Defra Survey on Attitudes to the Environment

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is seeking to commission a survey on attitudes to the environment. This is intended to provide robust insight into the public's awareness, attitudes and behaviours in relation to a number of Defra policy areas, particularly in relation to the implementation of the 25 Year Environment Plan. The survey on attitudes to the environment is intended to support Defra in delivering its objectives by providing insight on key areas to inform, shape and effectively deliver policy.

The intention is for the survey to be conducted with people living in England only, amongst a representative sample of adults aged 18 or over. At a minimum, the survey sample will need to be of a sufficient size to allow for analysis of trends in the data from the perspective of: differences between rural and urban population, geographical region, gender, age, ethnicity and income. Initial scoping implies this would require a sample size of between 6,000 and 8,000 respondents to allow the collection of robust data by these subgroups.

The anticipated methodology for the survey will be to use a face to face omnibus approach, although tenderers are invited to offer alternate methods which would achieve the same sample size and delivery timescales. Approximately 40 questions are planned to be included in the survey, with a number of additional questions to allow for sub group analysis. All questions that have been scoped are categorical, with a view to collecting only quantitative data. It is anticipated that on sharing the questions with the contractor there will be work to refine and finalise the questions, which would include an appropriate piloting period.

The fieldwork is intended to be designed, completed and the results analysed and shared with the Defra project team by the end of March 2019. Following this, there is likely to be a follow up meeting in April 2019 for the contractor to present results and initial analysis of the data.