Simon Atkinson2013-05-25T04:27:23-04:00Simon Atkinsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=simon-atkinsonCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Simon AtkinsonGood old fashioned elbow grease.Crime Is Falling - But Have We Noticed?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32091662013-05-06T19:00:00-04:002013-05-06T18:19:45-04:00Simon Atkinsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-atkinson/The International Year of Statistics. Sitting here in 2013, we have so much data around us to help make better sense of the world. But are we making good use of all the information that's available? Do people believe it? Are they listening?
Reviewing the polling data on crime recently reminded me just how difficult it is to communicate messages about what is actually happening on the ground. Or rather, what our statistics say is happening. In the case of crime, the issues are of course complex. There are many different sources available. Some of the evidence then gets challenged. And the advent of the internet poses new questions about what we are looking to measure when we are talking about 'crime'.
What does appear to be clear beyond reasonable doubt, though, is that crime in this country is falling. It's falling in some other countries too, but the decline is particularly marked in Britain. Crime in England and Wales has halved since the 1990s, including an 8% fall in a single year. Anti-social behaviour has fallen sharply since 2007. Murder rates are at the lowest rates since 1978.
Have the public noticed? "Yes but no but" might be the answer.
On the one hand, it's clear that people in Britain are no longer as worried as they were about law and order. In Ipsos MORI's April Issues Index, some 15% singled out crime as one of the most important issues facing the country. In April 2007, it was the top issue on the list.
Post-2008, it is the economy that has taken over as the thing people are worried about, along with unemployment and immigration. Crime is now a middle-ranking issue, whether we're looking nationally or locally. Ask people about their own area, and they say that keeping levels of crime down is most certainly important; but the state of the roads, local jobs and facilities for teenagers are bigger priorities.
This is all a far cry from the 1990s. Twenty years ago, 95% of Britons were telling us that "the level of violence in Britain is on the increase". The average person in this country, over the coming 12 months, expected to see their car broken into and their home burgled. Our regular polling at the time included new questions on what the public thought about "vigilantes", as the debate moved on to whether people should be allowed to set up their own patrols in their area.
However, to say that it's no longer a burning issue is not quite the same as saying that people have put two and two together and have actually made their own diagnosis that crime is falling. Discuss the issue with people and you get a kind of "Yes you're probably right, it may be falling. I hadn't really thought about it". But then this initial reaction is often followed by vivid anecdotes, whether from personal experience, word of mouth, or indeed from what they have seen in the media, showing that crime is very much with us. Which in turn can make the official statistics seem rather less "real".
It's important to keep the local dimension at the front of our minds here. The latest Crime Survey for England and Wales finds just 10% saying that the "level of anti-social behaviour in their area has gone up a lot". But there is a sense that this may be the exception to the rule: some 49% believe that it has "gone up a lot in England and Wales". In other words, my area may be quite a safe place, but I am really not too sure about all those other places I hear about.
And this local/national outlook extends beyond crime. We've seen a similar pattern recently when looking at housing. Some 80% think there's a housing crisis nationally, but this falls to 49% when they think about the situation locally.
All of this leaves politicians with a headache.
At a time when there is so much bad news, how can they get a positive message like "crime is falling" across? (Of course they are not helped by the public's long-standing and instinctive distrust of anything politicians have to say). The evidence suggests that local police, talking to local people, in their local area, have a fighting chance of engaging with people about what's working and what's not. But getting the message across that improvements are being replicated right across the country is a much, much harder undertaking. Alongside the communications challenges faced by politicians and policymakers, it's a reminder that public understanding and trust in statistics is perhaps not what it could be - an issue Ipsos MORI will be debating with King's College London and the Royal Statistical Society later this month.]]>A Nation of 'Nethusiasts?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.28615252013-03-12T13:43:51-04:002013-05-12T05:12:01-04:00Simon Atkinsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-atkinson/European Broadband Scorecard identifies the British as being among the continent's most enthusiastic internet users. More than 80% of the UK public is now online, benefitting from some of the cheapest internet connections in Europe. The big goal now is superfast broadband. BT reports installing new fibre cable at a rate of 100,000 households a week, while the Government is looking for a "transformation" in provision by 2015.
All of this will provide yet more possibilities for companies and public service providers to adapt how they connect with an increasingly technology-savvy population. And, as behaviour changes, we market researchers will be able to get excited very soon about various new milestones being reached - just as we did last December when our Technology Tracker found that UK smartphone ownership had reached 50%.
