NI Safe Community Survey Consultation

Overview

Consultation on the Northern Ireland Safe Community Survey

Analytical Services Group (ASG) within the Department of Justice (DoJ) is undertaking a consultation on the Northern Ireland Safe Community Survey (NISCS).

The NISCS is a representative, continuous, personal interview survey in which people aged 16 and over living in private households in Northern Ireland are asked about their experiences of crime, as well as their perceptions of crime-related issues.

Traditionally interviews had been conducted face-to-face, however, as a result of the pandemic, interviews moved to telephone mode from 2020/21 using a reduced questionnaire. Telephone interviews continued until 2023/24 then the survey moved to mixed mode (telephone and face-to face) for 2024/25.

The purpose of this consultation is to:

1. review the questionnaire content and assess the use of NISCS findings and outputs;
2. gauge views on the published reports and outputs from the survey; and
3. ascertain views on using a mixed mode methodology going forward.

The use of modules/questions from both the shortened telephone questionnaire, as well as the previous face-to-face version (which includes questions that had been removed for the recent telephone version) are being assessed.

Further detail on the consultation can be found in the ‘Consultation on the Northern Ireland Safe Community Survey’ paper, which is available at the link below, along with the face-to-face and telephone questionnaires.

To open this link in a new page and keep this consultation page open also, right click the link and select ‘Open link in new window’. Link to ‘Consultation on the Northern Ireland Safe Community Survey’ paper and survey questionnaires . 

What happens next

Thank you for your comments. We will consider all feedback provided. 

A Summary of Responses paper will be published early 2025 and will be available from the Safe Community Survey section on the Department of Justice website.