.95
1994
■
1995
Mandela becomes president of South Africa
■
Work begins on the Channel Tunnel
■
Death of Labour leader John Smith
■
OJ Simpson trial
■
IRA Ceasefire
■
Schindler’s List released
■
78
Rwandan Civil War begins
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
The number of people buying their own homes increased from 13 million
to just over 14 million between 1988 and 1999. Homeowners made up 69
per cent of all households in Britain in 1998, compared with 66 per cent in
1988 and 57 per cent in 1981. The number of households renting privately
increased slowly over the period, from 1.7m in 1988 (9 per cent of
households) to just over 2 million (10 per cent) households in 1988/9.
Newcastle Document Services
SEH provided samples for studies of private landlords and leaseholders of
flats that had previously been rented from a council or housing association.
Apart from the many continuous surveys that started in the early part of
the decade there was also an expanding portfolio of ad hoc and other
surveys. The Survey of Young People and Sport, carried out in 1993,
provided the first national statistics on children’s involvement in sport and
an important baseline for measuring future change. The Survey, which
covered 6- to 16-year-olds, looked at children’s participation in sport and
other physical activities, both in and out of school, and their views on
sport and leisure. The results of this survey showed that almost all the
Trends intenure 1988 to 1999, England
16
14
Owner occupied
12
Millions
10
8
6
Social rented
4
2
Private rented
0
1981
1984
1988
1991
1993/4 1994/5
Year
1995/6
1996/7
1997/8
1998/9
Source: Housing in England 1998/99
1995
■
1996
Tony Blair drops Clause IV from Party Manifesto
■
UN 50th anniversary
■
Channel ferry runs aground
■
Oklahoma City bomb
60 YEARS60OF
YEARS
BRITISH
OF SOCIAL SURVEY
79
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
Reports 1990 to 1999 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
The Dinamap 8100 Calibration Study
K Bolling
1994
6.25
Smoking Among Secondary School children in
England 1993
K Bolling
1994
7.85
Visitors to the Public Search Room [OPCS]
A Walker
1994
6.00
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: The Prevalence of psychiatric
morbidity among adults aged 16-64, living in
private households, in Great Britain
H Meltzer, B Gill, M Petticrew
1994
3.00
General Household Survey 1991: People Aged
65 and Over
E Goddard, D Savage
1994
8.60
General Household Survey 1992
M Thomas, S Holroyd, E Goddard
1994
15.85
General Household Survey 1992: Voluntary
Work
E Goddard
1994
5.55
National Travel Survey 1994 – Technical Report
A Wilmot
1995
Housing in England 1993/94
H Green, J Hansbro
1995
23.00
Health Survey for England 1993
N Bennett, T Dodd, J Flatley,
S Freeth, K Bolling
1995
38.00
Health Survey for England 1993 – Summary of
key findings
J Flatley
1995
Living in Britain (Preliminary results of the
1994 General Household Survey)
[GHS Team]
1995
8.30
OPCS Omnibus Survey Publications Report No.
3: Cooking: Attitudes and Behaviour
G Nicolaas
1995
5.45
National Diet and Nutrition Survey: Children
aged 1 to 4 Vol 1: Report of the diet and
nutrition survey
J Gregory, D Collins, P Davies,
J Hughes, P Clark
1995
42.00
children did some sport, with just over half playing at least two hours a
week as part of the timetable. Just over a third of children were involved in
extra-curricular sport organised by their school, and two in five played
sport at a club unconnected with school.
While the Health Survey for England collected information on health
status, other targets set out in the Health of the Nation weren’t so easily
measured. In 1995, the Health Education Authority asked Social Survey to
carry out a survey designed to measure a series of health promotion
indicators based on respondents’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour
relating to health. The interview covered the major areas of health
behaviour that increased the risk of disease – smoking, drinking, physical
activity, nutrition, sexual behaviour and exposure to sun. The Survey
produced some interesting results. Twenty-four per cent of respondents
reported sunburn lasting one to two days in the 12 months before the
interview. Sixty-eight per cent of smokers wanted to give up. Eighty-three
per cent of men and 77 per cent of women had heard of measuring
alcohol in units, but only 40 per cent knew how many units were in a glass
of wine, a pint of beer and a pub measure of spirits. Thirty per cent of
men and 24 per cent of women aged 16 to 54 had changed their sexual
behaviour because of concern about AIDS. The Survey was repeated
several times over the next few years to provide information on the impact
of health promotion policies.
