...a bit early for April Fool but just as effective--has anyone else wondered why this government thinks that it's sensible to collect census data the week before tens of thousands of redundancies take place? As a newly redundant person myself (and my son) we obviously have far too much time on our hands to be dwelling on this point.

The Census are always done in April & have been for at least the last 170 years

I quote from the 2011 form:"Please complete your census questionnaire on 27 March 2011, or as soon as possible afterwards."

Think they're fiddling the data.  Don't get me started on the muppet in residence at the moment.  We should rebel and oust him/them.

Why would they fiddle the data? What's the problem with fact-finding? It's not as if it's a new thing after all, with the first modern one (the very first was the Domesday Book!) being in 1801 and carried out every 10 years (apart from during WW2) since.

Don't get me started on the muppet in residence at the moment.  We should rebel and oust him/them.

Oh my! Things were sooo much better under the last lot? Really? !!!! :)

Blame the people who caused the mess in the first place, not the ones who have to clean it up!

Hear,hear!

Too right!

My initial post wasn't a dig at this government particularly (although running the census immediately before a massive wave of public, private and third sector redundancies could be argued as blatantly manipulative), it's more about our interest in and analysis of what we are being asked and how that information will be used. As for "fiddling data" if you don't think that's what's going on, just have a look at the way employment data has been artificially skewed over the last 40+ years and take a moment to reflect on the hidden numbers of people who can't claim benefit and so are 'under the radar.'

If we can't get beyond party politics to look objectively at research and data collection methods then I guess some of us will always get the government we deserve.

Blame the people who caused the mess in the first place, not the ones who have to clean it up!

ummm...wouldn't that be us? How are we (in general, not you specifically) not part of the problem--all of us who were happy to cram unrealistic profits from property sales, deal in and invest in unstable stock markets with the aim of 'making a quick killing'...doesn't the language say it all! Hardly very socially responsible.

I don't see how any of us can exempt ourselves from blame, if that's the game we're playing--we've either been passive or active players in this mess. Isn't the answer to try to be part of a better solution instead of throwing bricks on the basis of blue, red or orange banners?

> Oh my! Things were sooo much better under the last lot? Really? !!!! :-)

No the last one was a muppet also, lol.  As for data gathering, its alway been manipulated and yes its been gather right begore an important time for alterations.  it won't relflect all the redundencies that bump up the unemployment stats.

> Blame the people who caused the mess in the first place, not the ones who have to clean it up!

You'd have to go back to 1979, where it started, be the current shower minus their puppets.

>although running the census immediately before a massive wave of public, private and third sector redundancies could be argued as blatantly manipulative

Erm ... it's held on the last weekend of March every 10 years, regardless of what's happening economically and politically (barring World War). It's a bit like complaining that Christmas keeps being held at the end of December, just when the shops are so busy! The next census will be on the last weekend of March 2021.

>As for "fiddling data" if you don't think that's what's going on, just have a look at the way employment data has been artificially skewed over the last 40+ years and take a moment to reflect on the hidden numbers of people who can't claim benefit and so are 'under the radar.

That's not what the census is about. It's to determine such things as how many hospital beds or school places are likely to be needed in a particular region.

> You'd have to go back to 1979

Or even back as far as Julius Caesar if you're going to be realistic ............ :) :) :) I don't remember my husband blaming the government when he was made redundant in the 90s - but he didn't work in the public sector, so just had to take it on the chin and get on with his life.

In my lifetime we have had rampant inflation - remember the 70s when EVERY month employers were told by the government how much they had to increase pay by (I thought it fantastic, but was living at home so didn't have to pay the rising bills). Then we had the power cuts when the miners were on strike and every other Tom, Dick or Harry fancied going on strike and so it goes on - everybody blaming the other side for causing the ills of the time :( It's the price that we pay for a democracy and people just have to be grownup and accept that there are different views on how a country should be run and MY side has to take it's turn at getting it wrong, just as much as YOUR side :) :) :)

JMHO :)

> That's not what the census is about. It's to determine such things as how many hospital beds or school places are likely to be needed in a particular region.

I have to say the census have been a great help with my family research....but I suspect the questions are more complicated(nosey) than they were back in the late 1800's/early 1900's...lol

How accurate will the statistics be,when so many illegal immigrants,and homeless people with no fixed address slip under the radar along with people who are cheating the benefit system ,so will not be honest and accurate in their declarations,about work,lodgers etc.It does seem silly,mum in care aged 95 being asked when did she last work,(1935!)and does she expect to work soon ,on a special residents in care census form.she has dementia but no mention of that statistic being useful!We all know we need more houses schools and hospitals,to cope with the influx of EU immigrants who think our country is so much better than their own.No government is going to act on the census findings for years anyway,and even then policies change according to weither this lot or the other lot are in power,so no long term plans are guaranted.

