27 Nov 2008
OAC featured in new ONS Family Spending report
With encouragement from users, the ONS 2007 Expenditure and Food Survey is now coded with OAC, and the new “Family Spending” report has some analyses by OAC Groups and Super Groups. Read more about this significant development
With encouragement from users through a long campaign, the ONS 2007 Expenditure and Food Survey is now coded with OAC, and the first analyses by OAC have been published. These feature in the ONS “Family spending” report published on 26 November 2008 viewable online (2 MB)
The analyses are at the 7 OAC Super Group and 21 Group levels – see pages 68-76. The Group level, for example, shows some big differences in weekly spending by OAC categories, even for broad categories (Clothing £12.00 to £30.30, or Health £1.90 to £12.10). There is also information about incomes.
This opens the door to more detailed breakdowns of the EFS – both by types of spending, and perhaps by the 52 OAC Sub Groups if sample sizes permit. We understand that the survey data will be deposited in the Data Archive in due course to be available for further analysis, and we hope to be able to report on this reasonably soon. It also opens the way for OAC analyses of other ONS surveys, a development which OACUG is supporting through the continuing user campaign.
