Taking part in MOPAC's surveys
MOPAC runs three surveys focused on policing and crime in London - the Public Attitude Survey (PAS), the User Satisfaction Survey (USS) and the Online Victim Satisfaction Survey (OVSS). Our surveys help us to make sure that the decisions we make are in line with the views of the people we serve. You can see top line results from all of these surveys on our interactive Public Voice Dashboard.
MOPAC commissions Opinion Research Services (ORS) to conduct all of the surveys. ORS is an independent social research practice that works across the UK on a range of social issues such as community safety, housing, health and other local issues. ORS is a Market Research Society (MRS) Company Partner and adheres to the MRS Code of Conduct. Further information about ORS can be found on their website. If you are contacted by an interviewer from ORS, you can confirm their identity by contacting ORS on Freephone 0800 107 7890.
Participation in any of these surveys is purely voluntary, and we do hope that you’ll be able to take part if you are contacted by ORS. You can find more information about each of the surveys by clicking on the relevant heading below.
The Public Attitude Survey
The Public Attitude Survey (PAS) aims to gauge what Londoners think about policing and crime in the capital, and to understand the issues that matter to you. The survey measures Londoners’ perceptions of the police, identifies local policing priorities, and captures views and experiences across a range of crime and safety issues. The survey has taken place since 1983 and speaks to around 19,200 London residents each year. Results from the PAS help to ensure that Londoners’ priorities for policing and safety are at the heart of decision making in MOPAC and the Metropolitan Police Service.
We rely on people’s voluntary cooperation for the Public Attitude Survey (PAS), so we do hope that you’ll be able to take part. Currently, the PAS takes place over the telephone and face to face. For face to face interviews, an interviewer will visit your address to ask you to take part in the survey. The survey takes around 20 minutes to complete, depending on your answers.
When an interviewer calls, they will firstly give you some information about the survey so you can decide whether you think you would be interested in completing it. If you are happy to proceed, they will also ask a couple of questions about yourself to make sure that you are eligible to take part (e.g., confirming that you live in London if the interview is on the telephone).
The interviewer will then ask you a range of questions about crime and policing in your local area. The PAS covers a range of different topics, including your views on local crime issues in the area where you live, your attitudes towards the police, and any experiences or contact that you may have had with the police. Sometimes the survey will also ask you some topical questions to reflect current priorities for decision makers. The interviewer will also ask for some information about yourself to help ensure that we are gathering the views of a wide range of Londoners. All of the questions are optional, and you can let the interviewer know at any time if you would prefer not to answer.
At the end of the survey, you will be asked whether you would be interested in taking part in further research on crime and policing in London, and whether you would be happy to be contacted again for quality control purposes. If so, the interviewer will take contact details such as your name and telephone number. The information gathered here will only be used only for the purpose specified, and there is no obligation to provide you contact details or to participate in future research.
The PAS currently takes place over the telephone and face to face. Telephone numbers are selected to take part using two different methods. Some numbers are selected using Random Digit Dialling (RDD), which is a technique that generates random telephone numbers that are likely to be based in London using prefix area codes. Other numbers are contacted from a commercially available list of telephone numbers in London. Together, these two methods help to ensure that the PAS gathers the views of a wide range of Londoners. Any telephone number used as part of this research will not at any time be released to any other parties and will only be used in connection with this survey.
If Opinion Research Services (ORS) have called your mobile number to invite you to take part in the Public Attitude Survey (PAS) and you’ve not been able to answer the phone, they will send you a text message to let you know an interviewer is trying to contact you about the survey.
The population in London is one of the most diverse in the world, and it is important to understand the views of lots of different groups of people to assess whether certain groups experience or think about the police differently.
Respondents may choose not to answer the demographic questions if they wish to.
Data integrity and security are of key importance to MOPAC and Opinion Research Services (ORS). ORS work on behalf of MOPAC to gather information as part of the Public Attitude Survey (PAS). MOPAC and the Metropolitan Police Service will only have access to the responses you give to the questions asked, and they will not be able to identify you or your household.
MOPAC and the Metropolitan Police Service may share this data with partner organisations for further analysis purposes. Where you have provided detailed responses (such as text comments) some of these may be used in reports, but it will not be possible to identify you in these reports.
ORS will not keep and information that identifies you as an individual for longer than 13 months, but the rest of your responses will be kept anonymously for analysis purposes. For more information on data and storage, please see the MOPAC Privacy Policy or visit the ORS website.
