Scottish Employer Skills Survey, 2008-2010: Secure Access

The <i>Scottish Employer Skills Survey</i> (SESS) is a series of large scale surveys undertaken to obtain perspectives of employers on a wide range of workforce skills-related issues. The 2010 survey is the sixth in the series, previous surveys being undertaken in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008. A separate, but similar survey conducted in England (the <i>National Employer Skills Survey</i>) is held at the UK Data Archive under Secure Access study SN 6705. A later survey, the <I>Employer Skills Survey</I> (ESS), covering the whole of the UK, is held under standard End User Licence conditions at the Archive under SNs 7430 and 7484 for 2011 and 2013, respectively. A Secure Access version of the ESS 2011 is available under SN 7745.<br> <br> The sample is structured to be representative of the Scottish economy, including the private, public and voluntary sectors. Information was collected on an individual site basis irrespective of whether or not the site formed part of a larger organisation, an approach that reflects the level at which skills deficiencies in the workforce are most immediately experienced. The principal respondent in each interview was the senior person responsible for human resource issues.<br> <br> The Office for National Statistics (ONS) Virtual Micro-data Laboratory arranged for reference numbers from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) to be added to observations in the data. IDBR reference numbers were added for 3,653 of the 6,274 businesses included in the SESS 2008. Reference numbers were added for 3,242 of the 6,001 businesses included in the SESS 2010. This allows researchers to combine observations from SESS with other ONS business surveys, in order to assess the impact of skills on productivity, innovation, etc. Researchers can undertake this exercise where this has been approved by the ONS. (Businesses for which IDBR reference numbers are not available include 870 (2008) and 921 (2010) who stated that they do not wish their responses to be linked with other surveys or datasets.)<br> <br> <i>Geographical references: postcodes</i><br> The postcodes available in the data file for 2008 are pseudo-anonymised postcodes. The real postcodes are not available due to the potential risk of identification of the observations. However, these replacement postcodes retain the inherent nested characteristics of real postcodes, and will allow researchers to aggregate observations to other geographic units, e.g. wards, super output areas, etc. In the dataset, the variable of the replacement postcode is 'new_PC'. Anonymised postcodes are available for 3,653 of the 6,274 businesses included in the 2008 survey.<br> <br> Geographical variables, including postcodes, Local Economic Forum areas and Scottish Further Education Funding Council areas, although included in the 2008 dataset, are not available for 2010 due to a change in focus for the study.<br> <br> The second edition (June 2015) includes data for 2010 and updates to the accompanying documentation.<br> <br>