§ Mr. Redmondasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will state the number of civil servants employed on the full-scale trial census.
§ Mr. Dudley SmithThe main task was concentrated at some 300 local offices where, on average, one clerk per office was employed on this work for about five months, supplemented by an additional one or two temporary clerks for the peak period of about five weeks. About twenty staff at Headquarters are currently engaged in compiling and evaluating the results.
§ Mr. Redmondasked the Secretary of State for Employment what will be the estimated cost of the full-scale trial census initiated by the last Government to test the feasibility of obtaining national and regional local employment statistics by means of the census; and whether he will give an anssurance that such a census will not be repeated.
§ Mr. Dudley SmithThe estimated cost is about £260,000. A decision on the future of the census will be taken within the next few months when the full results have been evaluated. If the censuses are continued the annual cost would be about 20 per cent. lower than that incurred for the 1970 trial census and would be broadly the same as the cost of the current method of counting national insurance cards.