In 1996, SSD carried out the British Adult Literacy Survey as part of an
international programme of surveys known as the International Adult
Literacy Survey (IALS). This was the first literacy survey to be undertaken
in Britain using a national random probability sample of adults of
working age. The Survey involved an interview and a long literacy
assessment, a procedure that sometimes tested interviewers’ endurance.
Respondents were allowed to take as long as they wanted to complete the
assessment booklet, during which time the interviewers had to remain
quiet – quite difficult when it stretched to several hours. The Survey,
which found that one in five adults had low levels of literacy, led to SSD
1996
■
1997
IRA Docklands and Manchester bombings
■
OPCS and CSO merged to form Office for National Statistics (ONS) as an executive agency
accountable to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
■
CJD outbreak
■
Prince and Princess of Wales divorce
■
Prince and Princess Andrew divorce
■
80
Spice Girls make headlines with their single ‘Wannabe’ and their
‘Girl Power’ slogan
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
In the same year, Social Survey won the tender to carry out the National
Food Survey, which had been running since 1941. The Survey, which
provides information on household spending on food, and on nutritional
intake, overlapped with the Family Expenditure Survey. The possibility of
combining the two had been considered in the early 1980s, but didn’t go
ahead because of concerns about the risk of low response rates. In the
meantime, the Surveys had become even more similar and combining the
two was suggested once more in 1997. Field studies were carried out over
the next three years to test whether response, data quality and operational
demands would be adversely affected, and to check the comparability of
the estimates obtained. The exercise was successful and the new
Newcastle Document Services
IN THE
winning a contract from the European Commission to lead a review of the
results from the Survey in European countries. SSD continues to be
involved in the direct assessment of skills through the school surveys in
the OECD PISA programme.
Literacy levels by sex, 1996
100
90
80
Percentage
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Men
Women
Prose
Level 4/5
Men
Women
Document
Level 3
Men
Women
Quantitative
Level 1
Level 2
Source: Adult Literacy Survey
1997
■
1998
Tony Blair elected Prime Minister (Labour Party)
■
ONS’s London sites move to Drummond Gate, Pimlico
■
Princess Diana killed in Paris
■
Hong Kong given back to China
■
Dolly the Sheep became the first cloned animal
■
Mother Teresa dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
81
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
Expenditure and Food Survey was launched in April 2001 with a major
conference of clients, data users and office staff and interviewers from ONS.
Reports 1990 to 1999 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
National Diet and Nutrition Survey: Children
aged 1 to 4 years Volume 2: Report of the
dental survey
K Hinds, J Gregory
1995
14.50
Qualified Nurses, Midwives and Health
Visitors
D Lader
1995
While these new studies were being set up, SSD’s existing surveys were
being improved all the time. The International Passenger Survey made
preparations for incorporating passengers using the Channel Tunnel when
it opened in 1994. The new route was an unknown quantity and various
eventualities had to be catered for. For example, no one knew whether
interviewing would be possible with the noise on board the car shuttle, so
other methods were investigated. An experiment was carried out to see if
information from self-completion questionnaires was reliable enough to
use this means of data-gathering.
11.30
Young People and Sport in England, 1994 –
Volume 1: The main report
V Mason
1995
25.00
Young People and Sport in England, 1994
Volume 2: The views of teachers and children
V Mason
1995
10.00
Health Expectancy and Its Uses
M Bone, A Bebbington, C Jagger,
K Morgan, G Nicolaas
1995
14.00
In 1999, Social Survey won the contract to evaluate a new service for
delivering social security benefits to people of working age. The service,
ONE, was introduced in 12 pilot areas and brought together work done by
the Employment Service, Benefits Agency and Local Authorities at a single
point of contact. Since then Social Survey has gone on to evaluate other
important new policies.
Survey of the physical health of prisoners
1994
A Bridgwood, G Malbon
1995
24.00
Smoking among secondary school children in
1994
A Diamond, E Goddard
1995
19.00
Standard Occupational Classification Volume 3
Social Classifications and Coding Methodology
1995
3.50
Social Survey also set up a quite different type of continuous survey in
1990, an Omnibus survey. There was a rising demand for accurate
information that could be produced fast, and a particular need for data on
certain policies that didn’t warrant separate studies. Now, customers could
buy just a few questions on a survey that used random sampling at all
stages and had a sample size of 1,800 to 2,000 respondents. Results were
available within six weeks of the completion of fieldwork. The Survey was
a success and over the years has covered everything from contraceptive
use, to back pain, residual medicines in the home, Sunday working and
mortgage arrears. By the end of the 1990s it had become the only fully
random sample omnibus survey available.
