UK Regulators Consult on Survey Best Practice

Two UK regulators, the Competition Commission (CC) and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), have issued a set of guidelines for companies submitting consumer surveys to them as evidence, 'to ensure they are fair and representative'.

The guidelines, on which consultation is now open, seek to ensure that research evidence is fair, transparent and likely to represent the views of the whole group under discussion. This includes compliance with the research industry's usual standards.

Requirements include 'a full description of the objectives of the research and the methods used', with 'sufficient detail to demonstrate that good research practice was followed at each stage'; samples with 'broadly the same composition .. as the population' in terms of key characteristics of relevance to the project; and the sampling uncertainty associated with population estimates based on responses.

The regulators note that surveys intended to assess whether proposed mergers are anti-competitive are often conducted by agencies whoe client relationships give them a vested interest in the outcome: there should therefore be transparency about the conduct of the research if reports are to 'carry evidential weight'.

The guidelines suggest that 'Agencies should have the appropriate quality systems and standards for the research being undertaken' and perhaps controversially go on to single out one far-from-universal standard, stating that 'ISO 20252 Market, opinion and social research - vocabulary and service requirements (2006) is the appropriate standard for consumer survey research.'

The 46-page draft guidelines, which use sample screener and other questions from surveys by GfK NOP, are available online at www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/consultations/OFT1230con.pdf . Consultation will be open until 3rd September, and the OFT says it intends to arrange 'a small number of meetings with
interested parties' in the meantime.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.