The Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF) is a

survey Survey may refer to: Statistics and human research * Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population * Survey (human research), including opinion polls Spatial measurement * Surveying, the techniq ...

carried out in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

by the

Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; cy, Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible for th ...

(ONS). It is carried out on a calendar year basis and collects information on

expenditure An expense is an item requiring an outflow of money, or any form of fortune in general, to another person or group as payment for an item, service, or other category of costs. For a tenant, rent is an expense. For students or parents, tuition is a ...

of goods and services for private

households A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is impo ...

. The survey is primarily designed to collect expenditure information, however it also gathers information about the

income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. For ...

of household members. The results of the survey are multi purpose, however it is primarily used to provide information for the

Retail Prices Index In the United Kingdom, the Retail Prices Index or Retail Price Index (RPI) is a measure of inflation published monthly by the Office for National Statistics. It measures the change in the cost of a representative sample of retail final good, goods ...

and the

National Accounts National accounts or national account systems (NAS) are the implementation of complete and consistent accounting techniques for measuring the economic activity of a nation. These include detailed underlying measures that rely on double-entry ...

estimates of household expenditure, as well as analysis of the effect of taxes and benefits. The Living Costs and Food Survey also collects specialist food data, which is used and sponsored by the

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the United K ...

(DEFRA). While the ONS Social Surveys Division report the income and expenditure data, the DEFRA publish the detailed food and nutritional data.

History

In 2008 The Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS) became a module of the Integrated Household Survey (IHS) and was renamed as the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF). The EFS was the result of the amalgamation of the Family Expenditure Survey (FES) and the National Food Survey (NFS) in 2001.

Methodology

The LCF is a continuous survey, with interviews being spread evenly over the year to ensure that seasonal effects are covered. The LCF has a

sample size Sample size determination is the act of choosing the number of observations or Replication (statistics), replicates to include in a statistical sample. The sample size is an important feature of any empirical study in which the goal is to make stat ...

of approximately 6,000 responding households per year. The households are visited by an interviewer, and information is collected about income and regular expenditure, such as household bills and mortgage payments. Retrospective information on certain large, infrequent expenditures such as those on vehicles is also collected. Answers for children aged 15 years and younger are given by proxy by another household member. Every individual aged 16 and over in the household visited is also asked to keep a diary that records daily expenditure for two weeks. The diary is where the specialist food data used by the

DEFRA DEFRA may refer to: * Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, United States law * Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, United Kingdom government department {{Disambiguation ...

is collected. Since 1998–99 the results have also included information from simplified diaries kept by children aged between 7 and 15.

Survey results and data

ONS produce an annual 'Family Spending' publication, which gives a broad overview of the results of the survey. It also provides detailed information about some aspects of expenditure. The Family Spending 2009 Edition, released in November 2010, found that the average household spend fell from £471 per week in 2008 to £455 in 2009. This was the first fall in average household spend since 2001-02, when the current system of measuring was introduced to allow better international comparisons. Anonymised microdata from the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF), the Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS) and the Family Expenditure Survey (FES) are available from the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS), a service of the

UK Data Archive The UK Data Archive is a national centre of expertise in data archiving in the United Kingdom (UK). It houses the largest collection of social sciences and population digital data in the UK. It is certified under CoreTrustSeal as a trusted ...

. Details on how to access these datasets can be found at the UK Data Archive.

References

External links

Office for National Statistics
''Living Costs and Food Survey'', Family Spending Publication
Office for National Statistics

Defra

UK Data Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Living Costs And Food Survey Demographics of the United Kingdom Household surveys Office for National Statistics Social statistics data