Ystadegu leahyd Cynru 1995
1995
10.00
1994 British Crime Survey (Technical Report)
A White, G Malbon
1995
All Change? (The Health Education Monitoring
Survey one year on) 1997
A Bridgwood, L Rainford and A Walker (ONS)
with M Hickman and A Morgan
(Health Education Authority)
1995
30.00
Parenting Problems Joint OPCS/Family Policy
Study Centre
C Roberts, N Cronin, T Dodd,
M Kelly
1995
Harmonised Questions for Government Social
Surveys
A Manners
1995
9.00
Private renting in England 1993/94
S Carey
1995
21.00
1998
■
1999
Joy Dobbs appointed Head of Social Survey
■
Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland
■
Channel 5 launched
■
Monica Lewinsky scandal emerges
■
Nelson Mandela marries at age 80
■
Pol Pot dies
■
82
The Full Monty released
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
The practice of putting surveys out to tender had a dramatic effect on the
way SSD operated. With less work guaranteed, the planning of fieldwork
became more difficult and Social Survey had to decide where it wanted to
be in the market place. High standards had always been the hallmark of
SSD’s work and there were concerns that tendering, referred to within
government as ‘market testing’, would affect statistical and methodological
rigour. So, it was decided that SSD would maintain its rigorous survey
practices and produce high quality data at competitive prices, with the aim
of conducting all the continuous government surveys. New skills had to be
developed and savings found to release resources for responding to
tenders – a significant cost to all commercial survey organisations.
British Tourist Authority
As well as a phenomenal growth in the number and complexity of the
surveys being conducted, the 1990s saw considerable change in the public
sector, with pressure throughout the Civil Service to save money, and
particular pressure on Social Survey from competitive tendering. In 1993,
as part of this efficiency drive, half the administrative posts from the
London site were moved to the Titchfield site, near Southampton.
Eurostar
In 1995, OPCS merged with the Central Statistics Office to become the
Office for National Statistics (ONS), a government department and an
executive agency accountable to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A year
later the London sites of the two old agencies moved to Drummond Gate
in Pimlico.
By the end of the decade Social Survey’s annual turnover had exceeded
£26 million, interviewer numbers had grown to almost 1,400 and the
Division had 270 staff. The proportion of the Division’s business won
through competitive tenders had grown from just three per cent of its
turnover in 1991/92 to 36 per cent in 1995/96. By the end of the decade
virtually all the Division’s work was won through competition.
1999
■
2000
Balkans War
■
Scottish Parliament opens
■
Welsh Assembly opens
■
Prince Edward marries Sophie Rhys-Jones
■
Soho pub bombing
■
Actor Oliver Reed dies
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
83
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
Reports 1990 to 1999 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Compiling the Electoral Register, 1993
S Freeth
1995
7.15
Compiling the Electoral Register, 1994
S Freeth
1995
8.80
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: The prevalence of psychiatric
morbidity among adults living in institiutions
H Meltzer, B Gill, M Petticrew,
K Hinds
1995
3.00
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: The prevalence of psychiatric
morbidity among adults living in private
households
H Meltzer, B Gill, M Petticrew,
K Hinds
1995
17.00
Survey of the physical health of prisoners
1994: Preliminary findings
1995
General Household Survey 1993
K Foster, B Jackson, M Thomas,
P Hunter, N Bennett
1995
18.95
Living in Britain (Preliminary results of the
1995 General Household Survey)
[GHS Team]
1996
10.00
Food Safety in the Home
A Walker
1996
1991 Census Validation: quality report
P Heady, S Smith, V Avery
1996
10.95
20.00
Trends in dependency among older people in
England
M Bone
1996
5.50
OPCS Omnibus Survey Publications Report
No. 4: Residual Medicines
M Woolf
1996
7.20
Health in England 1995 – Summary of key
findings
G Malbon, A Bridgwood, D Lader,
J Matheson
1996
-
Health in England (HEMS) 1995
A Bridgwood, G Malbon, D Lader,
J Matheson
1996
27.95
Young carers and their families
A Walker
1996
9.95
84
Working methods
The use of portable laptop computers in social survey research was the
most important development in the profession’s working methods.
The move from paper and pencil surveys to Computer Assisted
Personal Interviewing (CAPI) was implemented gradually. The Labour
Force Survey was the first to change from paper to electronic
questionnaires, which reduced routing errors and meant that more
consistency checks could be done in the field. It also cut out the dataentry stage of the survey and allowed the data to be analysed earlier.
