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We recently sent out individual area profiles to local authorities and shared the names of the ONS census engagement managers working in their areas. We also wrote to county councils and put them in touch with the councils in their areas to encourage networking and collaboration on plans for Census 2021.
We asked our CEMs to begin making contact with you and to start meeting up from 26th October onwards. We are asking them to have the first draft of the Local Authority Partnership Plan (LAPP) prepared in the week commencing 2nd November and to share this plan with you. There is no expectation that it is filled out completely at this stage.
The plan is a living document, which will be the blueprint for census engagement activity in your area. By sharing information and support for Census 2021 activities, you will be helping to ensure the best census response rate possible for your local area. Thank you for helping us to make Census 2021 a success!
Please be aware that the area plans contain a typographic error in section 1 – Population. The second bullet point should read "non-white British/Irish population estimate".
For the Census 2021 campaign, we have developed a comprehensive marketing campaign plan with a number of different campaign strands. The campaign focuses around three different messaging phases, designed to raise awareness of the census. The messaging phases include the stages of announce, address and act now.
The first stage of messaging, from 12th February 2021, is the ‘announce’ phase. This aims to prime the public that census is an important public event and why they should complete.
The second stage of messaging, from 22nd February 2021, is the ‘address’ phase. This aims to drive motivation to complete and overcome barriers to completion. This aims to engage all audiences, especially hard-to-reach ones.
The third stage of messaging, from 1st March 2021, is the ‘act now’ phase. This is to drive completion pre- and post- Census Day on the 21st March. It will prompt people to complete.
We are running two workshops to familiarise Local Authorities with the census campaign messaging, advertising plan, social media, schools’ campaigns, LA comms toolkits and more. These events are running on the 2nd and 23rd November. Please sign up on Eventbrite now.
Our programme of virtual workshops to help you to get ready for census are already underway. We have two new November events that are open for booking now.
We are taking bookings for:
- 2 November or 23 November - The Census 2021 campaign including supporting products for local authorities, media and the Schools Education Campaign. Sign up on Eventbrite now.
- 12 November or 19 November - Census field staff recruitment and training. Sign up on Eventbrite now.
We’ll be running workshops in early 2021 around how you can support the Census 2021 field operation and our Census Support Service. Dates for those workshops will be shared in a future newsletter.
The census website has now been updated with resources for local authorities. These include:
- Local authority partnership guide
- Councillor handbook - information and guidance for councillors
- Local authority presentation – slides that can be adapted by you to promote the census
- brand guidance
- census logo
- data security handout
The Local Authority Partnership Guide explains how the Office for National Statistics and local authorities can work in partnership to support Census 2021. It contains information, dates and checklists which we hope you will find useful. We will be releasing a second edition in November.
Remember to check back regularly to the local authority downloadable resources pages as we’ll be adding new resources for you over the coming weeks.
Please note that old links to the census partner pages may no longer work.
Our next set of Census 2021 jobs will be launching on 2nd November and we’ll be inviting applications for exciting new temporary roles at all levels. Can you help us find the right people to fill these roles?
You’ll find all our current openings, application information and FAQs on censusjobs.co.uk and here’s just a taste of our upcoming vacancies.
- Census officer – Working with the community and talking to people to champion the census, boost response rates and ensure residents have the right support to fill in their form.
- Census team leader – Our team leaders oversee and coordinate the field operation in an assigned area, guiding a team of census officers and providing the tools and expertise they need to succeed.
- Census area manager – Our managers will use their people skills to motivate and manage our team leaders, track their performance and ensure their teams visit addresses to help everyone complete the census.
We hope you can help us with the recruitment of these roles by promoting them on your website job pages and to your community links. The recruitment window varies for each role so please have a look at our website and search for all jobs.
Thank you to all the Local Authorities who have worked hard to share Council Tax data with ONS.
The Address Register Team have been running these data through algorithms to compare to Census’s existing address register. Council Tax data shows whether a property is occupied, as well as identifying multiple dwellings in a single building (such as a block of flats).
This team is responsible for eliminating unnecessary addresses and have hundreds of thousands of addresses to check every month. By matching Council Tax data to the address register, we have saved time and resource as well as ensuring that no occupied residence will be missed on the Census address register.
Council Tax is already contributing to a more accurate picture of housing stock and households since the last Census, and it is actively helping to ensure the Census will include hard to count areas where there is a high movement of residents or changing housing stock.
This is just one of the uses of Council Tax data for Census, and just one of the uses of this data within ONS.
To make sure your authority is in included in these preparations and sees this benefit, please make sure your authority is sharing data. Get in touch at council.tax@ONS.gov.uk
We explained our approach to quality assurance in section 6.28 of the recently published Local Authority Partnership Guide.
As part of our strategy for quality assurance we’ve asked LAs to work with their CEM to answer six key questions. We originally asked for this information to be provided by 5 October, but we recognise that this is a busy time for LAs so we’ve removed that end date and ask that you please work with your CEM to provide this information as soon as possible.
You can read more about our Approach and processes for assuring the quality of the 2021 Census data online
We continue to ask local authorities to support and promote this programme to raise awareness in schools in their areas. Getting school children involved in the census is a great way to get communities talking about Census 2021.
The primary and secondary school programmes were both launched last month and we have received lots of interest and great feedback. Over 2,000 schools have already registered for our primary school programme and over 500 schools for our secondary school programme.
From November, schools registered for our primary programme, Let’s Count!, will have the chance to view all of the resources, including 14 adaptable lesson plans. We will also be launching more resources for our secondary school programme. This will include more in-depth activities specific to curriculum topics like maths, geography and history. These resources will allow students to learn about the relevance of the census to these specific subjects.
You can find more information about the programmes at www.census.gov.uk/education
Following the success of our September stakeholder session to present the education programmes, we are holding another information session to provide a closer look at the upcoming resources for both primary and secondary schools. The meeting will also offer an opportunity to ask questions about the programmes.
This information session will be hosted on 10th November at 10am. Send an email to census.education@ons.gov.uk to reserve your space.
- Issue One - September 2019 – featuring how we will work together and testing processes for the 2019 Rehearsal
- Issue Two - February 2020 – featuring the timeline of census activities and preparing for the 2020 workshops
- Issue Three - March 2020 – featuring the 9 strands of partnership working with local authorities and an update on addressing
- Issue Four - April 2020 – featuring regional workshops to prepare you for census
- Issue Five - May 2020 – recruitment update – census engagement managers and community advisers
- Issue Six - June 2020 – featuring an update on addressing, Council Tax, and census jobs
- Issue Seven - July 2020 – featuring addressing workshops, first census vacancies go live, quality assurance of census data, the census education programme, promoting ONS studies, Census Order and Regulations and Council Tax
- Special Bulletin - July 2020 Census workshops Frequently Asked Questions
- Issue Eight - August 2020 – featuring updates on recruitment, census support centres, personalized communications toolkits and the census education programme
- Issue Nine - September 2020 – LA Guide, area profiles, Schools Education Programme, future workshops
Recruitment: Census Jobs
Quality: ONS’s approach and processes for assuring the quality of 2021 Census data
Census 2021 Website: www.census.gov.uk
Census 2021 Questionnaire: paper questionnaires are now available to view online
Census Order and Regulations for England and Wales:
Census (England and Wales) Order 2020.
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