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The Central Statistics Office is Ireland’s national statistical office and our purpose is to impartially collect, analyse and make available statistics about Ireland’s people, society and economy. It is focused on delivering high-quality, reliable statistical information which contributes to a wide range of analysis informing policy decisions at all levels. The Office operates within the Statistics Act, 1993 which sets confidentially standards and ensures the independence of statistics produced.
Within this remit, the aim of the Sexual Violence Survey (SVS) is to provide, for the first time, official statistics on the prevalence of sexual violence in Ireland. Data will be derived from a nationally representative survey, using a set of questions developed by experienced questionnaire design statisticians.
This data will be presented in several formats depending on the needs of the community:
Given the complexity and sensitivity of the survey, the CSO have estimated a five-year plan to deliver the survey but as work continues this timeframe will be reviewed and if possible the CSO will work to complete the survey in a shorter timeframe.
The provision of reliable, robust, objective and internationally comparable information requires the planning and execution of this survey be undertaken in a professional and comprehensive manner. To do otherwise may compromise the quality of the resulting data. Therefore, the proposed duration of the new SVS is to ensure that all aspects of the survey development process are undertaken and completed to the highest possible standard.
The CSO has also agreed that the survey will be repeated at ten-year intervals and it is therefore critical that all aspects of the survey are built to a robust standard which will allow these future iterations of the survey to be easily undertaken.
The CSO’s new SVS survey will differ from the previous SAVI report in a number of respects.
The new survey will build upon the work of the 2018 Scoping Group on Sexual Violence Data and will reflect changes in society since 2002, as well as changes in Data Protection legislation and methodological practices. For example, the sample for the previous survey, SAVI, was based on randomly generated landline telephone numbers. As per the SAVI report, 86% of Irish households were estimated to have a landline at the time. Societal changes in the 17 years since the last survey have resulted in a large drop in landline usage in Irish households.
In addition, a change in the survey delivery mode from phone to face to face can introduce a mode effect[2] on the results, which has been seen in other countries. The choice of survey methodology is likely to be different to SAVI and may result in a substantial break in the series. Hence, this new Sexual Violence Survey (SVS) which will be conducted by the CSO is not SAVI II.
The new SVS will be undertaken within the framework of the Statistics Act, 1993.It will be produced as part of the work programme of the CSO and will become part of the family of official statistics produced by the CSO.
The CSO will work with key stakeholders in this area, to generate a survey which delivers high quality data. We will aim to collaborate throughout the survey design process; in the development stages on the wording for some questions, using stakeholder experiences to prepare interviewers during training, and, during fieldwork, getting advice on good approaches to support both respondents and interviewers.
The CSO recognises the critical role that stakeholders will play in supporting the CSO across all aspects of the survey to ultimately ensure the delivery of official statistics for this area and looks forward to harnessing stakeholder support to achieve this.
[1] Further information is available from the CSO’s information page on access to research data: https://www.cso.ie/en/aboutus/lgdp/csodatapolicies/dataforresearchers/
[2] The mode of a survey is the method in which a survey is delivered. These methods include face-to-face interviewing, telephone interviewing, a postal survey or an online survey. A mode effect occurs when respondents change their responses due to the method of collection. Literature suggests that surveys on sensitive topics like sexual violence or illegal activities can be vulnerable to this.