The transition altered almost every aspect of the survey process, from
questionnaire design to post-survey processing, and brought about
huge changes in working practices.
While feasibility studies had shown that respondents were generally
happy with the laptops, the interviewers had problems with these early,
rather basic machines. At the beginning of the field period each
interviewer received three colour-coded disks. The first disk contained
the questionnaire, which was then loaded onto the laptop computer;
the second held the interviews and the third was used as a back-up.
Interviewers were also supplied with a modem to transmit their
completed interviews back to the office, using a fourth disk containing
the transmission software. Unfortunately, some interviewers’ telephone
connections were so old they couldn’t connect their modems.
The entire interviewer field force had to be trained to use the new
tools. The first task was to dispel some interviewers’ fears about the
computers because they’d never used them before, and didn’t know
anything about them. Interviewers also needed to know how to load
the software and transmit the completed interviews.
Despite extensive preparation and training, there were still some
teething problems. The laptops were heavy and the screen was difficult
for some interviewers to read. This prompted the introduction of
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
display-screen eye-tests for people who wanted them. The computers
were powered by rechargeable batteries that lasted up to three hours
but had a nasty habit of running out mid-interview. The laptops’
internal battery only allowed thirty seconds to remove an empty
battery and replace it with a fully charged one, requiring very prompt
action on the part of the interviewer.
Reports 1990 to 1999 (cont.)
At the same time, the Labour Force Survey developed telephone
interviewing by computer (CATI). The electronic questionnaire was
available for telephone interviewers using office-based PCs.
Improvements in communications technology allowed supervisors to
monitor interviewers’ phone conversations and their coding.
Computer technology has moved on since then, although the system
interviewers work with is still based on the original principles. All
household surveys are now CAPI or CATI. The laptop computers are
now lighter, have larger, colour screens and are far more powerful,
allowing for longer and more complicated questionnaires. All
movement of questionnaires is carried out electronically, as well as
messages and pay claims. Battery-operated computers are rarely used
now and most respondents are happy to allow the interviewer to plug
their machines into the mains.
On a less positive note, falling response rates became a national and
international phenomenon during the nineties and Social Survey was
not immune to the problem. In common with other survey
organisations SSD tried a number of measures to stem the fall, some
successful and others less so, and this continues to be the case in 2001.
Improvements were also sought in other areas of survey research. A
series of seminars on Quality Issues in Social Surveys (QUISS), aimed
at the research community as a whole, began in 1994 to broaden the
debate about current issues, in particular response. There was also
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Harmonised Concepts and Questions for
Government Social Surveys
T Manners, L Murgatroyd
1996
10.00
Compiling the Electoral Register, 1995
S Freeth
1996
15.00
Professions Allied to medicine
M Alexander, M Smyth
1996
20.00
Qualified Social Workers and Probation
Officers
M Smyth
1996
10.25
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain:The Prevalence of psychiatric
morbidity among homeless people
H Meltzer, B Gill, K Hinds
1996
3.00
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: The circumstances of adults
with a psychotic disorder
K Foster, H Meltzer, B Gill, K Hinds
1996
3.00
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: Physical complaints, service use
and treatment of adults with psychiatric
disorders
H Meltzer, B Gill, M Petticrew,
K Hinds
1996
12.00
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: Economic activity and social
functioning of adults with psychiatric
disorders
H Meltzer, B Gill, M Petticrew,
K Hinds
1996
17.00
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain:The Prevalence of psychiatric
morbidity among adults living in institutions
H Meltzer, B Gill, M Petticrew,
K Hinds
1996
16.00
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: Physical complaints,service use
and treatment of residents with psychiatric
disorders
H Meltzer, B Gill, M Petticrew,
K Hinds
1996
15.00
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: Economic activity and social
functioning of residents with psychiatric
disorders
H Meltzer, B Gill, M Petticrew,
K Hinds
1996
15.00
85
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
Reports 1990 to 1999 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: Psychiatric morbidity among
homeless people
H Meltzer, B Gill, M Petticrew,
K Hinds
1996
21.00
OPCS Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity in
Great Britain: Adults with a psychotic disorder
living in the community
K Foster, H Meltzer, B Gill, K Hinds
1996
15.00
Teenage Drinking in 1994
E Goddard
1996
12.95
Living in Britain (Results from the 1994
General Household Survey)
N Bennett, L Jarvis, O Rowlands,
N Singleton, L Haselden
1996
23.50
Housing in England 1994/95
H Green, M Thomas, N Iles (ONS)
D Down (DOE)
1997
30.00
Housing in England 1995/96
H Green, K Deacon, N Iles
1997
37.50
National Travel Survey 1995 – Technical Report
A Wilmot
1997
National Travel Survey 1996 – Technical Report
S Freeth
1997
7.50
Living in Britain (Results from the 1995
General Household Survey)
O Rowlands, N Singleton,
J Maher, V Higgins
1997
Scottish Licensing Laws
I Knight, P Wilson
growing interest in the meaning of survey data and, in particular, the
development and testing of survey questions. A qualitative methods
unit was formed within the Social Survey Methodology Unit in 1996,
mainly to do cognitive question testing and advise on qualitative
projects carried out by Social Survey. Cognitive question testing was
carried out on a variety of topics such as employment, family
relationships, pensions, questions for the new Expenditure and Food
Survey and various issues to do with the 2001 Census.
