Understanding Society User Support

Dear Understanding Society Team mebmers at ISER,

I am currently conducting an analysis of individual voting dynamics in the UK using data from the British Household Panel Survey for the elections 1992, 1997,2001 and 2005. 
For my research, I would like to be able to link households to the Westminster Parliamentary constituency used in each of the respective elections. This will be crucial in order for me to investigate how voters react to constituency-level competition and conditions over time. Using the UK data service, I have found such data to be available under study nr. 6033 (British Household Panel Survey, Waves 1-18, 1991-2009: Conditional Access, Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies). I have applied and been granted access to this data last week. Upon inspecting the data, I noticed two things. First, the data matches voters the Westminster Parliamentary constituencies used form 2010 onwards. However, as the BHPS was discontinued in 2009 and the previously used constituencies for the 1992-2005 elections featured different boundaries, this data may not be used for my purposes. Rather, I would like to obtain identifiers for the constituencies actually used in each of the elections between 1992 and 2005. Hence, my request is somewhat similar to the support ticket  #279. However, that solution does not apply to me, as I am a  researcher outside of the UK and may not get access to the specified data (grid references).

However, I noticed a second thing. The data documentation deposited with the UK Data service SN 6033 (6033userguide.pdf, dated November 2008) says that the consituency codes provided are based on the constituency boundaries introduced in 1995 and used with minor changes up until the 2005 election, i.e. precisely what I need. However, the codes described in the documentation and in the original data apparently do not match, as the data codes the new constituencies. As I figure from the documentation deposited with the UK Data Service, previous version of the data files did indeed contain the information relevant for me. Now, my question is whether it is possible to access previous versions of the data currently available under SN 6033 with the UK Data Service? Precisely I would like to be obtain the 2008 version of the dataset that contains the constituency identifiers for the 1997-2005 constituencies. IN addition and if possible, I would be very happy to also gain access to identifiers for the constituencies used in the 1992 elections. Has there been a version of the data currently stored under SN 6033 that featured these constituencies? I so far have contacted the UK Data Service (Susan Cadogan and Deborah Wiltshire), who have told me that the UK data service does not host prior versions of the data and referred me to you instead.

If either one or both of these dataset versions are still existing, would it be possible to obtain them and if yes what would be the relevant procedure? Please note that I have already been granted conditional access to the SN 6033 dataset, which should hopefully qualify to obtain the requested data.

Please note again that I cannot get access to the postcode grid references as suggested in support ticket #279 and in correspondence with the UK data service. However, I would be able to conduct the analysis I intend to conduct using SN 6330 (British Household Panel Survey, Waves 1-18, 1991-2009: Special Licence Access, 1991 Ward, Census Code Range (WARDC91)). For that purpose I would match electoral wards back to constituencies. This dataset however is subject to special licensing conditions and is much more sensitive than consittuency identifiers, which is why I would prefer obtaining prior versions of SN 6033 instead. I have downloaded the licensing agreement for SN 6330 and may sent it at any time, but I wanted to correspond with you first. I think it is in the best intereset of ISER/Understanding Society, the participants and myself if I first try to obtain the data access to the constituencies directly. I hope you will be able to help me with this matter!

Thak you in advance for your consideration.
Your sincerely,
Konstantin Käppner