Office for National Statistics

The General Household Survey (GHS) is a multi-purpose survey conducted by the Social Survey Division of the Office for National Statistics. The survey started in 1971 and has been carried out continuously since then, except for a break in 1997-98 and 1999-2000. The GHS is carried out for a number of government departments providing information for planning and policy purposes and is also used to monitor progress towards achieving targets. The survey is sponsored by ONS and a number of government departments including the Department of Health.

Prior to 1988 the interviewing year was from 1st January - 31st December. In 1988 the interviewing year changed to 1st April - 31st March.

From the guide to the General Household Survey, 1971 -, 1971- [ongoing], (UK Data Archive)

The first LFS in the UK was conducted in 1973, under the terms of a Regulation derived from the Treaty of Rome, and the provision of information for the Statistical Office of the European Communities (SOEC) continues to be one of the reasons for carrying out the survey on an annual basis. SOEC co-ordinates information from labour force surveys in the member states in order to assist the EC in such matters as the allocation of the Social Fund. The survey was carried out biennially from 1973 to 1983 and was increasingly used by UK government departments to obtain information which would assist in the framing of social and economic policy. By 1983 it was being used by the Employment Department to obtain information which was not available from other sources or was only available for census years and between 1984 and 1991 the survey was carried out annually.

During 1991 the survey was developed so that in Spring 1992, for the first time, the data were made available quarterly, with a quarterly sample size approximately equivalent to that of the previous annual data, thus becoming the Quarterly Labour Force Survey. During the period from Spring 1992 to Autumn 1994 interviewing was conducted only in the Spring in Northern Ireland, with no quarterly element. However in the Winter of 1994/95 a quarterly Labour Force Survey was introduced to Northern Ireland. Annual LFS datasets for Northern Ireland from 1995 onwards are held separately.

The UK Data Archive has also been supplied with several other LFS-based datasets.

From the guide to the Labour Force Survey, 1975-, 1975- [ongoing], (UK Data Archive)

The original purpose of the survey was to provide information on spending patterns for the United Kingdom Retail Price Index (RPI). The survey is a cost efficient way of collecting a variety of related data that the government departments require to correlate with income and expenditure at the household, tax unit and person levels.

Prior to 1989 the Department of Employment had responsibility for the survey, with the data collection being carried out by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS). In 1989 the Central Statistical Office (CSO) took over the responsibility for the survey, with the OPCS remaining responsible for the data collection. With the amalgamation of the CSO and the OPCS in April 1996, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) became the responsible body, both as principal investigator and data collector.

The annual survey has been in existence since 1957 (with an earlier large scale survey in 1953/54) and was one of the first Department of Employment (DE) systems to be computerised in the early 1960s. In 1968 the survey was extended to include a sample drawn from the Northern Ireland FES and in April 1994 the survey changed from a calendar year to a financial year basis. From April 1998 onwards information from expenditure diaries kept by children aged 7 to 15 is included in the data, and grossing factors are also included.

From 2001, the FES and the National Food Survey (NFS - held at the UK Data Archive under generic study number 33071) will be combined and replaced by a new survey, the 'Expenditure and Food Survey' (EFS). There has previously been considerable overlap between the FES and NFS, with both surveys asking respondents to keep a diary of expenditure. The NFS, sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food &Rural Affairs (DEFRA) covers only food expenditure, but in more detail than the FES. The decision to go ahead with the new survey followed successful piloting. Thus, the 2000-2001 survey will be the final FES in its current format. The design of the new EFS is based on the current FES, and the information currently provided by the FES will continue to be provided by the new survey. Further background to this new development may be found in the 'Family Spending' reports for 1999-2000, and 2000-2001.

From the guide to the Family Expenditure Survey, 1961-2001, 1961-2001, (UK Data Archive)