Welcome

Welcome to Social Research and Statistics.

My name is Andrea Finney and I am a social researcher and applied statistician with over 20 years’ experience working in and for government and academia. I offer independent research and consultancy services to a wide range of organisations, from government departments and regulatory bodies, through charities, trade associations and private sector companies to research centres and institutes.

To meet the research needs of your organisation, I can provide the following services:

• Survey and questionnaire design
• Advanced analysis of survey and administrative data
• Depth interviews and focus group facilitation
• Qualitative analysis
• Literature and evidence reviews
• Report writing and editing
• Peer review and quality assessment
• Bid writing and consultation responses
• A ‘customer friend’ to guide you through complex studies or commissions

To find out more about me, my skills and experience, please explore my web pages via the menu button in the top right corner of each page or contact me directly.

TMW Online Class Feedback: Survey Results

Tai Chi Movements for Wellbeing is a simple sequence of movements which draws on the essence of Tai Chi and Qi Gong. Andrea has been teaching TMW since completing her training in 2015.

In October 2021, students who had attended at least one of Andrea’s TMW classes since they had been migrated online, in response to COVID-19, were asked to complete a short survey. The survey asked primarily for feedback on people’s experiences of online classes and classes in ‘lockdown’ specifically. Other questions captured what students had hoped to get out of TMW classes generally and what they had got out of TMW since coming.

The full results can be found here (opens up in pdf): https://socialresearchandstatistics.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/tmw_online-lockdown-survey_results.pdf

Headline findings

• Responses were received from 17 students, compared with a typical attendance of around eight students per week.
• Just under a half of respondents recalled attending 21 or more classes since they had moved online. About a quarter had attended five or fewer online classes.
• From a pre-defined list of potential physical and mental benefits from TMW, people identified just under three benefits on average that they had hoped to get out of TMW, and just over three that they had experienced since coming to TMW.
  • ‘Relaxation and reduced tension’ and ‘peace, calm and time out from everyday life’ were identified most often, both before and since joining classes.
  • Improved general physical or mental wellbeing were each cited by about a half of respondents.
  • A minority had joined simply to find out more about Tai Chi.
• There is an inherent diversity of need and experience among students joining TMW classes. Not everyone got the specific benefits they had hoped for, while others had experienced benefits that they had not expected.
  • The most often unanticipated benefits related to ‘peace, calm and time out from everyday life’, ‘improved balance’ and ‘improved confidence’.
• There is also a diversity of experience of the online nature of the current classes, and how these compare to face-to-face classes.
  • Three-quarters of respondents rated their experience of online classes as ‘very good’ and, apart from a small minority, felt they were about the same as or better than face-to-face classes. About four in five people regarded the online classes as important or very important during lockdown.
  • Some went on to explain that they simply prefer face-to-face classes, while others saw distinct advantages of the online classes over face to face. Others accepted that online classes were a compromise, but a more than adequate and often necessary one.
  • The specific advantages respondents identified included convenience, the ability to join in from anywhere, being able to see the trainer more clearly than in face-to-face classes, and connection with others from outside the home (particularly when other responsibilities made getting out difficult).
  • Some specifically noted the trainer’s teaching variety and shared personal reflections.
• While the classes continue to be delivered online, the trainer will be taking into account the ‘balance’ to teaching that respondents’ constructive comments, when taken as a whole, suggest. This includes improving the capacity of the classes to re-energise while also being relaxing.

The full results can be found here (opens up in pdf): https://socialresearchandstatistics.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/tmw_online-lockdown-survey_results.pdf

The risk of child homelessness runs deep

New research commissioned by the Children’s Commissioner for England has found that, in addition to the thousands of children in England who are living in homeless families, the risk homelessness among many other families with children runs deep. Key findings include:

• Some 2.7% of households with children, containing an estimated 375,000 children across England, were currently behind with their housing (rent or mortgage) payments. This is the clearest indicator of the children vulnerable to homelessness due to their household’s financial difficulties, although the analysis also found that many more may be vulnerable due to more broadly measured – but still severe -financial difficulty.
• Around 92,000 children in England were separately identified as ‘hidden homeless’. These children were part of a family which was unable to afford to buy or rent their own housing and was living in another household’s accommodation as a result.
• Nearly 3% of households with children, an estimated 193,000 households, said they had recently asked the local council to accept them as homeless. Almost a quarter of them had not had their applications accepted.

These findings are based on new analysis of the English Housing Survey and Wealth and Assets Survey:

Department for Communities and Local Government. (2018). English Housing Survey, 2016-2017: Household Data: Special Licence Access. [data collection]. UK Data Service. SN: 8386, http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-8386-1

Office for National Statistics, Social Survey Division. (2018). Wealth and Assets Survey, Waves 1-5, 2006-2016. [data collection]. 8th Edition. UK Data Service. SN: 7215, http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-7215-8

The full report – which includes further key statistics and describes what children living in temporary accommodation, their families and some of the frontline professional who work with them had to say about their experiences – can be accessed here:   childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/publication/bleak-houses/

Consumer Priorities for Open Banking: New report

Open Banking has been hailed as the revolution in financial services which will create more tailored, more personalised and more suitable products. However, consumers only stand to benefit if the new standards and technologies truly serve them.

A report published today draws on new analysis of the FCA’s Financial Lives Survey and the development of a model to measure the potential value of Open Banking. It identifies the needs of and opportunities for consumers across five distinct segments – of people and small business – and illustrates these through ten rich pen portraits. It finds that small business stands to gain a potential £6bn. People, as a whole, could benefit by £12bn annually, or £230 per consumer, but their needs and the potential opportunities that Open Banking affords them vary considerably.

Among people, ‘over-stretched’ consumers stand to benefit a potential £287 each and a collective £2.7bn from Open Banking. Relevant interventions to this segment include: access to better deals on overdrafts; support in making balance transfers; and Personal Financial Management platforms which respond flexibly to consumers’ income and expenditure patterns to integrate other services. A significant minority of people who the report defines as ‘on the margins’ need help with: solving the identity challenge, controlling and sharing money; bridging the digital divide; and making money go further. This, often overlooked, segment stands to gain £72 each – significant given their typically lower incomes – from innovations such as: biometrically-authenticated digital identity; pre-paid cards and simple products; bill-sharing; real-time balances; and flexible payment options.

The report identifies key gaps in Open Banking provision which represent significant potential value to consumers. These include: current account comparison aids; unbundled, third party alternatives to traditional overdrafts; automatic current account balance sweeping to optimise cash flow and increase savings returns; support managing credit card balance transfers; recommendations on better deals on household bills; and lower costs for international payments.

The report also makes a number of evidence-based recommendations for this new Open Banking era, and calls for firms to find new ways of working which shape themselves better around the needs of consumers which are convenient and secure.

Access the full report here and find out more from the Open Banking website.