§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what arrangements are made for the sale of information obtained through the official national census.
§ Mr. Dorrell[holding answer 5 February 1992]: Printed census reports to Parliament are sold at HMSO bookshops. Other statistical information for areas in England and Wales from the census is available on request to the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. A charge is made to recover the cost of extracting such information from the census data base and presenting it in the form required.
§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what information obtained through the national census is distributed in any form which gives details of postal codes.
§ Mr. Dorrell[holding answer 5 February 1992]: Statistics from the 1991 census will be available for postcode sectors (containing about 2,000 households each on average). An enumeration district to postcode directory 318W will be available for England and Wales, enabling census users to relate statistics for census enumeration districts to the aggregations of postcode units which most nearly approximate those districts. Census users will also be able to request statistics for areas defined by them as particular aggregations of postcodes. These will be provided only if the areas requested are sufficiently large, and sufficiently different from standard areas, for confidentiality to be safeguarded.
§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what income is received from the sale of information obtained by the national census for the last five years for which figures are available.
§ Mr. Dorrell[holding answer 5 February 1992]: The income received by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys from the sale of census statistics over the five financial years from April 1986 to March 1991 is as follows:
Financial year Income (£ thousand) 1986–87 346 1987–88 194 1988–89 110 1989–90 62 1990–91 53
§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many organisations or companies have directly purchased information collected by the national census in the last 10 years; and what public record is kept of such usage.
§ Mr. Dorrell[holding answer 5 February 1992]: In the last 10 years the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys has met approximately 12,000 requests for census statistics from central and local government, health authorities, public corporations and banks, and from insurance, retail and other commercial companies, and the academic sector.
Records of all sales of specially commissioned statistics are held by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys for public viewing in St. Catherine's house, London and at Titchfield in Hampshire.