Research published in relation to Electric and Ultra-low emission vehicles

Information Standards Freedom of Information Response

Our Ref: FoI 28-21

16 September 2021

Freedom of Information Act 2000

I can confirm that the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission (Assembly Commission) holds some of the information relevant to your recent Freedom of Information request.  In your request you asked for the following information:

“A research paper Electric and Ultra-low emission vehicles: Public survey results was published by the Assembly's Research and Information Service, 11th June. It was subsequently presented to the Committee for Infrastructure on 16th June as evidence as part of Decarbonisation of Road Transport in Northern Ireland

Some selective elements of the report have also found their way into the local press with quotes attributed to paper authors, Daryl Hughes and Dan Hull.

I am writing to exercise the Freedom of Information policy to request the following pertinent data:

1. A statement of works providing the scope, remit and objective of the survey, audience and target sample size, either by way of a formal specification document and/or the original request;

2. Key milestone dates in the survey project, from commission, public release, closure, analysis leading to publication on 11th June, if not covered above;

3. Methods of how the survey was published, how and where it was publicised and how user engagement was promoted;

4. The raw survey results (742) in an anonymised form in an Excel format, including answers to the questions in the survey along with additional comments, date and times of responses;

5. Any metadata, secondary or tertiary data and its sources used to corroborate the results or to provide additional analysis or hypothesis;

6. Criteria used to define and ascertain, affluence and how it was applied to this paper, subsequent committee evidence and press briefings; and

7. Any workings or calculations used in the preparation of the analysis in the final paper, including what level of response was considered statistical significant.”

The Assembly Commission response to your request is attached in Appendices A – C.  Please note that the respondents provided their full postcodes in their responses.  In an effort to prevent potential identification of the respondents as data subjects the last three characters of the postcodes have been redacted from Appendix B.  Disclosure of this personal data would breach the first data protection principle. The first data protection principle requires that personal data is processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (Article 5 UK General Data Protection Regulations). This information is therefore exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. No other information has been redacted.

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Yours sincerely

INFORMATION STANDARDS

APPENDIX A

1. A statement of works providing the scope, remit and objective of the survey, audience and target sample size, either by way of a formal specification document and/or the original request:

As part of its Inquiry into Decarbonising Northern Ireland’s Road Transport, the Committee for Infrastructure requested that the Assembly Research and Information Service (RaISe) prepare a survey to ascertain public attitudes towards ultra-low emission vehicles – both pure electric and plug-in hybrids – as well as perceived barriers to their use.

The Committee indicated its intention to engage with as broad a cross section of individuals as possible, in order to ascertain their knowledge of, and attitudes to the UK Government’s transport decarbonisation policy. The Committee webpage can be consulted for links to video footage and the Official Report which provide a record of the discussions which led up to the Inquiry.

It was determined that a questionnaire would provide the opportunity to engage with a large number of informants and in doing so gather rich data which would inform their Inquiry. Due to time constraints it was agreed that a non-random convenience sample would serve the purposes of this research.

It was understood that this sampling method increased the chance of bias and this has been acknowledged in the published research paper. However, efforts were made to limit/reduce bias by targeting specific groups through paid advertisements on social media platforms (details of which are provided, below).

Read further details of the Infrastructure Committee’s inquiry.

The presentation, which was made to the Committee for Infrastructure on 16 June 2021, was based on the RaISe research paper.

2. Key milestone dates in the survey project, from commission, public release, closure, analysis leading to publication on 11th Jun, if not covered above:

The survey ran from Monday 15 March to Monday 19 April 2021.  The results of the survey were presented to the Committee by RaISe staff on 16 June 2021.  The research paper was published on 22 June 2021.  The Committee’s Inquiry is ongoing.

3. Methods of how the survey was published, how and where it was publicised and how user engagement was promoted;

The survey was published as part of the Committee’s Call for Evidence. The Committee considered potential constraints in the survey methodology and decided that, along with the other aspects of the Inquiry (the qualitative work, the call for evidence and the calling of witnesses before the Committee), the survey would be useful with some targeted advertising. The Assembly’s Communications and Engagement teams assisted with the publicity. 

The survey attempted to target people in Northern Ireland who had purchased electric vehicles, those who were thinking of purchasing one and those who had decided, for the moment, that they were not interested in purchasing one. As that encompassed more than 90% of adults in Northern Ireland, the organic and paid-for advertisements were geared to everyone.

The survey was publicised multiple times through social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) using both paid for and organic posts. In total, 20 separate pieces of content (individual graphics, text and links) were created and posted multiple times on all three platforms; there was also a blog post published on the Committee’s Assembly page which contained a link to the survey.

The Assembly Engagement team also approached a range of women’s groups and community groups to promote the survey to improve the response numbers and increase balance.

4. The raw survey results (742) in an anonymised form in an Excel format, including answers to the questions in the survey along with additional comments, date and times of responses:

Please find attached a spreadsheet (Appendix B) containing the raw survey results. Postcodes have been reduced to the first portion of the code to eliminate the risk that individual respondents could be identified.  Please note the prompt questions can be found by scrolling along the top row in the spreadsheet. That row also includes the statements which respondents to the questionnaire could select on a multiple choice basis. The columns which follow each prompt question indicate whether the respondent selected each answer from multiple-choice selections.  The full questionnaire with multiple-choice selections is attached at Appendix C.

5. Any metadata, secondary or tertiary data and its sources used to corroborate the results or to provide additional analysis or hypothesis;

The RaISe research paper and presentation was a straightforward reporting of the results of the survey.

6. Criteria used to define and ascertain ‘affluence’? and how it was applied to this paper, subsequent committee evidence and press briefings:

‘Affluence’ was not directly measured by the survey. Statements made in reference to ‘affluence’ were based on inferences from the survey data and a priori knowledge. For example, the survey data showed that the high purchase price of EVs was a key barrier to EV purchase. Therefore, it was reasoned that affluence was a key factor in the affordability of EVs. Furthermore, EV owners were less likely than EV non-owners to cite high purchase price as a reason.

7. Any workings or calculations used in the preparation of the analysis in the final paper, including what level of response was considered statistical significant.

N/A: The response to the survey was not assessed against statistical significance criteria; it was a non-random convenience sample, with respondents self-selecting. All of the graphs and charts used in preparing the results of the survey were published in the final research paper.