Key information
Decision type: Assistant Director
Reference code: ADD2308
Date signed:
Executive summary
The survey was approved within MD2254: A World Leading Social Evidence Base to support policy making, which authorised expenditure of up to £175,000 for the procurement of a contractor to carry out fieldwork for a survey of Londoners.
This decision seeks to re-allocate up to £30,000 of expenditure from the wider Social Evidence Base budget to the Survey of Londoners. This will be used to conduct additional fieldwork to improve response rates from hard-to-reach groups if needed.
Decision
Expenditure of up to £30,000 on additional fieldwork if required to improve response rates from hard to reach groups of Londoners.
Part 1: Non-confidential facts and advice
The Social Evidence Base for London is a work programme led by the GLA Intelligence Unit. It aims to bring together existing and new sources of intelligence on social policy so that teams have consistent information for briefing, policy making and monitoring.
The Survey of Londoners was approved as part of MD2254 “A world leading Social Evidence Base to support policy making”. This MD included “Expenditure of £175,000 for the procurement of a contractor to carry out fieldwork interviews for a survey of Londoners”.
Following a competitive tender process, the Intelligence Unit and Communities and Social Policy have commissioned a research contractor, the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), to deliver the Survey of Londoners. NatCen are one of the leading national survey organisations with a reputation for academic excellence.
Following discussions with the contractor, in order to ensure that the survey achieves a diverse but representative response rate, we would like to make available additional resource to boost response among disadvantaged and hard to reach groups in London if needed. We will monitor survey response rates by different social groups and only use this if necessary. This decision will be subject to a satisfactory plan to target these groups while ensuring a statistically robust probability sample is maintained.
This funding would be reallocated from the 2018/19 Policy Research budget within the Social Evidence Base budget. Ensuring these groups are fully reflected in the survey responses provides better value for money than trying to commission separate research.
The objectives of this additional funding are to:
- Increase the overall response rate and sample size for The Survey of Londoners; and
- Increase representation of London sub-populations within The Survey of Londoners.
The expected outcomes of additional funding for the Survey of Londoners are:
- Robust and representative results from The Survey of Londoners;
- Improved GLA understanding of social policy issues including food poverty, equalities and social integration, and how these affects particular groups within London’s population; and
- Improvements to policy-making at the GLA in these areas.
The evidence from the Survey of Londoners will be used to fill evidence gaps relating to groups with protected characteristics, and other vulnerable and marginalised groups within London. This will enable the development of sound interventions to improve outcomes for these groups.
The evidence created from The Survey of Londoners will feed directly into the implementation and measurement of outcomes for GLA strategies including:
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion;
• Social Integration;
• Economic Development; and
• Food.
The total expenditure of up to £30,000 will be funded from the 2018-19 Social Evidence Base budget within the Communities and Social Policy Unit.
Signed decision document
ADD2308 Survey of Londoners expenditure