Amidst all this hubbub, though, it's worth pausing for a moment to remind ourselves that not everyone is changing what they are doing in quite the same way, or indeed at quite the same speed.
One phrase which seems to be used less and less these days is "the digital divide". The Oxford Dictionary describes this as the gulf between those who have ready access to computers and the internet, and those who do not. Search for it on Google and you will struggle to find much recent material on the subject. In many quarters, the term seems to now refer to the gap between those who do or do not have superfast broadband access.
Now it may well be the case that the dictionary definition does needs to be adapted. But at the same time, it's worth reminding ourselves that, although we are moving towards the norm being the "digital consumer", living in a connected, multi-screen home, this description does not apply to everyone. At least, not yet.
Our latest Technology Tracker tells us where Britain is now. It's a changing patchwork. The most noticeable divide when looking at online behaviour used to be age. This is a bit less pronounced these days. If we look at British over 65s today, we find 85% of men in social class AB using the internet, as are 73% of AB women. In 2013, it's socio-economic background which is the big differentiator. Among DEs aged over 65, access to the internet stands at just 23% of men and 26% of women. Put simply, older people on council estates are not online. To reach them, you will need to adopt a more "traditional" method.
We can still see an "age divide" when we look at what is probably the growth story of the last couple of years - that of the smartphone. Among the powerful group in society that are the professional classes (ABs) aged 25-44, over 80% now have smartphones. Scroll across to ABs aged over 65, and we find figures of 22% for men and 12% for women. These 'silver surfers' are still going online using the "old fashioned computer". No doubt this will change quite quickly for this group of professional older people over the coming years. But among DEs over 65, be careful about assuming they will be on hand to download an App to their phone any time soon.
To keep track of what's happening out there, we all need to be as in touch as we can be with what we might call "the shape of the curve". We can see that the smartphone growth curve is very steep, for example, and we've got a good idea of where that's going. On the other hand, DVD ownership, down from 72% to 59% in a single year, is moving in the other direction.
Whether we use the term "digital divide" or not, we need to keep a very keen eye on what's happening below the surface, and how quickly (or not) each segment is changing its behaviour. In time, perhaps we will all be at the digital "promised land".
But not everybody is there quite yet, and many will need a helping hand along the way.]]>Consensus in the Boardroom?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25884162013-01-31T10:39:25-05:002013-04-02T05:12:01-04:00Simon Atkinsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-atkinson/
Rather than looking at one or two specific issues, I thought I would take a look at all the questions together. These cover a whole range of subjects: politics, the economy, corporate social responsibility, technology.
What struck me was the level of consensus that emerged.
On the one hand, maybe I shouldn't have been too surprised. After all, each survey respondent is a very successful person, working at the top of a FTSE 500 company. But, then again, these organisations are working in many different sectors. Some are more global, others focused mainly on the UK. Some are doing very well, others are more in "weathering the storm" mode. But, on many of the big issues, they are united in their view of the world.
I adopted the not-terribly-scientific policy of highlighting each area where more than 70% of Captains shared a particular view.
The first is politics. Captains have a very clear sense that "politicians have a poor understanding of business" (82% agree). And 70% of them say that our political culture is "biased against business." In turn, this may explain their views on regulation: 83% say current levels are harming the UK economy.
The politicians are doing something right, however. Britain's bosses agree that "in the long term this Government's policies will improve the state of the economy" by a 79% to 8% margin.
What are they doing in their own businesses? Well, it's clear that sustainability is a big word these days: 77% are incorporating it into the development of new products/services and 78% say it is a key part of their overall strategy. And there are big expectations that companies need to show honesty and integrity: 75% say this is "extremely important" when judging another company.
One of the biggest changes since last year is in the increase in the use of technology at work. Most marked here is the rise in the numbers using tablets in a corporate capacity. Twelve months ago, a little over half (52%) were. That figure has now risen to 80%.
In the face of such rapid change, 75% are clear that they need to "increase their use of social media/digital communications at the expense of more traditional channels."
This is not to say that Britain's Captains of Industry are immersing themselves in social networks when they are away from the office. They may be doing many things - perhaps playing golf, spending time with their families, or even looking at their work emails. But we find just 20% of them on Facebook, miles behind the general public (50%). Similarly, Twitter usage, at 10%, trails the average of 17%.
Let's hope they have good people in their marketing and communications teams!]]>Europe Is Flat, but the World Is Nottag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25490422013-01-25T06:31:11-05:002013-03-27T05:12:01-04:00Simon Atkinsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-atkinson/depressing GDP figures paint a picture of a British economy which is flat at best.
