BY ABIGAIL ARMSTRONG, STATISTICS COMMISSION

Local authorities and other public services make extensive use of census data, and so will want to be sure that the next one in 2011 is a success. The Statistics Commission published a report in November called Counting on Success: The 2011 Census – Managing the Risks, which can be found at http://tinyurl.com/2etevj. This draws attention to some of the risks and challenges that the Office for National Statistics and the census offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland will face in seeking to deliver a successful 2011 Census.

In the report we set out our recommendations in the context of the new governance structure established under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, and focus on the part the new Statistics Board may need to play. The Commission’s recommendations are set out in full in the report, but the key points are:

1. The Statistics Board should engage all interested parties, including Parliament and the devolved administrations, in building a consensus on how success will be judged for the 2011 Census and publicising the outcome. We make some suggestions in the report but our main concern is that there should be a consensus building process and a clear outcome early enough to be helpful to the census offices.
   
2. Judgements about the quality of the Census will be heavily influenced by whether results are consistent with expectations prior to the Census - a problem in 2001 for some areas. It is therefore important that expectations are well informed, and for this it will be necessary to have robust information on population movements – that is both international and internal migration – ahead of 2011. The Statistics Board may have to accept that there is already a credibility problem facing the census estimates in view of the current position on migration estimates. We suggest in the report that the best way to handle this may be to pinpoint those geographical areas in which the Census results may prove controversial and engage local stakeholders on what further steps might be taken locally.
   
3. Government has not been successful in establishing a single good quality national address register to reconcile the Address Point product from Ordnance Survey with the Land and Property Gazetteer managed by the Local Government Information House. This will undoubtedly hamper Census enumeration, and the Statistics Board will have to give some priority and resources to assessing the scale of the problem and finding ways to mitigate the weaknesses in the available information.
   
4. The Statistics Board should actively seek to promote understanding of the risks facing the 2011 Census; and do so across all levels of government and public administration in the UK. It should identify and emphasise the scope for many organisations inside and outside government to help contain those risks. As part of this, special interest groups which may use the Census as a vehicle to gain publicity need to be identified and engaged in constructive discussion. The time for this is now, not just in the final months before the Census.
5. Census offices have already carried out a considerable amount of consultation with users of the statistics, but should continue to engage with them now, and until the results come out in 2013, to better understand their evolving requirements. There is an added benefit here in that users and other external stakeholders are the best people to deliver positive public messages about the value of census data.
   
6. The Census is a huge project with large risks attached. The Statistics Board will have to ensure that the groundwork for the 2011 Census is given sufficient priority within the portfolio of statistical work in government to make it a success. The implications for other statistical priorities may have to be explained publicly.
   
7. High-level discussions about what will replace, or at least supplement, censuses in the future should be taken forward in parallel to work relating to 2011. We have been impressed by the cost savings, and quality improvements, that have been made in several Scandinavian countries that now rely mainly on registers of population, households and businesses. And also by the advantages, but lesser cost savings, of moving to a short census form supported by a large continuous survey, as in the United States. Whatever future path is determined by Government for the UK, we believe 2011 should be the final census of its kind and planning for the longer term, at the top level of government, should start now.

For further details please contact Abigail Armstrong (email abigail.armstrong@statscom.org.uk)

The Statistics Commission was set up in 2000 to 'help ensure that official statistics are trustworthy and responsive to public needs', to 'give independent, reliable and relevant advice' and by so doing to 'provide an additional safeguard on the quality and integrity' of official statistics. It operates openly and independently, with all its papers normally available publicly.

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