Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN)

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) runs an omnibus survey, called Opinions and Lifestyle (formerly Opinions).

This is a multipurpose social survey which provides quick and reliable information about topics of immediate interest.

The survey has a monthly cycle and specialises in asking pertinent research questions on topics too brief to warrant full surveys of their own.

Government organisations, academic institutions and charities can commission questions on the Opinions and Lifestyle survey and use the survey in a variety of different ways.

This is mostly to provide answers to questions of immediate policy interest but also to help assess public awareness of new policies, initiatives and publicity campaigns; to develop, test and pilot new survey questions; or to obtain samples of respondents for follow-up research projects.

Recent topics on the survey have included Charitable Giving, Internet Access, Attitudes to Ageing, Migration, Public Perceptions of Tax and Well-being.