Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
The Family Expenditure Survey (FES) is a voluntary survey of private households in the United Kingdom. From April 2001 it was replaced by the Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS), the result of a merger between the FES and the National Food Survey (NFS). In terms of survey design and data collected on pensions, the FES and EFS are identical: all the current data requirements of the FES are met by the new survey.
The FES/EFS is designed primarily as a survey of expenditure on goods and services by households. It has been further developed to gather information about the income of household members. Its main uses are to provide information for the Retail Prices Index; National Accounts estimates of household expenditure; the analysis of the effect of taxes and benefits; and, with the launch of the EFS, trends in nutrition.
The basic unit of the survey is the household. In 2000-01 the FES adopted the harmonised definition used in other government surveys: a group of people living at the same address with common housekeeping, that is sharing household expenses such as food and bills or sharing a living room.
Social Survey Division at ONS has overall project management and financial responsibility for the EFS whilst the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) sponsors the specialist food data.
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This page last revised: Thursday, 25 August 2005
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