Sexual Violence Survey Steering Group Meeting

Teleconference between Central Statistics Office and Department of Justice and Equality

13th July 2020 2:00pm

Agenda

1. Introduction – CSO chair

2. Agreement of minutes from last meeting – update on actions

3. Update from CSO on development work to date
     a. Pilot redesign and reschedule
     b. Questionnaire development

4. Finance

5. Next meeting – Sept 2020

6. AOB

Minutes

Attendees:

• Gurchand Singh, Chief Information Officer, Department of Justice and Equality
• Philip McCormack, Research Officer, Department of Justice and Equality
• Keith McSweeney, Senior Statistician, Central Statistics Office (Chair)
• Helen McGrath, Statistician, Central Statistics Office

1. Introduction

The Chair welcomed all members of the steering group.

2. Agreement of minutes from last meeting

The minutes from the last meeting were agreed and updates were given on each action.

3. Update from CSO on development work to date

A progress report was issued to the Department prior to the meeting and CSO gave a brief summary of the document. Since the previous steering group meeting, the office has:

• Investigated the rescheduling of the pilot to 2021 due to the impact that COVID-19 has had on current survey operations. The pilot has also been expanded by including a web-based design. See point A.
• Continued to work on the questionnaire in light of the delay in running the pilot. See point B.
• IT development work has continued with the incorporation of the software into the survey delivery infrastructure as well as exploring some technical solutions to delivering the web-based survey design.
• The membership of the CSO Social Statistics Ethics Committee has not been finalised due to the COVID-19 lockdown. It is estimated to be rescheduled towards the end of the year subject to working conditions.

A. Instrument development
The pilot for 2020 was planned with a single design – a face to face interview followed by a self-completion module where the sensitive questions were presented. It was planned that a web-based version would be included for the main survey to aid in increasing the response rate. This was based on the advice from the CSO’s Methodology team in 2019. It is important to make a decision on the mode early in the process as is noted in the UN Guidelines. The mode of the survey impacts on the instrument to use, the field staff to deliver it and the sample required to produce reliable results.

Due to the uncertainty around the ability of the field staff to enter a house to conduct a survey, the CSO have been evaluating alternative approaches to deliver the survey. These must balance the requirements for data quality and privacy, reducing distress for the respondent and protects interviewers from vicarious trauma but also reduce the chance of catching or spreading COVID infections.
A critical assumption for the design of the pilot is that usual field operations will resume in 2021. This assumption will begin to be tested in August with a recruitment test for another headline survey in the CSO. There has been significant internal discussion on the mode of the pilot interview and there have been several revisions to the design. Currently the CSO are evaluating the potential of a telephone/web-based mode with elements of face to face. This is still in discussion.

The focus of the pilot will remain the same evaluating both quantitative data for the main survey (average length, indicative response rates) and qualitative data - focusing on field protocols, evaluate the training and the interviewer case load and supervisor workload.

B. Pilot preparation

Development work on building the questionnaire has paused due to resource constraints. This is a positive as the new approach for the pilot in 2021 requires re-evaluating the questionnaire to account for potential mode changes. Along with this the CSO have also worked to add value to the questionnaire as the CSO:

• Consulted a clinical psychologist with no links to subject area to act as an independent observer to review the full questionnaire. This feedback has been combined with the feedback from the other psychologists which were previously consulted and is being evaluated together.
• Consulted a group of volunteers from the CSO field team, in their role as experts in getting recruitment at the door, in refining the introductions to the survey.
• Agreed on an outline plan to deliver further testing on the full questionnaire using survey design expertise internal to the office as well as incorporating further survivor feedback between 2020 and 2021.

4. Finance

An overview report on 2020 spend was issued in advance. Due to the postponement of the pilot, the actual costs for SVS show a large underspend. The Department representatives will reconfirm the suspense account approach with their finance team. The CSO will continue to develop a plan for 2021 and its associated costing. This will be available towards the end of August.

5. Next meeting

A date in early September was proposed as the date for the next official Steering Group meeting. A virtual meeting will be booked and can be revised closer to the date if restrictions are lifted in the interim.

6. AOB
There were no additional items discussed.