Understanding Society User Support

Many thanks for your enquiry. The Understanding Society team is looking into it and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Best wishes,
Stephanie Auty - Understanding Society User Support Officer

Dear Juliet,

All of our geographies are taken directly from the ONSPD. The version of ONSPD used per Wave is identified on the Geographical Lookup Tables document (available here: https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/studies/study?id=7249#!/documentation). The ONSPD User Guide for May 2017 (used for Wave 8), for example, has the following for MSOA11:

The 2011 Census MSOA code for England and Wales and IZ zone for Scotland. Pseudo codes are included for Northern Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. The field will otherwise be blank for postcodes with no grid reference.
E02000001 – E02006934 = England;
W02000001 – W02000423 = Wales;
S02001236 – S02002514 = Scotland;
N99999999 (pseudo) = Northern Ireland;
L99999999 (pseudo) = Channel Islands;
M99999999 (pseudo) = Isle of Man;
null = no information available

so, yes, IZ is used for Scotland. For Northern Ireland a single pseudo code is used. Northern Ireland only has a single level of data – SOA – and that is included in LSOA11 (as dictated by ONS).

Best wishes,
Stephanie