DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-7196-11
title: Family Resources Survey, 2005/06-2017/18 and Households Below Average Income, 1994/95-2017/18: Safe Room Access
title: Family Resources Survey, 2005- and Households Below Average Income, 1994-: Safe Room Access
title: FRS; HBAI

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Safe Room Access FRS and HBAI data&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; Safe Room access datasets for the &lt;i&gt;Family Resources Survey&lt;/i&gt; (FRS) and &lt;i&gt;Households Below Average Income&lt;/i&gt; (HBAI) are available in addition to the versions available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) held at the UK Data Archive under GN 33283 and SN 5828. SN 7196, &lt;i&gt;Family Resources Survey, 2005/06-2015/16 and Households Below Average Income, 1994/95-2015/16: Safe Room Access&lt;/i&gt;, replaces SNs 5839, 6083, 6253 and 6532, which were previously available under Special Licence.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; The Safe Room access data are only available for access from the UK Data Archive's Safe Room at the University of Essex, Colchester. Prospective users of the Safe Room access version of the FRS/HBAI will need to fulfil requirements additional to those associated with standard End User Licence datasets, commencing with the completion of an extra application form to demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the extra, more detailed variables, in order to obtain permission to use that version. Safe Room access users must also complete face-to-face training and agree to Secure Access User Agreement and Licence Compliance Policy (see 'Access' section below), as well as completing a Baseline Personal Security Standard (BPSS) check. Full details of the application requirements will be provided to users when they have placed an order for access to the data, and are available from &lt;a href="http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/media/178323/secure_frs_application_guidance.pdf" title="Guidance on applying for the Family Resources Survey: Secure Access"&gt;Guidance on applying for the Family Resources Survey: Secure Access&lt;/a&gt;. Users are encouraged to download and inspect the EUL versions of the data prior to ordering the Safe Room access version. As the FRS is the main source of data used by the HBAI, the Safe Room access version of the HBAI data has been included with the FRS.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; Further information about the FRS can be found on the &lt;a href="http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/frs/" title="Family Resources Survey"&gt;Family Resources Survey&lt;/a&gt; pages on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) web site and further information regarding HBAI is also available from the DWP &lt;a href="http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/index.php?page=hbai" title="HBAI"&gt;HBAI&lt;/a&gt; web page.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;b&gt;European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; In 2005, the European Union (EU) made a legal obligation for member states to collect additional statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC). In addition to this the EU-SILC data cover poverty and social exclusion. These statistics are used to help plan and monitor European social policy by comparing poverty indicators and changes over time across the EU. The EU-SILC requirement was integrated into the General Household Survey (GHS)/General Lifestyle Survey (GLF) in 2005. Since the closure of the GLF in 2012 the cross-sectional element of EU-SILC has been collected via the FRS. The FRS also provides the first wave of the EU-SILC longitudinal element, which is carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Please refer to study documentation for further details.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt; FRS:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt; The FRS aims to:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;support the monitoring of the social security programme&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;support the costing and modelling of changes to National Insurance contributions and social security benefits&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;provide better information for the forecasting of benefit expenditure&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;From April 2002, the FRS was extended to include Northern Ireland.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; As the FRS does not track individuals over time, analysis of incomes is supplemented by the use of longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) element of the Understanding Society survey (held at the Archive under GN 33423). The BHPS (held at the Archive under GN 33196) was subsumed into Understanding Society from the beginning of 2009.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; The Safe Room access version of the FRS contains unrounded data and data within the following variables which are not available within the standard EUL versions:&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; Household Table:&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;LAC (Local Authority Code)- all years&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;NICOUN (Northern Ireland District Council Code) - from 2007/08&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;LONDON (location of household) - from 2007/08&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; CAPVAL - Weeklyised Capital Value - from 2008/09&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; BRMA - Broad Rental Market Area - from 2008/09&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; OAC - ONS Area Classification - from 2009/10&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;SSTRTREG (FRS regional stratifier) - from 2009/10&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;URINDS (urban and rural indicators for Scotland) - from 2009/10&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;URINDEW (urban and rural indicators for England and Wales) - from 2009/10&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;GROSSCT (gross Council Tax - Band D) - from 2009/10&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;URB / URBNI - Northern Ireland Urban Rural var (3 category) - from 2011/12 &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;URBRUR - Northern Ireland Urban Rural var (5 category) - from 2011/12 - 2015/16&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; LAUA - Local Authority Code (new) from 2012/13&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;Adult Table:&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;AGE - all years&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; IAGEGR2 - Individual Adult 10 Year Age Bands – Pub - all years&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; IAGEGRP - Individual Adult 5 Year Age Bands – Pub – all years&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; MS - Marital status - all years&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; W1 - Age when widowed – all years&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;NIREL2 (alternative religious denomination) - from 2008/09&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; DOBMONTH - Month of birth - from 2009/10&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; DOBYEAR - Year of birth - from 2009/10&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; AGEHQUAL - How old were you when you achieved your highest qualification - from 2011/12&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; PENFLAG - Whether is State Pension Age - from 2010/11&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; POLLOPIN - Do you regard yourself as a nationalist, unionist or neither - from 2011/12&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; RELIGENW - Religion in England and Wales - from 2011/12&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; RELIGSC - Religion in Scotland- from 2011/12&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt; SIDQN - Sexual Identity - from 2011/12&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;TYPEED - Type of school or college attended - from 2012-13 &lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;Child Table:&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;DOBMONTH (date of birth month) - from 2009/10&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;DOBYEAR (date of birth year) - from 2009/10&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;TYPEED - Type of school or college attended - from 2012-13&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;HBAI:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The HBAI uses household disposable incomes, after adjusting for the household size and composition, as a proxy for material living standards. More precisely, it is a proxy for the level of consumption of goods and services that people could attain given the disposable income of the household in which they live. In order to allow comparisons of the living standards of different types of households, income is adjusted to take into account variations in the size and composition of the households in a process known as equivalisation. A key assumption made in HBAI is that all individuals in the household benefit equally from the combined income of the household. This enables the total equivalised income of the household to be used as a proxy for the standard of living of each household member.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; This Safe Room access version of the HBAI comprises unrounded data and extra variable CTLIAB - Amount of council tax the household is liable for.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; An earlier HBAI study, &lt;i&gt;Institute for Fiscal Studies Households Below Average Income Dataset, 1961-1991&lt;/i&gt;, is held at the Archive under SN 3300.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Harmonisation of Variables Over Time&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;To allow users to analyse variables consistently over the time period, new ‘harmonised’ back-series datasets have been created. A comprehensive variable guide is available with a record of the variables that have been removed, added or altered compared to the previous HBAI year datasets stored on the UK Data Archive. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;It is advised that users produce future HBAI analysis using the new, harmonised datasets to ensure consistency with latest published HBAI results – please see the User Guide for more information.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Additionally, variable derivation documentation has been provided for:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;•&lt;span style="white-space:pre"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;HBAI Datasets Income Variables Derivation.&lt;br&gt;•&lt;span style="white-space: pre;"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;HBAI Datasets Benefit Income Variables Derivation.&lt;br&gt;•&lt;span style="white-space: pre;"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;HBAI Ethnicity Variables Derivation Over Time – please note: the categories for the ethnicity of the household variable, ethgrphh, still have different categories over time - please see the guide for these categories and how to derive harmonised variables 'ethgrphhpub', 'asian' and 'eth'. These harmonised ethnicity variables will be added for the next publication.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Documentation on other HBAI variables will be available in due course.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The HBAI team want to provide user-friendly datasets and clearer documentation so please contact &lt;a href="mailto:team.hbai@dwp.gov.uk"&gt;team.hbai@dwp.gov.uk&lt;/a&gt; if you have any suggestions or feedback on the new harmonised datasets and documentation &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;PI series:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; The Safe Room access version of the FRS/HBAI also contains the Pensioners' Incomes (PI) series data from 2007/08 onwards. The PI series carries out a few extra steps beyond the FRS and HBAI data to derive pension income variables. Unlike the standard EUL versions, the ages of the head of household and spouse have not been top-coded at 80 years in the Safe Room access version. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; Further details of FRS and HBAI data can be found on the &lt;a href="http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/series/?sn=200017" title="FRS major studies"&gt;FRS major studies&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/series/?sn=2000022" title="HBAI major studies"&gt;HBAI major studies&lt;/a&gt; web pages.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; The study documentation in the 'Documentation' tab above includes the UK Data Archive Data Dictionaries and other documentation for the latest year of the study. Documentation for previous years are provided alongside the data for access and are also available upon request.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Latest edition information:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;For the 10th edition (August 2019) resampled HBAI datasets for 1994/95-2017/18 were added to the study, and the documentation updated accordingly. Variable ETHGRPHH in the main data files h178s and i178s have also been relabelled, and a data dictionary covering ethnicity variables over time added to the documentation.  &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;It is advised that users produce future HBAI analysis using the new, harmonised datasets to ensure consistency with latest published HBAI results – please see the User Guide for more information.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;