During the 90s, there was also a significant decrease in turn-around
time, the period between the completion of fieldwork and the
production of the survey report. This improvement was possible due
to the fall in post-interview processing time made possible by CAI, but
also in the improved speed and power of data-analysis tools and in
publishing software. In 1991, a typical report would take two years to
be published once fieldwork was completed. By the middle of the
decade, publication generally took place within a year of the data being
collected.
30.00
1997
8.60
Infant Feeding in Asian Families
M Thomas, V Avery
1997
40.00
Adult Literacy in Britain
S Carey, S Low, J Hansbro
1997
30.00
Infant Feeding 1995
K Foster, D Lader, S Cheesborough
1997
29.95
Health in England (HEMS) 1996
J Hansbro, A Bridgwood, A Morgan,
M Hickman
1997
30.00
Health in England (HEMS) 1996 – Summary of
Key findings
J Hansbro, A Bridgwood, A Morgan,
M Hickman
1997
2.50
Computer-assisted interviewing. Circa 1999
86
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
SOCIAL
SURVEY
1990s
IN THE
Reports 1990 to 1999 (cont.)
Report Title
Author
Reports 1990 to 1999 (cont.)
Year
Price (£)
Report Title
Author
Year
Price (£)
Smoking among secondary school children
1996 – England
L Jarvis
1997
19.00
Young teenagers and alcohol in 1996 Volume 2
Scotland
E Goddard
1998
19.00
Smoking among secondary school children
1996 – Scotland
L Jarvis, J Barton
1997
19.00
Psychiatric morbidity among prisoners:
Summary Report
N Singleton, H Meltzer and R Gatward
with J Coid and D Deasy
1998
Teenage smoking attitudes in 1996
L Jarvis
1997
19.00
Quality Assurance Study on ONS Employment
Questions: Qualitative Reserach
W Sykes
1997
Compiling the Electoral Register, 1996
D Devore
1997
20.00
Infant Feeding in Asian Families (Summary
of Key Findings)
M Thomas, V Avery
1997
Young teenagers and smoking in 1996
(Summary of Key Findings)
L Jarvis
1997
Young teenagers and alcohol in 1996
Volume 1: England
E Goddard
1997
Informal Carers – 1995 General Household
Survey (Supplement A)
O Rowlands
1998
15.00
Smoking-related behaviour and attitudes 1997
S Freeth
1998
8.00
Living in Britain (Results from the 1996
General Household Survey)
M Thomas, A Walker,
A Wilmot, N Bennett
1998
39.50
Housing in England 1997/98
H Green, R Bumpstead and
M Thomas (ONS) J Grove (DETR)
39.50
1999
National Travel Survey 1998 – Technical Report
S Freeth
1999
10.00
19.00
Smoking-related behaviour and attitudes
F Dawe, E Goddard
1997
10.95
National Travel Survey 1997 – Technical Report
S Freeth, J Barton (ONS), B Noble,
C Sullivan and D Williams (DETR)
1999
10.00
Drinking: adults’ behaviour and knowledge
E Goddard
1997
10.95
Drinking: adults’ behaviour and knowledge in
1998
E Goddard, M Thomas
1999
8.00
The prevalence of back pain in Great Britain in
1996
T Dodd
1997
12.95
Contraception and Sexual Health, 1997
T Dodd and S Freeth
1999
Living in Britain (Preliminary results of the
1996 General Household Survey)
1997
10.00
Housing in England 1996/97
H Green, K Deacon (ONS)
and D Down (DETR)
1998
39.50
1994 General Household Survey: follow-up
survey of the health of people aged 65 and over
E Goddard
1998
0.00
Psychiatric morbidity among prisoners in
England and Wales
N Singleton, H Meltzer and R Gatward
with J Coid and D Deasy
1998
45.00
Young teenagers and smoking in 1997
J Barton
1998
10.00
Food Safety in the home, 1998
D Lader
1999
Non-fatal suicidal behaviour among prisoners
H Meltzer, R Jenkins, N Singleton,
J Charlton, M Yar
1999
15.00
Substance misuse among prisoners in England
and Wales
N Singleton, M Farrell and H Meltzer 1999
15.00
Smoking, drinking and drug use among young
teenagers in 1998 – Volume 1: England
E Goddard, V Higgins
1999
27.00
Smoking, drinking and drug use among young
teenagers in 1998 – Volume 2: Scotland
E Goddard, V Higgins
1999
27.00
0.00
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
87
SOCIAL
SURVEY
2000s
IN THE
Reports 2000 to 2001
Report Title
Author
Reports 2000 to 2001 (cont.)
