Census

[Chil1234]

As someone who has made good use of census data for tracing family trees I have reason to appreciate the ten-yearly formal survey of who lives here. The 2011 census is going ahead as planned next summer. 2021, however, could see the end of the door-to-door survey in favour of other methods of capturing the same data.

As a fan of 'small government' the census has never struck me as overly Big-Brother-ish - mostly because of the 100 year gap between collection and publication of data - and I'm happy to supply the information. But do other people feel the same way? Do you object to providing the details of your household? Should it be retained in its present form, modified or dispensed with?

I don't mind providing census data if it is very strictly limited but they seem to be taking the mickey recently, with questions on everything under the sun. £500m is way too much - I don't see why you can't complete the census online anyway.

There are better and far cheaper statistical methods of obtaining demographic data to target services. The advantage of a census is that it is almost comprehensive but there are very few public policy issues for which comprehensive data is necessary.

I used to have a colleague who had previously worked on the census. She could wax quite lyrical about it - how it was a beautiful idea that we knew about our ancestors and on the same day every year the information was gathered. Not sure I quite followed her thinking there...

Long, what other ways do you suggest? A news story I vaguely heard on the radio was suggesting credit reference agencies - how much info do they hold apart from your credit history and your address?

Well the NHS already release loads of postcode level data. The police release street level crime data. The Inland Revenue holds income data.

Things like local ethnicity, age and religion profile audits don't require comprehensive surveys - merely high quality representative data.

I can't think of any public policy where either individual or comprehensive data is required.

The census is a very valuable historical snapshot - but if that is all it is, it isn't worth £500m.

Can those sort of data sources tell the local education authority exactly how many school places they need, though? Although admittedly census would only be every decade so not terribly helpful I guess.

Agree there are other sources of data for profiles but there must be some use for the census bar historical interest. I can't think of an example, but there must be one!

edam I think that school places are done with birth registration. Of course it's just an estimate as people move areas, but most people see a health visitor, so maybe it's tracked using that?

I was a census enumerator one year. Loads of people are incapable of completing the form correctly so would not trust data submitted online. Plus, loads ould just NOT do it. Harder to refuse when you have someone knocking on your door

I use census records for family history research so can see the ebenfit in taking a census every 10 years.
I was also an enumerator in 1981 and 2001.

In 1981 we delivered and collected the forms from every household and my return was 100%.
In 2001 we delivered the forms and the householder posted them to the census dept. We then spent ages chasing down those where the householder had not sent one back. The result was that the return is was less than 100% in most areas - this reducing teh acuracy of the information.

In 1981 the questions were fewer and less personal. Bt 2001 the form ran to many pages and this made people less willing to complete it. I think they should radically reduce the number of questions e.g. remove religion etc

Some folk couldn't simply couldn't complete the form - I had a couple of people who were illiterate and several eldery people who I and sat down with them to help them fill it in. No way would everyone be able to complete it on-line.

Shame to see the praticise cease but I woldn't enumerate again as I feel there are too many quaetions and some are grossly intrusive.