Culture and the Scottish Household Survey

Abstract

In 2007 the Scottish Government introduced an outcomes based approach to culture set withina National Performance Framework. One of the main data sources to measure "culture" inScotland is the Scottish Household Survey (SHS). In this article, the SHS and its "Cultureand Sport" Module are explored to show how useful the data is within the ScottishGovernment's economic agenda. This way, the paper reflects on the usefulness of the maindata source used to understand cultural activity within Scotland. There are generaldifficulties measuring "culture", but overall the SHS provides adequate national data forScotland on cultural participation and attendance. However, the SHS cannot providein-depth local level information and provides limited data on non-participants. Other surveysin Scotland and England give some example practices that could be incorporated to improvesurvey outcomes. Overall, the SHS is a useful policy tool