But do these official statistics chime with the experience of consumers across the country? The answer, I'm afraid to say, is an unequivocal yes. The latest Economist/Ipsos MORI Issues Index finds the economy to be, by far, the key issue Britons are worried about, followed by unemployment. Europe, by contrast, ranks 15th.
Ipsos' regular Global @dvisor Economic Pulse survey puts these British views in perspective, as David Cameron prepares to take on the G8 presidency. Some 13% of us describe the condition of the economy as "good."
By comparison with countries around the world, these are terrible figures. But when compared with the rest of Europe, they are pretty normal. Indeed the figures for France (7%), Italy (5%), Hungary (5%) and Spain (2%) are even worse. Belgium is doing a little bit better, on 21%, but it is all pretty dreary stuff.
The two exceptions - and these are big exceptions - are Germany (63%) and Sweden (57%). Given that metaphors have been a bit of a theme this week, I think we might say that Europe is a two-lane highway, with a slow lane and a fast lane, and nothing in the middle.
This final Global Ipsos Pulse survey of 2012, conducted in December, gives us a chance to take stock of how consumers around the world are feeling - looking back at both 2012 and "the pre-2008" world. And with the Davos conference taking place this week, these latest findings are timely in giving us a global perspective well away from the conference rooms and ski slopes.
The first point to note is the extreme diversity in assessments given by consumers around the world when asked to rate the state of their country's economy. This ranges from the 2% who are positive in Spain, to 82% in Saudi Arabia. We see some some big contrasts between neighbours countries. Germany's 63% compares to France's 7%, for example. In China, 64% say their economy is in "good shape." In South Korea it's 15%, and in Japan, just 6%.
A second theme emerges in the healthy assessments of the three billion-strong BRIC countries, where 53% say their economy is in good shape. Behind these numbers we have a rather European-like 26% in Russia, in contrast to India's 68%, China's 64% and Brazil's 55%.
There is a third dynamic about 2012 which raises some questions about a number of key markets in the world. Some of the strongest performers ended the year with rather more cautious assessments than recorded in January 2012. Australia has fallen from 70% saying their economy is in "good" shape to 63%, Brazil from 62% to 55%, Turkey from 55% to 47% and Argentina from 55% to 37%. And the most marked fall of all is South Africa, whose 22% score marks a 20 point fall since the start of 2012.
But perhaps America will save the day. There is what my Ipsos colleagues describe as "hesitant, but positive" progress here. And this is improvement from a low base; consumer sentiment in the US fell away very sharply post-crash. In just 18 months, a rating of 47% "good" (in April 2007) was reduced to just 11% (in November 2008). This figure now stands at 31%. Whether the 'fiscal cliff' episode will couteract some of the good news coming out of the US (for example on construction), we'll have to wait and see.
Back in Europe, one can but hope that a slowly recovering world will help stimulate struggling economies. For the moment, the mood is one of bleak midwinter. Will your local economy show improvement over the next six months? "Yes" say 3% of French consumers, 5% of Belgians, 8% of Brits and 9% of Spaniards.
With results flatlining at these levels, the 'slow lane' could soon become the hard shoulder.]]>The Mobile Majoritytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23284082012-12-19T05:44:09-05:002013-02-18T05:12:01-05:00Simon Atkinsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-atkinson/Ipsos MORI's Technology Tracker comes something of a landmark, as we see smartphone ownership rising above the 50% mark for the first time. Little over two years ago, in Summer 2010, the figure stood at just 20%.
This is of course the latest in a series of technology milestones. Perhaps appropriately, it was the year 2000 when we saw mobile phone penetration first reach 50%, with internet access achieving this level a year later. This was followed by what was arguably a more profound moment, in 2006, the year which saw the majority of the population having broadband access.
And, with 44% now accessing the internet via their smartphone, the next point on the horizon will be when mobile web users top 50% - something we will see within just a matter of months.
The possibilities for marketers, sales teams, policy makers - and indeed market research companies - are endless. Not to mention consumers. Some 87% of us feel that "in the years to come the world will keep going faster".
Everyone is having to get used both to the pace of change, but also to the challenges of making decisions when what is just around the corner may not be clear. We know full well that, as new things come on stream, others will fade away. We have all witnessed the demise of the video recorder. DVD players are still very much with us, but penetration has fallen from 68% to 58% in a year. Other areas like gaming, film rental and books are adapting their business models quickly to adapt to the changing needs of their online consumers.