>How accurate will the statistics be

How else do you think it should be done to guarantee more accuracy?

That's not what the census is about. It's to determine such things as how many hospital beds or school places are likely to be needed in a particular region.

So if it isn't about identifying trends in employment/worklessness, why ask respondents about their employment status at all? I'd have thought that given the precedent for introducing new questions, it would have been useful to ask whether respondents will still be in employment by 01/04/2011.

The only info I put on the Census from was our names and dates of birth and that we live in an end terrace house with a mortgage.

To everything else I answered private.

Most of the info is available to the relevant agencies somewhere.

>it would have been useful to ask whether respondents will still be in employment by 01/04/2011.

Seeing that the census is supposed to be a snapshot of human life in the UK on March 27th, do you expect everyone to have access to a reliable medium to tell them whether they'll even be alive a few days later?

The specific details - identifying the information (age, address etc) given with any individual - won't become public knowledge for 100 years. The rest is just to help with forward planning for the future.

Nope--but they will have had their redundancy notice some weeks before. Not so hard, is it?

So what? Sadly that happens to people every day of every year. It's nothing to do with the census. It's just information that adds to the most accurate picture of British society on one particular date every 10 years.

Statistically lots of people will have died the day before. Are you suggecting that th census was done at this particular time to make their relatives feel even worse, and that they should have waited until a date when nobody in the country had died?

With respect, Jeangenie, the wave of redundancies coming in now is not at all comparable to the usual flow--that's why it's important to monitor it. The labour market is experiencing movement that is completely off the scale--extremes that are either unprecedented in all the time records have been kept, or at peak since 1992, and that's just based on ONS data to January 2011. So official statistics show surges that haven't been seen in a generation, see http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=12 for details.

>The labour market is experiencing movement that is completely off the scale--extremes that are either unprecedented in all the time records have been kept,

With respect, the current unemployment figures are nothing like the Great Depression of the 1930s; monitoring the figures every decade enables an accurate historical picture of trends to be established.

> but they will have had their redundancy notice some weeks before

Better than when my OH was made redundant. He had no notice. Was called into the office and then escorted to his desk to remove his personal possessions, then shown out of the door. He'd been with the company more than 20 years and got the legal minimum payout and lost most of his pension too. That's life :(

> that's why it's important to monitor it

Of course it is monitored :) But not in the census.

>The only info I put on the Census from was our names and dates of birth and that we live in an end terrace house with a mortgage.
>To everything else I answered private

I don't see the point of this at all - what does refusing to answer achieve?

Well the alternative is to break the law ans not return it at all.

Why should I give them all that info?

So I can make my objection to their invasion of my privacy without breaking the law.

Of course it is monitored

Where is this data collected, Daisy? Unemployment figures are monitored, but they are not the same thing. Redundancies refer to posts being terminated--that job no longer exists for anyone to go into.

>Why should I give them all that info?

This, I think, is the bit I really don't understand.  I just don't get why anyone thinks this is an invasion of 'privacy'.  Most, if not all, of this information is public record anyway, in some form or another and I can't see the problem with gathering it together to aid this government, and future ones, help to plan for the future.

Understanding the demographic is key to successful planning and whether or not one agrees that 'they' do a good job with the data, or not, it's vitally important to know the numbers in order to make adequate provision for the population

Once the cencus has passed into historical document (we'll be dead by then!) it's a really useful research document for private individuals and academics

>>Of course it is monitored
>Where is this data collected, Daisy?

Income tax returns, for example. Employers have to declare how many people they employ - when people are made redundant these figures are recorded.

Think of the census as going out into your local High Street on your birthday (there's a random date for you - I have no idea what it is, but it'll be the same every year!) and counting the number of people who walk past you, and giving them a bar of chocolate. Over the years you'll be able to build a picture of changes and be able to get a more accurate idea of how many bars of chocolate you'll need to provide. You don't want to waste money supplying too much, or have the problem of not supplying enough and some people having to go without. 

Can I have some chocolate please,it sounds simple and straight forward put like that,yet despite all the previous census info gathered at great expense ,we have traffic conjestion ,housing shortage,,school and hospital overcrowding, pension poverty to mention just a few issues.I am just an old cynic, who has seen it all before but nothing really changes,despite all the info,which makes it a waste of . money at a time when the country is so short of funds.

Income tax returns, for example. Employers have to declare how many people they employ

Ok-but numbers of people employed may decrease because of so called natural wastage (e.g. person x retires and the business does not replace that person) not just redundancy. I think the reality is that the true picture of redundancy is held in many disparate formats and that the whole picture is either coincidentally or deliberately made very difficult to piece together.