MOPAC commissions the Public Attitude Survey (PAS) as part of its role as a Public Authority, with the aim of improving policing in London. All data from the PAS is processed and stored in line with the Data Protection Act 2018, as well as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The PAS has a lawful basis of public task as per Article 6(e) of the General Data Protection Regulation as demonstrated by MOPAC’s commitment to improve public confidence and trust in policing in London set out in the Police and Crime Plan. This lawful basis is also derived from Article 143 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 that enables local policing bodies to arrange for the provision of services that, in the opinion of the local policing body, will secure, or contribute to securing, crime and disorder reduction in the body’s area.
Opinion Research Services (ORS) is the data controller for telephone and address data used for the purposes of sampling. MOPAC is the data controller for data collected as part of the survey (such as responses to questions) and ORS are data processors acting on MOPAC’s behalf. A written contract is in place between MOPAC and ORS that specifies GDPR responsibilities. More information on how data is processed, including subject access requests, can be found in the MOPAC Privacy Policy or the ORS website.
The User Satisfaction Survey
The User Satisfaction Survey (USS), is a victim survey that asks a sample of individuals who have reported a crime to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to an officer or at a front counter about their experience during this process. Currently the USS speaks to around 9,600 victims a year who have reported either a residential burglary, an assault, a personal robbery or a hate crime within the preceding three months.
When contacted victims are asked a series of questions about how the police performed but are not asked any details about the incident itself. The aim of the USS is to understand the victim’s experience so that improvements can be made for other victims in the future.
The User Satisfaction Survey (USS) contacts a number of victims from each of the MPS’s Borough Command Units (BCUs) to ensure that a geographical spread of data is available. Within each BCU all victims of either residential burglary, assault, personal robbery or hate crime within the preceding three months are potential candidates for survey and a random selection is made.
Some exclusion criteria are used based on age and specific crime features in order to safeguard the wellbeing of certain types of victim. Due to the random selection and exclusions not every victim should expect to be surveyed by the USS.
MOPAC have staff who have been granted access to MPS data for a number of specific projects. This means that MOPAC pulls off the necessary victim sample for the User Satisfaction Survey (USS) directly and then securely passes this to ORS for the sole purpose of using these details for the survey.
MOPAC are the oversight body for the MPS, and as such have a statutory duty hold the MPS to account in terms of their performance. An important aspect of this is the victim experience, and as such the views of victims are critical to MOPAC achieving this task.
All MOPAC staff and ORS staff are vetted to the same level as MPS staff, with all data being held securely and any data transfers being conducted over secure email or secure data portals.
Taking part involves speaking on the telephone with an interviewer as they administer the survey. The survey follows a script and most of the questions are questions where the respondent indicates an answer from a selection of options.
There are however several questions where the interviewer will ask for a verbal response. None of the questions are mandatory and a “don’t know” or “prefer not to say” can be given to any question. The interviews take around 15 minutes.
Individual responses can be linked to a specific crime report number, so this survey is not anonymous. Information is stored securely and treated as confidential information with only specific staff having access to respondent identity.
The population in London is one of the most diverse in the world, and it is important that everyone who comes into contact with the police receives the same standard of service. In order to ensure this is the case we need to monitor who comes into contact with the police and gather their views to assess whether certain groups experience the service differently.
Respondents may choose not to answer the demographic questions if they wish to.
If you are contacted and decide to take part in the User Satisfaction Survey (USS) then ORS will securely store your responses alongside your personal details for 13 months. After this time your personal details will be removed from the data set and your responses will be kept in anonymised form.
ORS strictly adheres to the principles of the Data Protection Act 2018, as well as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For more information on data and storage, please see the MOPAC Privacy Policy or visit the ORS website.
MOPAC commissions the User Satisfaction Survey (USS) as part of its role as a Public Authority, with the aim of improving policing in London.
All data from the USS is processed and stored in line with the Data Protection Act 2018, as well as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The USS has a lawful basis of public task as per Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation, as demonstrated by MOPAC’s role as a public authority, with the aim to improve the experiences of victims of crime.
This lawful basis is also derived from Article 143 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 that enables local policing bodies to arrange for the provision of services that, in the opinion of the local policing body, will secure, or contribute to securing, crime and disorder reduction in the body’s area. In addition, whilst not specifically using criminal offence data for the USS, the project does use victim’s data that will contain references to the specific crime. Therefore, we have included our basis for processing under Article 10. Our lawful basis for processing under Article 10 is ‘official authority’, based upon our statutory requirement listed above for Article 6.
