FOI REF: FOI-2023-1456
You asked
I would like to know how much it has cost to send notepads to ONS interviewers, including the cost of the notepads and sending them out, and to how many recipients.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Physical incentives play an important and cost-effective way to increase response to our surveys, which are voluntary but inform key statistics on the economy and many other outputs. The Shape Tomorrow Study included tote bags with invitations to take part until August 2023. These were shown to increase response by up to 8 per cent, and the cost of sending out tote bags was lower than the cost of sending interviewers out to follow-up non-responding addresses.
However, as the cost of the tote bags had increased, we ran a trial earlier this year to see whether we could identify a cheaper alternative that was still effective in increasing response. As a result of that trial, we moved to sending out branded A6 notepads instead of tote bags in August this year, resulting in a cost saving of over £500,000 a year. We send out 12,000 invitations to take part in the Shape Tomorrow Study a week. We use field interviewers to follow-up non-responding addresses in our highest priority areas. To aid with conversations on the doorstep, we provided each of the 648 interviewers working on the Shape Tomorrow Study with a copy of the notepad so that they could show to this to people when they answer the door to try to jog their memory about having received the invitation letter. Interviewers were previously provided with a tote bag each to use in a similar manner. In total, the cost of the notepads, letter printing and packing and postage to send one to 648 interviewers cost £1522.