Household Survey Response Burden Index Q3 2022

Minimising survey response burden

Notwithstanding the ever-growing international demand for statistics (from organisations such as the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the United Nations, etc.), minimising the burden placed on CSO household survey respondents is, and has been for many years, a corporate priority of the CSO. CSO Statement of Strategy 2020 - 2023 (PDF 651KB)

The CSO has taken, and continues to take, a number of actions towards this end. Amongst these actions are: 

• Increased use of administrative data which can reduce the need to collect information from households;
• Reduction of sample sizes, where possible;
• Use of electronic data collections methods over paper forms;

In the case of Ireland, it should be noted that most, but not all, government statistical inquiries are conducted by the CSO, and that almost all CSO surveys are driven by EU legislation with limited scope for national interpretation during implementation. The above actions have been possible within the structures of the governing EU legislation.

Distribution Index

The distribution index measures the change in the total number of interviews distributed to households in Ireland, irrespective of whether the household chooses to participate or not. This includes surveys across all modes of data collection including;

• Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI), which involves an interviewer calling to houses and interviewing the household’s member(s) face-to-face.
• Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI), which involves interviewing household member(s) over the phone.
• Computer-Assisted Web interviewing (CAWI), which involves respondents completing interviews on the internet using a PC, laptop, tablet, or mobile device.

Response Index

The response index measures the change in the total number of interviews which have been completed by households in Ireland.

Time Index

The time index measures the change is the total time allocated to completing CSO household surveys across all households in the State.