Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The main aim of this study was to provide a set of self-administered questions that would produce comparable data to interviewer-administered questions on social capital. There is a demand for these questions at the local level but local authorities tend to have insufficient resources to carry out face-to-face surveys, consequently most local authority surveys are carried out by post.

In order to assess any differences between the self-administered format and the interviewer-administered format, the postal survey was run in parallel with the interviewer-administered survey, also held at the UK Data Archive (UKDA) under SN 5656 ONS Omnibus Survey, Social Capital Module, April, May and June, 2005 .


Main Topics:

The survey contains data collected on adults aged 18 and over living in private households in Great Britain. A postal questionnaire was sent to one named person per household. The questionnaire contained questions on social capital including:

• views about your neighbourhood
• participation in local issues
• contact with relatives, friends and neighbours
• unpaid help to groups and individuals
• classification variables