The survey results presented in this book are, for the most part, drawn from a range of studies in which the author was involved in either carrying out, or reporting on the research. In a number of cases, the data have not been previously published, and the purpose of this Appendix is to describe for the reader the basis on which they were undertaken.

The 1998 British Social Attitudes survey and multivariate analyses

The National Centre for Social Research (NCSR) (formerly Social and Community Planning Research [SCPR]) is Britain's leading social research institute. As an independent institute, its work is primarily funded by government departments, local authorities or quasi-governmental organisations to provide information on aspects of social or economic policy. The NCSR is responsible for undertaking the annual British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey series of the British public. The latest in the series, undertaken in 1998, included a module of questions on local government, designed to explore public perceptions of and attitudes to the Labour government's modernisation agenda.

The sampling strategy for each annual survey is designed to yield a representative sample of adults aged 18 or over. Since 1993, the sampling frame for the survey has been the Postcode Address File (PAF) – a list of residential addresses or postal delivery points compiled by the post office. A multi-stage design was adopted with three separate stages of selection: selection of 200 postal sectors; selection of 30 addresses in each of the sectors; and a random selection of individuals from those listed as living at the selected address. This produced a total of 6,000 addresses which, after excluding those addresses which were vacant, derelict or otherwise out of scope, left 5,323 addresses at which 3,146 productive interviews on a face-to-face basis were achieved – a response rate of 59% was obtained. The sample was divided into three tranches and three separate questionnaire modules – A, B and C – were developed; each address in each sector being allocated to one of the tranches. In addition to the face-to-face interview, each respondent was given a self-completion questionnaire which was similarly produced in three versions. Questions pertaining to local democracy were incorporated in versions A and B of both the interview schedule and the self-completion questionnaire. Of those interviewed, between 78% and 82% returned the self-completed questionnaire.