Census (Hansard, 22 October 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 Mr. Nigel Waterson, dated 22 October 2001: As National Statistician and Registrar for England and Wales, I have been asked to reply to your recent questions on:

1. what measures will be taken to provide accurate and reliable census data for Eastbourne (9099):
2. when (a) summary and (b) full census results for Eastbourne will be published (9097);
3. what percentage of households in (a) Eastbourne and (b) Wealden completed a census return (9098).

In answer to the first question, a number of measures have either already been implemented or will be taken to provide accurate and reliable census data. Prior to the Census, an important new initiative was the Community Liaison programme. Its main objectives were:

to facilitate enumeration and to ensure full coverage;
to help provide a source of potential field staff;
to advertise the Census and to underline its uses;
to provide help to individual members of local communities;
to help with translations and advertising.

This, coupled with the new strategy of asking the public to post their completed forms back, enabled resources to be targeted to where they were most needed. Despite these efforts, it was always anticipated that some people would not be counted and that the degree of under-enumeration would vary across the country. The extent and nature of such under-enumeration will be more accurately assessed than ever before by the extensive, separate, follow-up Census Coverage Survey carried out by interviewing around 300,000 households shortly after the Census enumeration was completed. Once the interview responses and all the Census returns have been analysed, we will have a definitive picture of how well we have done at Local Authority level. The sample size was large enough for estimates of levels of under-enumeration for each Local Authority to be made and will enable the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to create a complete dataset for analysis of individual communities that takes account of this estimated under-enumeration. Information about the quality of Census data will be published on the National Statistics website and brought together in a Census Quality Report to be published in 2003. With regard to your second question, the target date for mid-year 2001 population estimates by sex and age for all local authority areas based on the 2001 Census is August 2002. These will include an adjustment for births, deaths and migration between Census Day (29 April 2001) and 30 June 2001. The target date for summary Census results—Key Statistics for areas throughout England and Wales (including Eastbourne) is December 2002. They will be laid before Parliament and accessible through the National Statistics website. The full census data for Eastbourne will be published along with the detailed results for all the other local authority areas in the first half of 2003; these will be accessible via the National Statistics website. In response to your final question, I am unable, at this stage, to provide detailed information on the response rate to the Census in Eastbourne and Wealden. This will be available in Autumn 2002. Currently the ONS estimates that the 2001 Census response rate nationally will reach 98 per cent. of households.