On Saturday morning BBC news reported, very uncritically & seemingly as fact, that next year’s census will be the last complete enumeration of the UK population.
The origin of this news item appears to be an interview with Francis Maude in the Daily Telegraph. Mr Maude believes that records held by the Post Office, local government and credit checking agencies would be more effective sources of the data.
Well, methodology is always under discussion & no doubt the UK Statistics Authority will respond in due course, taking account the views of all those outside government who make good use of census data.
I do not want to enter into the statistical arguments here, except to point out once again that the census is not just of the people but of housing; at a time when housing discontent is rising up the political agenda it will not hurt to remind the Conservative party of the need for reliable information on which to base policy – remember 1951.
Census data is very expensive to collect, but it is hard to think of any other output of the UK statistical system which has such enduring value.
If I were looking to see where the real political backlash to Mr Maude’s proposals might come from I would look not to statisticians but to family historians. Even today thousands of people are regularly accessing, online or otherwise, the results of Censuses from as long ago as 1841, though not of course any more recent than 1911 because the personal details are kept private for one hundred years.
All those people who are using this invaluable data to help answer the question of who they are might be very upset at the idea that their descendants will not be able to carry on with the compilation of the family history, that they themselves may well just disappear from the records.
The origin of this news item appears to be an interview with Francis Maude in the Daily Telegraph. Mr Maude believes that records held by the Post Office, local government and credit checking agencies would be more effective sources of the data.
Well, methodology is always under discussion & no doubt the UK Statistics Authority will respond in due course, taking account the views of all those outside government who make good use of census data.
I do not want to enter into the statistical arguments here, except to point out once again that the census is not just of the people but of housing; at a time when housing discontent is rising up the political agenda it will not hurt to remind the Conservative party of the need for reliable information on which to base policy – remember 1951.
Census data is very expensive to collect, but it is hard to think of any other output of the UK statistical system which has such enduring value.
If I were looking to see where the real political backlash to Mr Maude’s proposals might come from I would look not to statisticians but to family historians. Even today thousands of people are regularly accessing, online or otherwise, the results of Censuses from as long ago as 1841, though not of course any more recent than 1911 because the personal details are kept private for one hundred years.
All those people who are using this invaluable data to help answer the question of who they are might be very upset at the idea that their descendants will not be able to carry on with the compilation of the family history, that they themselves may well just disappear from the records.
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