It was not ever thus. Despite being invented in Roman times, central heating only passed the 50% mark during the late 1970s. Car ownership took less time to take on, but it was not until 1970 that more than half of British households had access to a car or van.
Whether all this change is making consumers feel any better about life is quite another question. "I need to slow down the pace of my life", say 57% of British consumers. Meanwhile, 83% "like to have moments when I do nothing at all".
Precious moments indeed, giving us just the opportunity we need - to turn to our mobile phone or tablet and keep in touch with what's going on out there...]]>The British and Europe: In, Out, or Somewhere in Between?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21432342012-11-16T07:12:30-05:002013-01-16T05:12:01-05:00Simon Atkinsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-atkinson/Evening Standard article on this week's Ipsos MORI poll, David Cameron appears to have strong support from the British people for taking a tough line on the EU budget.
Some 31% want to see it cut in real terms, with 46% favouring a freeze and only a small proportion, 14%, wanting to see more expenditure.
Recent years have seen the British, already wary, becoming even less keen on closer ties with Europe. In 1996, 24% wanted to see closer political and economic integration. Today that number is just 13%.
It's far from being a black and white picture however. This 13% wanting closer ties comes from a four-part question similar to those we ask in our Scottish polling, where there are options for full independence, 'devo-max' etc. When we provide a number of potential positions on Europe, the majority of Britons sit in the middle ground, either wishing to see the relationship stay broadly as it is (29%) or remain in an economic community but without political links (28%). A quarter (23%) want to leave the EU altogether, slightly up on 1996, but hardly a sea change.
Push people one way or the other, however, and the balance of opinion - just - is in the 'leave' camp.
This latest poll finds 44% saying they would vote to stay in the EU in a referendum, compared to 48% who would say 'no'.
Were there actually a referendum in prospect, we would say this was 'too close to call'. For example, among those who say they are most likely to vote in a General Election (a reasonable proxy measure for our purposes here), the balance of opinion is 49% to 45% in favour of remaining in the European Union. Most Conservatives are in the 'no' camp (58%); Lib Dem and Labour supporters tend to say we should stay in (56% and 52%) respectively. Faced with this mythical referendum, we would then go on to say there is 'all to play for'.
We do need to be careful about writing very long essays here about what all this means. We know that the public are just not thinking about Europe every day. Only one in twenty say it's one of the key issues facing Britain. And we know that, to coin a phrase, public attitudes have 'flip-flopped' considerably over the last four decades. In March 1980, just five years after the historic 'yes' vote in the referendum, we found just 26% saying they would stay in the 'Common Market'. By June 1991 that figure had risen to a high of 63%. And by the turn of the millennium, the balance of opinion on this referendum was broadly as they are now, ie not particularly settled.
It's worth taking a moment to go back to the 1975 referendum. The youngest voter at the polling booths then is now 55 years old. These voters do seem to be disappointed with what they voted for all those years ago. Today just 36% of British over 55s would vote to stay in the EU, and this falls to 21% among the over 75s.
In addition to their numbers (they make up more than a third of the total electorate), the over 55s are of course more likely to vote, and so are key to the success or failure of any election campaign. But we should also look at younger voters. Among under 35s, all born since the 1975 referendum, we find 56% in favour of staying in the EU, and this rises to 64% among 18-24s. They've grown up with the European Union, and they would appear to need some persuading that leaving is the right thing to do.
Finally, Scotland. In the 1975 referendum this was the most euro-sceptic part of the UK, with the Shetland and Western Isles actually voting against. Today, with the referendum on independence getting closer, and the question of Scotland's future role in Europe at the heart of that debate, it is the Scots who are the most in favour of staying in the EU. This brings us into the territory of some further (and rather speculative) maths, including the dynamics of a Scotland-less UK referendum on Britain's future relationship with Europe.
But that's probably for another day...]]>Europe: It's Backtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20564482012-11-01T09:29:53-04:002013-01-01T05:12:01-05:00Simon Atkinsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-atkinson/Ipsos MORI/Economist Issues Index, way behind the "big issues" of the economy (52%) and unemployment (32%).
At Westminster, however, this week's vote puts Europe right back at the heart of things. And it looks unlikely to go away.
A glance at Ipsos MORI's annual survey of MPs sheds a light on why things are taking off in parliament, despite not being a particular talking point back in their constituencies.
For Labour MPs, it is really not so top of mind - at least when there is no prospect of a Commons vote and the opportunity to defeat the government. One in seven - 13% - say Europe is one of the big issues facing the country.
