Scottish Government

Rating of neighbourhood as a good place to live.

Increase the percentage of adults who rate their neighbourhood as a good place to live.

Brief Description

This indicator shows the percentage of adults who rate their neighbourhood as a fairly or very good place to live.

Strategic Objective(s) to Which Indicator Relates

This indicator informs progress in relation to:-

Safer and Stronger
Wealthier and Fairer.

More Detailed Definitions

Definitions of Keywords

Good rating of neighbourhood as a place to live includes "very good" or "fairly good" from a 5-point scale.

Neighbourhood is defined as "the street you live in and the streets nearby" (in urban areas) and as "the local area" (in rural areas).

Evidence Source

This data is from the Scottish Household Survey ( SHS), a large, continuous survey conducted throughout Scotland. This indicator is an indirect measure of neighbourhood satisfaction through the survey question 'Thinking now about the neighbourhood you live in, how would you rate it as a place to live?'. The rating that residents give to their neighbourhoods is a good indication of how satisfied they are with them, overall, as places to live. Rating by residents will allow for the different attributes that different types of resident look for in their local neighbourhood.

The unit of measurement is the percentage of all random adults surveyed who respond 'fairly good' or 'very good' to this question.

As the indicator is based on data from a survey it is subject to sampling error.

The Scottish Household Survey provides analyses at local authority level for 2 year sweeps of the survey. It should be noted that these are subject to sampling error and, particularly for small councils, will give only a broad indication of change at local authority level. Some councils may chose to gather similar data through local surveys of their residents.

Baseline year: 2006

Baseline value: 92.0%

Past trends: Overall ratings of neighbourhood have been consistently high over the past ten years, with over nine in ten typically saying their neighbourhood is a 'very' or 'fairly' good place to live.

Methodology for Data Source

Number of people who respond 'fairly good' or 'very good' / Total adult population (based on SHS).

The estimated confidence interval for this indicator at Scotland level is 0.4 % and for the 15% most deprived areas the estimated confidence interval is 0.8%.

Data Ownership and Quality Assurance

Indicator is from the Scottish Household Survey ( SHS) which is a National Statistics product. Scottish Government are the owners of the data.

Publication of Data

Both indicators are taken from special analysis of SHS. Updates on indicators will be available from annual SHS reports, generally in August of each year. The SHS Website is at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/SHS

Methodology for Recent Change Arrow on Scotland

This evaluation is based on: any difference within +/- 0.5 percentage points of last year's figure suggests that the position is more likely to be maintaining than showing any change. An increase of 0.5 percentage points or more suggests the position is improving; whereas a decrease of 0.5 percentage points or more suggests the position is worsening.

Future issues or reviews

The Scottish Population Surveys Co-ordinating Committee is reviewing the use of National Surveys to support Single Outcome Agreements. The review may impact on future use of the SHS to provide local data on this indicator.