Department for Education: Public Opinion

(asked on 29th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much his Department proposes to spend on (a) focus group research, (b) opinion polling and (c) other forms of opinion research in each of the next three financial years.


Answered by
Michelle Donelan Portrait
Michelle Donelan
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
This question was answered on 5th April 2022

Annual spend on research and development by government departments is collected by ONS. The survey results are published here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/researchanddevelopmentexpenditure/datasets/scienceengineeringandtechnologystatisticsreferencetables). Table 3 provides information by department. This data collection goes back to 2008 and will be updated in April 2022.

Future spend on all forms of educational research, other than on focus group research and opinion polling (social and economic research) is expected to be similar to the previously published figures. This budget covers large scale statistical collections and participation in a number of international studies. These large-scale studies account for the majority of the department’s spend on social and economic research. Current and available historical information on previous contracts for government research is published on: https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder.

In line with the professional standards for government communicators, research is conducted to understand audiences so that government communication can be relevant, meaningful and effective, and as part of evaluation to assess performance in delivering on objectives such as changing behaviour, improving operational effectiveness, building the reputation of the UK and explaining government policies and programmes.

This research activity draws on the full range of quantitative and qualitative methods, including focus groups, opinion polling and other forms of opinion research appropriate to the requirement but spend is not recorded by research method.

Communications spend, including communications research, is approved as part of the government advertising, marketing and communications spend controls process and spend over £25,000 since 2010 is published and available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dfe-department-and-executive-agency-spend-over-25-000.

Future spend on communications research is not committed in advance but allocated as part of overall business planning processes in line with department finance and commercial processes, and subject to government advertising, marketing and communications spend controls process.

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