Communicating with Survey Respondents at the UK Office for National Statistics

The mission of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is to improve understanding of life in the UK and enable informed decisions through trusted, relevant, and independent statistics and analysis. ONS is therefore responsible for conducting, analysing and disseminating a broad range of social surveys, business surveys and the decennial census. Respondent communication is regarded as one of the central elements to facilitating participation in our surveys. This paper reviews, compares and discusses social and business survey respondent communication at the ONS. The paper provides an overview of the types, modes, visual design and content themes of our respondent communication. It then progresses from a content analysis approach to look at the discourses used in our respondent communication.