Chamber and committees

Recruitment into the survey commenced in September, with letters inviting households to participate in the survey reaching the first households on Friday 18 th September. Field work started on Monday 21 September, with survey teams starting to visit participant households from that date. The initial target for individuals swabbed per fortnight in Scotland was 15,000 with the aim that this target be reached as quickly as possible, and maintained within ±10% of this figure. The timeframes for achieving this were based on registration data from the survey in England. In practice, these initial predictions on uptake in Scotland were underestimated and participant registration levels were significantly higher than those observed in England. Therefore, in order to not overshoot the target, recruitment was slowed down. As a result, the target date for reaching 15,000 individuals tested per fortnight was moved from the beginning of November to the middle of November.

ONS have advised that recently there have been issues maintaining the number of Study Workers needed to maintain the target, therefore the target has now been moved to the 14 December. At all times, best efforts have been made to achieve this target, but there are many variables at play and it is difficult to predict what will actually happen. Another factor which must be considered, but we cannot predict, is the introduction of lockdowns and how this may affect the behaviour of respondents.

The following table provides the number of unique individuals tested in each fortnightly period, with the target being 15,000. Please be aware that number of unique individuals will contain the same individuals across different time periods and for this reason, it is not appropriate to sum up counts from multiple periods, as this will lead to double counting.