Year
Living in Britain (Results from the 1998
General Household Survey)
A Bridgwood, R Lilly, M Thomas,
J Bacon, W Sykes, S Morris
2000
Report Title
Author
Price (£)
39.50
2000
Price (£)
-
Survey of the health and well-being of
homeless people in Glasgow (Summary Report)
A Kershaw, N Singleton, H Meltzer
2000
-
Secondary analysis of data from OPCS surveys
of psychiatric morbidity in Great Britain
R Gatward
2000
37.50
Measuring Adult Literacy
S Carey
Year
Survey of the health and well-being of
homeless people in Glasgow
A Kershaw, N Singleton, H Meltzer
2000
National Diet and Nutrition Survey: young
people aged 4 to 18 years (Volume 2: Report of
the oral health survey)
A Walker, J Gregory, G Bradnock,
J Nunn, D White
2000
35.00
39.50
Adult Dental Health Survey – Oral Health in
the United Kingdom 1998
M Kelly, J Steele, N Nuttall, G Bradnock,
J Morris, J Nunn, C Pine, N Pitts,
E Treasure, D White
2000
59.00
Housing in England 1998/99
M McConaghy, K Foster, M Thomas,
J Grove, R Oliver
2000
39.50
Adult Dental Health Survey – Oral Health in
the United Kingdom 1998 (summary)
M Kelly, J Steele, N Nuttall, G Bradnock,
J Morris, J Nunn, C Pine, N Pitts,
E Treasure, D White
2000
National Travel Survey – Technical Report 1999
A Kershaw
2000
10.00
Mental health of children and adolescents in
Great Britain
H Meltzer, R Gatward, R Goodman,
T Ford
2000
35.00
Contraception and Sexual Health, 1998
L Rainford, H Meltzer
2000
Psychiatric Morbidity among Young Offenders
in England and Wales
D Lader, N Singleton, H Meltzer
2000
15.00
10.00
Smoking Related Behaviour and Attitudes,
1999
D Lader, H Meltzer
2000
10.00
The mental health of children and adolescents
in Great Britain (Summary Report)
H Meltzer, R Gatward, R Goodman, T Ford
2000
Health in England (HEMS) 1998
L Rainford, V Mason, M Hickman, A Morgan
2000
32.50
Drug use, smoking and drinking among young
teenagers in 1999
E Goddard, V Higgins
2000
37.50
Psychiatric Morbidity among Women Prisoners
in England and Wales
M O’Brien, L Mortimer, N Singleton,
H Meltzer
2001
15.00
People aged 65 and over (Results of an
independent study carried out on behalf of the
Department of Health as part of the 1998
General Household Survey)
A Bridgwood
2000
15.00
Drinking: adults’ behaviour and knowledge in
2000
D Lader, H Meltzer
2001
10.00
National Diet and Nutrition Survey: young
people aged 4 to 18 years (Volume 1: Report
of the diet and nutrition survey)
J Gregory, S Lowe
2000
65.00
Contraception and Sexual Health, 1999
F Dawe, H Meltzer
2001
10.00
2000
Greater London Assembly established
■
National Statistics launched
■
Ken Livingstone becomes first London Mayor
■
PA Photos
■
2001
George W Bush elected
Newly elected London Mayor
Ken Livingstone
■
Foot and Mouth outbreak
■
88
60 YEARS OF SOCIAL SURVEY
Labour win second term