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Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Family Expenditure Survey (FES), which closed in 2001, was a continuous survey with an annual sample of around 10,000 households. They provided information on household and personal incomes, certain payments that recurred regularly (e.g. rent, gas and electricity bills, telephone accounts, insurances, season tickets and hire purchase payments), and maintained a detailed expenditure record for 14 consecutive days. The original purpose of the FES was to provide information on spending patterns for the United Kingdom Retail Price Index (RPI). The survey was a cost-efficient way of collecting a variety of related data that the government departments required to correlate with income and expenditure at the household, tax unit and person levels. The annual FES began in 1957 (with an earlier large scale survey conducted in 1953/54) and was one of the first Department of Employment (DE) systems to be computerised in the early 1960s. The UKDA holds FES data from 1961-2001. The Northern Ireland Family Expenditure Survey (NIFES), which ran from 1967-1998, was identical to the UK FES and therefore used the same questionnaires and documentation. However, starting in 1988, a voluntary question on religious denomination was asked of those aged 16 and over in Northern Ireland. The UKDA holds NIFES data from 1968-1998, under GN 33240. Significant FES developments over time include: 1968: the survey was extended to include a sample drawn from the Northern Ireland FES and a new computer system was introduced which was used until 1985 1986: DE and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) converted the FES into a new database system using the SIR package 1989: the Central Statistical Office (CSO) took over responsibility for the survey 1994: in April, computerised personal interviewing was introduced using lap-top computers, the database system changed to INGRES and the survey changed from a...