I started to do some reading about the census--apparently the 2001 census was by far and away the most precise measurement ever made in this country, and yet still incorporated a significant error margin, at least as far as some local authorities were concerned, since the under-representation of their populations then resulted in a decade of under-funding--in fact a single Google search chows that local authorities up and down the land are exhorting their residents to be sure to fill in the form so that they draw down the grant they are entitled to.

And while I am cheered by the thought of chocolate experiment, it doesn't take long to realise that your data could be completely out thanks to small but significant variables: it was raining on the day, so no one  who didn't own an umbrella came out, a big football fixture in the town meant that not just local people but half the population of another town turned up, etc.--and of course people who don't like chocolate may give you a wide berth :)...and so it is with the census.

>it sounds simple and straight forward put like that

It is straightforward! It's just counting, that's all.

>your data could be completely out thanks to small but significant variables:

That would be very significant if you only did it once, but the more times you do it, the more accurate a picture you get.

Think of it like hip scores. If only one dog of a breed is scored then his score is the only information available - you wouldn't have a realistic picture. When 10 are scored you're starting to be able to see what is the norm. By the time you've scored 1000 of the breed you've got a realistic idea of how significant HD is in the population of that breed. If every dog of a breed was scored then you'd have the best idea possible.

Likewise with the census; the higher the percentage of the population who respond, the more accurate and useful the results will be.

cost of 2001 census: £200m
cost of 2011 census: £500m and counting
Cass Business School (UCL) model for estimating UK population: £37m

Anyone still convinced that the census is a reliable and efficient tool should take a couple of minutes to read this press release...

http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/_media/internals/easy-edit-suite/wym/?a=77097

Think of it like hip scores

*mumbles apologies quickly for pursuing a point...sorry guys*

I completely agree that if every dog in every breed were scored we would have as accurate a picture as possible (human error and appeals notwithstanding), but if my personal recent experience is anything to go by then the breed averages we are getting are from sub-sets of dogs tested: those most likely to do well. On the day I took my dog to be scored, two clients in front of me specifically instructed staff not to proceed with forwarding plates to the BVA until they'd discussed the likely score with the vet, the implication being that they didn't want to spend another £50 if the dog's hips were not 'good enough'--understandable, but this will impact on the breed average. If all dogs tested were scored by the BVA the average score might be significantly higher.

>If all dogs tested were scored by the BVA the average score might be significantly higher.

Exactly; the bigger the sample the more meaningful and useful the results. :-) If it were possible to know exactly how many people there are of each particular age group then the easier it is to make provision for them.

My census went straight into the bin. I will not be blackmailed into giving out personal information when it is my human right to not do so.
There is no law that states filling in the form is compulsory. It is an act of aggresion and intimididation on their part to threaten court and fines if you do not comply.

If you do not return the census form within a few weeks ,someone will be knocking at your door to collect the info,even more expense !!!

They can knock its fine, but still these people do not have the AUTHORITY to make me give my details.

The ONLY time anyone is OBLIGED to give their details UNDER LAW is if they have have been cautioned and had their rights read to them, OR is an officer asks you to produce them for a driving offence AGAIN let me state their needs to be a LAW that needs to have been broken.

Now i have the right to remain silent do i not? so i will remain silent and i will remain law abiding and break no laws so i am NOT obliged to give ANY details :)

From the FAQ about the census :

12. Do I have to complete my questionnaire?

Yes. Every householder must, by law, complete and return a 2011 Census questionnaire. A householder is the person who owns or rents the property and/or is wholly or partly responsible for paying household bills.

13. What happens if I don't complete my questionnaire?

You could face prosecution, a hefty fine (up to £1000) and a criminal record.

> 12. Do I have to complete my questionnaire?<BR sab="49"><BR sab="50">Yes. <B sab="51">Every householder must, by law, complete and return a 2011 Census questionnaire. A householder is the person who owns or rents the property and/or is wholly or partly responsible for paying household bills.<BR sab="52"><BR sab="53">13. What happens if I don't complete my questionnaire?<BR sab="54"><BR sab="55">You could face prosecution, a hefty fine (up to £1000) and a criminal record.

Ah, but WHAT law? There is NO law that states i must give my details and fill in the census.

> Ah, but WHAT law? There is NO law that states i must give my details and fill in the census

The legal requirement to complete a census return, for England and Wales, is set out in Section 8 (1) of the Census Act 1920 and in the Census (England and Wales) Order 2009, Census (England) Regulations 2010 and Census (Wales) Regulations 2010

That is a statute. Its is NOT common law.

> That is a statute. Its is NOT common law

Makes no difference to me :) I've filled mine in because I have no good reason not to :) If you don't wish to complete yours, then that is your perogative to choose to pay for the privilege :) :)

but i cant be made to pay as i have broken no law.

I have no issue with others filling in theirs it is their prerogative as it is mine not to hand over my personal information.

> but i cant be made to pay as i have broken no law

:) Again, that is your choice :) :)

what if you lie on your form does anyone check them