Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The purpose of this study was to produce descriptive information about councillors and their attitudes to local council activities; to find out how much was known about local government by electors and how electors felt about participation in local government.
Main Topics:
Attitudinal/Behavioural Questions Whether feels enough is being done to help people and improve things in area, whether respondent is involved in helping people, whether feels ordinary people should involve themselves with local problems, knowledge of services provided by local/county council, which authority is responsible for certain services (e.g. housing, refuse collection). How respondent would get more information about services, whether has contacted council offices for any reason in previous year, opinion of council's efficiency, whether ever attended a council meeting, knowledge of next meeting, knowledge of where council offices are, whether knows of recent council activities, whether reads local papers, whether has seen or heard any programmes concerning councillors or local government in previous year. Satisfaction with extent of own knowledge about local council, opinion of the democratic process in central/local government, knowledge of which local officials are elected, attitude to local elections, whether would ever try to influence council actions, knowledge of current Mayor (or equivalent). Whether ever contacted a councillor for any reason, perception of reasons for becoming a councillor and of how their time is spent, whether thinks they are salaried and opinion, opinion of type of people who become councillors and preference. Whether respondent has ever served as a local councillor/been co-opted to a council committee/stood for election to a council/considered standing, whether will stand in future and in what way. Background Variables Local authority, region, population, sex, age, marital status, position in household, employment status of respondent/head of household, weekly income of respondent/head of household, type of school attended, school-leaving age, highest qualification.
One-stage stratified or systematic random sample
all local authority areas in England & Wales were stratified by type, region and size of electorate, 100 urban and 24 rural units were selected with PPS. Names of electors were then selected from Electoral Registers
Face-to-face interview
