Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This survey centred on the all-postal ballot referendum conducted in 2004, on whether there should be an elected regional assembly in the North East region (the referendum closed on 4 November 2004, with 78% of respondents voting against). The survey also covered the regions of the North West and Yorkshire and Humberside, where similar referendums were delayed indefinitely.

The research had four key objectives:

• to provide an authoritative account of participation in, and the electorate's broader experience of, the referendum
• to compare and seek to explain attitudes and patterns of participation between and within regions, taking account, where appropriate, of the holding of a parallel referendum on local government structure in current 'two tier' local authority areas
• to explore voters' understanding and expectations of the role of the proposed regional assemblies and their likely behaviour in elections to those bodies
• to enable comparisons to be made with previous studies of subnational referendums and elections

Main Topics:

Although only the North East referendum was held in November 2004, surveys of electors were conducted in each of the regions examined for the research. In the North East, topics covered in the survey included whether people voted and how they voted; the reasons for their decision; their attachment to and assessment of their region; their attitudes to and knowledge of the proposed assembly; their attitudes on a range of general political issues; and their reaction to the all-postal voting system. The surveys conducted in the other two regions were shorter, but similar, concentrating on attitudes to issues such as devolution.