Guidance

The People and Nature Surveys for England: finding and using the data

How to find and use the statistics and analysis from the People and Nature Surveys for England.

From:
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and Natural England
Published
25 September 2023
Last updated
29 November 2023 — See all updates

Applies to England

The People and Nature Surveys (PaNS) are accredited official statistics about how children and adults in England interact with and benefit from the natural environment. The project collects data from a survey of adults (aged 16 and over) and a survey of children (aged 8 to 15).

Data from the surveys helps users understand:

  • how people use and enjoy the natural environment
  • how spending time in nature can affect physical and mental health
  • what motivates people to protect the natural environment, and what they do to take care of it, at home, in the garden and in the wider community
  • how different groups of people interact with nature, and how activity and attitudes change over time

PaNS informs government policy-making on the environment. It helps government monitor delivery of the Environmental Improvement Plan.

Data from the adults survey contributes to the ONS UK Measures of National Well-being dashboard. The dashboard brings together the latest data from across government on how people in the UK are doing as individuals, communities, and as a nation.

How the surveys are run

The surveys are run online and the data collected according to nationally representative samples.

The adults survey samples up to 25,000 people in England aged 16 and over, every year. Data is collected every month to account for seasonal differences in responses. New data is released 4 times a year, alongside reports and analysis.

The children survey samples about 4,000 children in England aged 8 to 15, every year. Data is collected in 2 waves: one in the school summer holidays and one when schools have returned in September. This data is published once a year alongside an annual report.

Accessing the data

Natural England publishes data tables and analysis reports.

The Data Explorer tool allows users to access breakdowns of the data and gives information about sample sizes, weighted proportions and confidence intervals. Users can compare the results against different demographic groups.

The UK Data Service makes the raw data available for researchers to carry out their own analysis.

Accredited official statistics:

Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. An explanation can be found on the Office for Statistics Regulation website.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in January 2023. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards (see contact details below). Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing email regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Since the latest review by the Office for Statistics Regulation, we have continued to comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics, and have made the following improvements:

  • Published a development plan with timetables for future work, which will be updated annually
  • Ensured that users have opportunities to contribute to development planning through our biannual Research User Group
  • Enabled wider access to the data by publishing raw data sets through the UK Data Service
  • Provided users with guidance on how statistics from our products can be compared with those produced in the devolved nations
  • Published guidance on the differences between PaNS and MENE
  • Improved estimates of the percentage of people visiting nature in the previous 14 days by reducing the amount of respondents answering ‘don’t know’

Questionnaires and survey methodologies

For details of the survey questionnaires and the methodology, you can:

Historic data sets

PaNS replaces the Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment (MENE) survey that ran from 2009 to 2019.

You can find:

Find out more

You can:

Updates to this page

Published 25 September 2023
Last updated 29 November 2023 + show all updates

  1. Official to accredited Official statistics.

  2. First published.

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