English Housing Survey/Housing Stock Dataset

Time

2008 - On-going (Annual)

The survey operates continuously. Data for the household survey are analysed annually and for the physical survey on a two-year rolling basis. Prior to 2008, the constituent elements of the English Housing Survey were run as separate surveys. The English House Condition Survey (relating to housing stock condition) was conducted every 5 years between 1976 and 2001 and then on a continuous basis from 2003. Prior to that, a Regional Housing Survey 1969 and Housing Condition Survey 1971 included similar physical surveys.

Dataset Quality

- The sample for the survey is representative of England. There was a transition in methodology from 2011 to 2012 from a simple random sample to a partially clustered survey design for a single survey year. The survey is stratified by geog region, tenure, and household with an HRP who worked in a non-manual occupation (2001 census) and subsampled by tenure. The sample for the survey is drawn from the Postcode Address File (PAF) obtained from the Post Office. This offers a good coverage of residential households and dwellings in England. The sample does not however include any new dwellings built after the PAF was collated. The weights are adjusted using the number of new dwellings built between the PAF date and the reference date for the weighting to account for this error in coverage. Standardised training is in place to minimise measurement error both amongst interviewers and surveyors. The greatest variability in subjectivity in the physical survey is likely to revolve around the assessment of housing condition and defects. However, a surveyor variation study was carried out in 2009/10 which showed no significant difference in surveyor assessments. Non-response bias is dealt with in the weighting process. Greater detail on measures undertaken to enhance data quality are provided in a Technical Report

Levels of potential sampling error are assessed. Greater detail on this can be found in the Technical Report

Dataset Access and Use

Anonymised English Housing Survey data sets are released each year once the main annual reports have been published, via End User Licences available to all members of the public at the UK Data Service. Registration for this service is slightly different for HE/FE users. The English Housing Survey datasets with detailed geographic identifiers are available only via Secure Access at the UK Data Service

Government attitudes to research use of their data appear favourable.

Geography

Freely available datasets have restricted geographic identifiers to avoid disclosure of participants. English Housing Survey datasets with detailed geographic identifiers may appear to be available via Secure Access agreement with the UK Data Service although it is not clear what level of geographical identifier could be obtained.