Introduction
Research is being conducted by the University of South Wales (USW) and Data Cymru on behalf of the Welsh Government (WG) to improve knowledge and understanding about Personal Assistants (PAs). All survey data will remain anonymous and individual responses will not be shared with Welsh Government. Any information you provide in this survey will impact all Personal Assistants and not only your current individual circumstances.

A Personal Assistant is someone who works directly with one or more people to help them with various aspects of their daily life, to help them live as independently as possible. They will be employed directly by a person who is organising and paying for the support they receive through a Direct Payment which has been provided to them by a local authority. Personal Assistants will typically support people in their own homes or in their communities, and the role they play is defined by their employer – the person in receipt of the Direct Payment.

Please only continue to fill out this survey if the role that you have matched the description above.

We would like to better understand the role that you play as a Personal Assistant, the skills that you have, and the challenges you face. Knowing more about you and the job you do means that better support can be developed for the many Personal Assistants in Wales and the people that they work for. We’re also asking employers of Personal Assistants – those people in receipt of a Direct Payment – to complete a separate survey.

Completing the survey
You may have received the invitation to complete this survey in a number of different ways – either via your employer, or from a local authority, or via a key stakeholder organisation.

This questionnaire does not ask for any information that will identify you. However, IP addresses of those people who complete the survey online will be collected to identify potential duplicates which will not be shared outside of Data Cymru. Data Cymru’s privacy policy can be found here. Any research reports published using information you have provided will be anonymised to ensure that none of the information you provide will be able to identify you as an individual.

When you click ‘Next’ or ‘Finish survey’ at the bottom of the page you are submitting all the information you have provided until that point. If you close the survey before the end, then the information on the page you were on will not be submitted. These submissions are called ‘partial responses’ and will be used according to the same guidelines as any full responses.

If you would like any further information, or have any difficulty completing the online survey, please email surveys@data.cymru or call 029 2090 9500.

This survey should take up to 30 minutes to complete, if you leave the survey without completing then you will have to restart so please be sure you have enough time before beginning. Please click 'Next' to begin the survey.

Please visit our website if you need the survey in a more accessible format, different versions are available.