Census Results (Hansard, 12 July 2001)

§ Ruth Kelly

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Len Cook to Ms Julia Drown, dated 12 July 2001: As National Statistician and Registrar General for England and Wales, I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking what powers there are to sell Census results to private companies (3315). Under the provisions of Section 4(1) of the Census Act 1920, the Registrar General is required, as soon as may be after the census, to prepare reports on the Census returns and to present such reports to Parliament. Copies of all such reports from previous censuses have been published and made publicly available either through the Stationery Office or from the Census Office by delegated authority. Access to census results will mainly be through free access to information on the National Statistics website, with additional information being provided on a cost recovery basis. Additionally, under the provisions of Section 4(2) of the Act, the Registrar General may, at the request and cost of any local authority or person, prepare abstracts containing any such statistical information not contained in the reports to Parliament, which, in his opinion, it is reasonable for that authority or person to require. It is under this provision that most small area statistics or specially commissioned output from the census are made available to private companies and other customers either directly from the Census Office or from other agencies licensed to sell census information to third parties. For both free and cost recovery services, the same measures are applied to all such statistical results to ensure that there is no disclosure of information relating to identified individuals or households. No information is available on an exclusive basis, and repeated requests for information that has yet to be published are likely to lead to that information being placed on the National Statistics website.