Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Family Resources Survey (FRS) has been running continuously since 1992 to meet the information needs of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). It is almost wholly funded by DWP. The FRS collects information from a large, and representative sample of private households in the United Kingdom (prior to 2002, it covered Great Britain only). The interview year runs from April to March.The focus of the survey is on income, and how much comes from the many possible sources (such as employee earnings, self-employed earnings or profits from businesses, and dividends; individual pensions; state benefits, including Universal Credit and the State Pension; and other sources such as savings and investments). Specific items of expenditure, such as rent or mortgage, Council Tax and water bills, are also covered.Many other topics are covered and the dataset has a very wide range of personal characteristics, at the adult or child, family and then household levels. These include education, caring, childcare and disability. The dataset also captures material deprivation, household food security and (new for 2021/22) household food bank usage. The FRS is a national statistic whose results are published on the gov.uk website. It is also possible to create your own tables from FRS data, using DWP’s Stat Xplore tool. Further information can be found on the gov.uk Family Resources Survey webpage. Safe Room Access FRS data In addition to the standard End User Licence (EUL) version, Safe Room access datasets, containing unrounded data and additional variables, are also available for FRS from 2005/06 onwards - see SN 7196, where the extra contents are listed. The Safe Room version also includes secure access versions of the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) and Pensioners' Incomes (PI) datasets. The Safe Room access data are currently only available to UK HE/FE applicants and for access at 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/PI will need to fulfil additional requirements beyond those associated with the EUL datasets. Full details of the application requirements are available from Guidance on applying for the Family Resources Survey: Secure Access.FRS, HBAI and PIThe FRS underpins the related Households Below Average Income (HBAI) dataset, which focuses on poverty in the UK, and the related Pensioners' Incomes (PI) dataset. The EUL versions of HBAI and PI are held under SNs 5828 and 8503 respectively. The secure access versions are held within the Safe Room FRS study under SN 7196 (see above).

FRS 2020-21 and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemicThe coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic affected the FRS 2020-21 in the following ways:Fieldwork operations for the FRS were rapidly changed in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the introduction of national lockdown restrictions. The established face-to-face interviewing approach employed on the FRS was suspended and replaced with telephone interviewing for the whole of the 2020-21 survey year. This change impacted both the size and composition of the achieved sample. This shift in mode of interview has been accompanied by a substantial reduction in the number of interviews achieved: just over 10,000 interviews were achieved this year, compared with 19,000 to 20,000 in a typical FRS year. It is also recognised that older, more affluent participants were over-sampled. The achieved sample was particularly small for April, and was more unbalanced across the year, with a total of 4,000 households representing the first 6 months of the survey year. While we made every effort to address additional biases identified (e.g. by altering our weighting regime), some residual bias remains. Please see the FRS 2020-21 Background Information and Methodology document for more information.The FRS team have published a technical report for the 2020-21 survey, which provides a full assessment of the impact of the pandemic on the statistics. In line with the Statistics Code of Practice, this is designed to assist users with interpreting the data and to aid transparency over decisions and data quality issues.Latest version informationIn June 2023, a new variable, CTAMTBND (Annual council tax payment bands), was added to the HOUSEHOL file. The documentation has been updated accordingly.

Main Topics:

Household characteristics (family composition, tenure); COVID-19, housing costs including rent or details of mortgage; household bills including Council Tax, buildings and contents insurance, water and sewerage rates; receipt of state support from all state benefits, including Universal Credit and Tax Credits; educational level and grants and loans; children in education; care, both those receiving care and those caring for others; childcare; occupation, employment, self-employment and earnings/wage details; income tax payments and refunds; National Insurance contributions; earnings from odd jobs; health, restrictions on work, children's health, and disability or limiting long-standing illness; personal and occupational pension schemes; income from pensions and trusts, royalties and allowances, and other sources; children's earnings; interest and dividends from investments including National Savings products, stocks and shares; and total household assets.

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Telephone interview: Computer-assisted (CATI)