|
|
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.Letter from Jil Matheson, dated December 2009:"As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent questions regarding the 2011 Census. I have grouped together the responses to those questions where there are common themes.""(i,ii,iii) Information on the evaluation of the 2007 Census test is already available from the ONS website at""http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census/2011-census/2011-census-project/2007-test---summary-evaluation-report.doc""and is thus available to the Library.""ONS has not published an overarching communications strategy or plan. Instead, many smaller more detailed plans are currently used within the census programme to deal with specific issues.""However, Chapter 2 of the Government's White Paper Helping to shape tomorrow (Cm 7513), published in December 2008, deals with the programme of consultation at paragraphs 2.1-2.12. Paragraphs 4.45-4.53 in Chapter 4 cover local authority and community liaison, and paragraphs 4.67-4.73 summarise the publicity and marketing work being undertaken.""The 2011 Census business case, which has already been scrutinised by HM Treasury and the Office for Government Commerce, is still a working document until final decisions on census operational issues have been made following a full analysis of the Census Rehearsal.""As noted above in answer to Question 302273, the business case is scheduled for publication in the spring 2010 and will be placed in the House of Commons Library at that time. It was made available to the Public Administration Select Committee in June 2009 for its hearing on the Census (but not put into the public domain because of the commercial in confidence information it contains), but a precis was made available to the Lords Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments when it considered the draft Census Order in October and published in its 29th Report of the 2008-09 Session on 5 November.(302274, 302294 and 302431)""(iv) The content and layout of the questionnaires are scheduled to be finalised in mid December 2009 after the Draft Census Order has been approved. Contractors will start the initial printing of the 30 million or more forms in mid-March 2010 and complete this in July. This timetable enables sufficient time for the data capture system, designed on the basis of the printed forms, to be competed and fully tested. (302275)""(v) Some 35,000 temporary field staff will be employed:""to deliver the 5 per cent of census questionnaires that will not be delivered via the postal service;""to visit households to remind then to return their questionnaire and to offer any assistance; and""to collect questionnaires from communal establishments. (302276)""(vi) Yes. Every commercial contract agreed in respect of the 2011 Census programme contains break clauses. This is normal public procurement practice. As the majority of contracts are fixed price, ONS would incur financial penalties if these break clauses were invoked for reasons other than poor contractor performance. (302277)""(vii) In 2003, the Office for National Statistics undertook a strategic review of a number of possible alternative ways of collecting the type of information traditionally provided by a census to meet users' needs. ONS concluded that there were no sufficiently comprehensive or proven alternative sources of such information and that conducting a traditional census in 2011 was the only viable way to collect and provide the range of information required to the level of quality demanded. The findings of the review can be found at""http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=10784""ONS are currently investigating alternative approaches to collecting such information beyond 2011. (302278)""(viii) No estimate has been made of the number and proportions of illegal immigrants who completed the 2001 Census. The final results were adjusted to take account of the estimated non-response across all population groups.""Similarly, the 2011 Census will make no attempt to identify specifically people who are living here illegally.""ONS has assessed the potential impact of inclusion of the citizenship and intended length of stay questions through a postal test including 10,000 households sampled from areas with high number of migrants, and through focus groups and interviews with recent migrants commissioned from the National Centre for Social Research. No impact on response rates was found The results of the research can be found at""http://www.ons.gov.uk/census/2011-census/2011-census-questionnaire-content/recommended-questions---migration.pdf"(302279)"(ix) Participation in the Census rehearsal is voluntary, which suppresses response rate considerably. The operation is not yet complete. As at 25 November 2009 response rates were as shown in the table below:"<Table width="100%" summary="" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="3" border="0"><TR><TD>Areas</TD><TD>Number of questionnaire returned</TD><TD>Percentage of questionnaires returned</TD></TR><TR><TD>Lancaster</TD><TD>23,127</TD><TD>39</TD></TR><TR><TD>Newham</TD><TD>7,424</TD><TD>21</TD></TR><TR><TD>Anglesey</TD><TD>14,081</TD><TD>42</TD></TR><TR><TD>Combined total</TD><TD>44,632</TD><TD>35</TD></TR><TR><TD>Birmingham</TD><TD>3,570</TD><TD>21</TD></TR></Table>"Birmingham was not formally a part of the rehearsal, but questionnaires were distributed to households in Birmingham in order to test different field operation management structures.""The numbers of people included in returned questionnaires will not be known until the questionnaires have been processed, which is due for completion in spring 2010. (302280)""(x) As detailed in the Government's White Paper Helping to shape tomorrow, published in December 2008, the 2001 Census questions on household amenities and professional qualifications are not being included in the 2011 Census.""The previous long-standing census question on whether or not households have exclusive use of either a bath/shower or toilet amenities, or both, is no longer regarded as providing a sufficiently discriminative indicator in the allocation of resources for housing development and regeneration.""Nor will the 2001 question on whether people have specific professional qualifications such as teaching, medical, nursing and/or dental qualifications be included. Consultation indicated that sufficient information to meet users' needs could be collected by the inclusion of a single tick-box for 'professional qualifications' to be recorded in the qualifications question.""In addition, the 2001 questions on lowest floor level of the household's accommodation and the number of people employed at the person's place of work are also not being retained. Consultation with users has indicated that there is less of a requirement for this information compared with other Census topics being proposed. (302282)""(xi) It is not possible to identify the specific cost of including those questions that are new to the Census in 2011. The cost of adding a fourth page of questions per person to the household questionnaire is £24 million. This does not equate to the direct cost of the new questions, as the previous three pages per person questionnaire on which the comparison is based contained a mix of 2001 and new questions, but it is the best available estimate. (302295)" |