On the Conservative benches, it is a rather different picture, with 31% of Tory MPs singling out Europe as a key issue, second only to the economy.
No doubt many of these MPs would go further and say we should not be focusing just on who is worried about Europe as an issue per se, but look more at the impact of EU policies and laws on the bigger picture, notably the economy and unemployment.
Certainly it's the case that the British public have shown little enthusiasm for anything that might be seen as expanding the European 'project', although they have actually been quite positive about broader 'cooperation', for example in relation to military campaigns.
During the period when euro membership looked a concrete option for Britain, we used to poll extensively on the subject for our media clients. The answer was always an emphatic 'no'. Attitudes towards whether Britain should stay in or get out of the EU have tended to be more positive, although the last time we asked this question we had more wanting to leave than stay - the first time for a decade.
As we watch all this unfold, two things for EU-watchers to bear in mind.
The first is that very few people know anything about the subject. I am still recovering from a focus group we ran on the European Parliament many years ago. We prepared a carefully structured topic guide, designed to take our discussions through a range of issues, from the role of their MEP through to how they received information. It was all very well thought-through. Once our respondents arrived, however, it was immediately apparent that our topic guides needed to be trashed, and that we would need to start from scratch. People had simply forgotten (if they ever knew) what the European Parliament actually was, and were utterly un-equipped to go through a 90-minute discussion on the subject.
The second thing we need to watch is the party leaders. MORI founder Sir Robert Worcester used to always remind people that Europe was an 'image issue', rather than an 'issue issue'. And we saw this most profoundly during the 1990s, where Europe was widely seen as the reason for the Conservative party being seen as 'divided', at the heart of John Major's inability to make progress with the electorate.
For much of that period John Major was up against two popular party leaders, in the form of Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown, both putting forward a very different argument to Conservative sceptics on the backbenches.
What we have today is three leaders who, in their different ways, are not having the best time of it, whether we look at public opinion (none has particularly good scores), or their relationship with their party. It all feels very fluid and uncertain, not least given we have a coalition government here in Britain, and governments under such pressure on the other side of The Channel.
Europe is back, and it looks like it's going to be quite a ride.]]>The Royal Polling Numberstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15617592012-06-01T06:28:30-04:002012-08-01T05:12:19-04:00Simon Atkinsonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-atkinson/public's support for the monarchy itself.
Last year's Royal Wedding celebrations have had a positive and lasting impact. In the run-up to the ceremony we saw coverage in both the British and foreign media on how the public "weren't interested" and were going to "ignore the whole thing". The reality was anything but. Some 30 million watched on TV, very much in line with royal weddings, moon landings and iconic football matches of the past. And the message we got from our research over that weekend was loud and clear: people were, often against their own expectations, drawn into the whole event, and it served to make them even more convinced that the monarchy is here to stay.
Support for the principle of having a monarchy is far from being a recent phenomenon. It has been a consistent feature of our polling for two decades. Even at the time of Diana's death, the proportion favouring a republic struggled to break the 20% barrier.
This is not to say that public has been reluctant to criticise the Royal Family, and we saw this very clearly during the difficult years of the 1990s. Our polling (and there were many, many polls on the royals during this period) consistently showed a real sense of unease about the relationship between Charles and Camilla. In 1994, in a first for our company, we were commissioned by the Mail on Sunday to survey the views of vicars, such were the constitutional questions about divorce and what it meant for Charles's future status as Head of the Church of England. (That particular survey showed a distinct lack of consensus among the clergy.) And, by the time of Diana's death, the proportion of Britons saying the monarchy would still exist "50 years from now" had fallen to the low 30s, with many saying it wouldn't last the decade.
Scroll forward from 1997 to our April 2011 eve-of-wedding poll, and these figures are transformed, with 56% expecting to see a monarchy in place in 50 years' time. From what often felt like an uneasy mix of old and new, we now see a much more powerful blend - and it's one which the public is increasingly comfortable with. This applies whether people are young, or old, live in the north or south, and cuts across any political allegiances.
What happens next? Well, where the public has no settled view is on the question of the succession. Over the last year we've seen an increase in the number saying that Charles should not give up his right to the throne (40% now say he should, 51% say he shouldn't, in contrast to a dead heat 12 months ago). But there is little sign that the public have completely made up their minds on this question. Young people favour moving straight to William, by a 57% to 36% margin, and Charles is rather less popular among the C2DE social classes than he is among ABC1s. So, just as with a successful soap opera, while the long term prospects for the institution look assured, expect to see the popularity of the key players continue to ebb and flow.