Technical notes and glossary
Published 14 December 2023
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2023
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Technical notes
Results for households are presented for ‘2022-23’ and are based on fieldwork carried out between April 2022 and March 2023 on a sample of 11,205 households. Throughout the report, this is referred to as the ‘full household sample’.
Results that relate to the physical dwelling, are presented for ‘2022’ and are based on fieldwork carried out between April 2021 and March 2023 (a mid-point of April 2022). The sample comprises 11,270 occupied and vacant dwellings. Due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021 physical inspections could not be carried out and vacant dwellings could not be identified, therefore for these years the data refer to occupied dwellings only. In 2022, face-to-face interviews and internal inspections of properties resumed with the option for the interview to be carried out by telephone if needed (knock to nudge approach).
Dwelling data from 2022-23 were full inspections but the 2021-22 data collection year were impacted by COVID-19 restrictions so include observations from the modified ‘external plus’ inspections and modelled variables. There were also some data we were unable to collect at all, in which case predictive modelled estimates at dwelling level were produced to supplement the ‘external plus’ inspection and indicate whether or not a dwelling: had damp problems; had any Category 1 hazards assessed through the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS); or met the Decent Homes Standard. In these instances, we have been able to model data to provide headline figures for this report.
The reliability of the results of sample surveys, including the English Housing Survey, is positively related to the unweighted sample size. Results based on small sample sizes should therefore be treated as indicative only because inference about the national picture cannot be drawn. To alert readers to those results, percentages based on a row or column total with unweighted total sample size of less than 30 are italicised. To safeguard against data disclosure, the cell contents of cells where the cell count is less than 5 are replaced with a “u”.
Where comparative statements have been made in the text, these have been significance tested to a 95% confidence level. This means we are 95% confident that the statements we are making are true.
Additional Annex Tables, including the data underlying the figures and charts in this report are published on the website: alongside many supplementary live tables, which are updated each year but are too numerous to include in our reports.
A more thorough description of the English Housing Survey methodology is provided in the Technical Report which is published annually. The 2021-22 Technical Report includes further details of the impact the COVID-19 on the 2020-21 survey. A full account of data quality procedures followed to collect and analyse English Housing Survey data can be found in the Quality Report, which is also updated and published annually.
Glossary
For detailed glossary of terms used throughout this report please see the Glossary.