Opinion Research Services (ORS) is the data controller for telephone data used for the purposes of sampling. MOPAC is the data controller for data collected as part of the survey (such as responses to questions) and ORS are data processors acting on MOPAC’s behalf. A written contract is in place between MOPAC and ORS that specifies GDPR responsibilities. More information on how data is processed, including subject access requests, can be found in the MOPAC Privacy Policy or the ORS website.
The Online Victim Satisfaction Survey
The Online Victim Satisfaction Survey (OVSS) is a victim survey that asks a sample of individuals who have reported a crime to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) online or over the telephone about their experiences during this process. Currently all victims who report online or over the telephone and reported either a residential burglary, an assault, a personal robbery, a vehicle crime or a hate crime within the preceding 3 months are invited.
Victims are contacted either via email or SMS (text message) and are sent a personalised online survey link. The survey asks a series of questions about how the police performed. They are not asked any details about the incident itself. The aim of the OVSS is to understand the victim’s experience so that improvements can be made for other victims in the future.
Taking part involves filling in an online survey of between 15 and 20 questions, depending on your answers. Within the survey most of the questions are questions where the respondent indicates an answer from a selection of options.
There are however several questions where the respondent can free type a response. None of the questions are mandatory and a “don’t know” or “prefer not to say” can be given to any question. Individual links do direct back to a specific crime report number, so this survey is not anonymous. Information is stored securely and treated as confidential information with only specific staff having access to respondent identity.
MOPAC have staff who have been granted access to MPS data for a number of specific projects. This means that MOPAC pulls off the necessary victim sample for the Online Victim Satisfaction Survey (OVSS) directly and then securely passes this to ORS for the sole purpose of using these details for the survey.
MOPAC are the oversight body for the MPS, and as such have a statutory duty hold the MPS to account in terms of their performance. An important aspect of this is the victim experience, and as such the views of victims are critical to MOPAC achieving this task. All MOPAC staff and ORS staff are vetted to the same level as MPS staff, with all data being held securely and any data transfers being conducted over secure email or secure data portals.
ORS send out survey links to an online survey via either email or SMS (text message). The online survey will only ask you for your opinions on the service you received from the police and some basic demographic questions. You will not be asked for any personal details or to input any information about the crime. If you receive a link asking for this type of information you should report it to ORS or MOPAC. The survey link will be hosted on a website starting https://online.ors.org.uk/questionnaire.
The population in London is one of the most diverse in the world, and it is important that everyone who comes into contact with the police receives the same standard of service. In order to ensure this is the case we need to monitor who comes into contact with the police and gather their views to assess whether certain groups experience the service differently.
Respondents may choose not to answer the demographic questions if they wish to.
Data integrity and security are of key importance to MOPAC and ORS. ORS will securely store the sample details that we pass them for 13 months, after which they are deleted.
If you are contacted and decide to take part in the Online Victim Satisfaction Survey (OVSS) then ORS will securely store your responses alongside your personal details for 13 months. After this time your personal details will be removed from the data set and your responses will be kept in anonymised form. ORS strictly adheres to the principles of the Data Protection Act 2018, as well as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For more information on data and storage, please see the MOPAC Privacy Policy or visit the ORS website.
MOPAC commissions the Online Victim Satisfaction Survey (OVSS) as part of its role as a Public Authority, with the aim of improving policing in London. All data from the USS is processed and stored in line with the Data Protection Act 2018, as well as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The OVSS has a lawful basis of public task as per Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation, as demonstrated by MOPAC’s role as a public authority, with the aim to improve the experiences of victims of crime.
This lawful basis is also derived from Article 143 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 that enables local policing bodies to arrange for the provision of services that, in the opinion of the local policing body, will secure, or contribute to securing, crime and disorder reduction in the body’s area. In addition, whilst not specifically using criminal offence data for the OVSS, the project does use victim’s data that will contain references to the specific crime. Therefore, we have included our basis for processing under Article 10. Our lawful basis for processing under Article 10 is ‘official authority’, based upon our statutory requirement listed above for Article 6.
Opinion Research Services (ORS) is the data controller for email and telephone data used for the purposes of sampling. MOPAC is the data controller for data collected as part of the survey (such as responses to questions) and ORS are data processors acting on MOPAC’s behalf. A written contract is in place between MOPAC and ORS that specifies GDPR responsibilities. More information on how data is processed, including subject access requests, can be found in the MOPAC Privacy Policy or the ORS website.
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