You asked
Please provide me with the following information about the collection of data on household food insecurity:
The government response to Defra's Food Security report of 25 March 2015 stated: 'The ONS agrees with Government that the [Living Costs and Food] Survey would not be suitable for collecting food insecurity data.'
Was this an accurate description of the Office for National Statistics position?
Does the Office for National Statistics now believe that the Survey would be suitable for collecting food insecurity data?
We said
Thank you for your request.
We recognise the importance of measuring food insecurity, which is also a requirement for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicator 2.1.2 (prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, based on the UN Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)). Given that few countries to date have collected FIES data in national surveys, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN (FAO) has produced provisional baseline country estimates for more than 140 countries using data collected through the Gallup World Poll. Whilst these FAO estimates are currently reported on the UK’s National Reporting Platform for SDGs, we recognise a number of shortcomings. For example, the UK sample size is small and limits data disaggregation.
While the UN recommends that countries use FIES to report against this indicator, we are currently exploring alternative approaches, particularly given the backdrop of the ONS Strategy, which outlines the changing landscape for statistics. In the context of falling response rates on surveys, coupled with increased burden on respondents, the strategy points to the importance of considering alternative methods beyond survey data collection for measuring changes in society. To date, we have undertaken in-house research to see what data (official and non-official) exists related to food insecurity. Findings from this research are being used to identify options, in addition to survey data collection, for measuring food insecurity. This work is at its earliest stages and we have yet to define timescales for finalising our approach on this issue.
If the work described above identifies that additional survey data collection is essential for measuring food insecurity we would assess which of its household surveys would best house such questions. We would consider topic relevance, priorities and available space on each survey. The main purpose of the Living Costs and Food Survey is to measure household expenditure and a recent review points to the need to reduce the length of the survey given increases in respondent burden and falling response rates.
Overall, we are content with the statement from 2015 and at present our position is that including additional questions on the Living Costs and Food survey may not be the most appropriate way to collect food insecurity data.