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Census is almost here, and the March supply date for Council Tax is fast approaching too!
Eighty-six per cent of local authorities in England and Wales have agreed to supply Council Tax data. This is a great achievement and will go a long way to support census as well as other statistics produced by ONS. If your council has not yet agreed, please get in touch so we can get as near to one hundred per cent as possible!
An accurate and detailed census will inform lots of things, including:
- Population and housing stock estimates that contribute towards planning, policy decisions and the pandemic response
- Planning and services at a local authority level
- Building the historical record that will be used by historians in the future.
- Ensuring that everyone is represented equally in decision making
Council Tax will be used to quality assure the 2021 Census and as such will be contributing to all of the above.
If your authority is not supplying, please email council.tax@ons.gov.uk
All residents of England and Wales should be enumerated at their usual resident address. This is often their permanent or family home. As in previous censuses, students will be enumerated at both their usual term-time address, and their usual out of term address if these are different.
The current lockdown restrictions, initiated in early January and expected to last until 8th March at the earliest, are very likely to mean that a high proportion of students who returned home for the Christmas holidays will not have returned to their term time address before Census day.
Enumerating students at their term time address is a key user need and maintains consistency with the population basis of previous censuses. The information informs funding decisions on things like university campus bus links and bike lanes, jobs and training.
We will send a letter containing an individual access code to students who remain at their term-time address. This code will let them access their census questionnaire online.
We still want to count those students studying remotely (for example at a parental home) at their term-time address. This is vital in ensuring that service planning reflects the ‘normal’ student population in future. We will ask students studying remotely to actively request an access code online so that they can complete the census for their term-time address if they still have one and intend to return (if only to collect their belongings)
Students who do not intend to return to their term-time address at all during the 2020/1 academic year will be counted in full at the address they are resident on census day.
As in previous censuses, for census forms completed at parental addresses, a small number of questions will need to be answered about students who normally live elsewhere during term-time.
Given many students will not be at their term time address, we will be communicating revised guidance to all students. We had always planned a student-specific communications campaign, and this will now include this guidance. The National Statistician has written to all vice-chancellors to ask for their help in sending written pre-pared emails and other material to all students on our behalf. We are also working with the National Union for Students to ensure these messages are widely distributed. A special students webpage - www.census.gov.uk/students - which, together with our online help, will contain all the necessary information for students.
We will aim to enumerate international students studying at universities in England and Wales:
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who are present at the establishment and intend to stay in the UK for 3 months or more,
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who are not currently in the UK but attended in person the Autumn 2020 term, and/or Winter 2021 term, and intend to return this academic year, or before 21 March 2022.
Due to the pandemic there may be more international students in the second group above. As above, we aim to reach these students through messaging cascaded by their universities.
Ensuring accurate data on students
In analysing census data, we will be using other data sources to compare and ensure that we are able to produce as accurate as possible estimates of the student population at both term-time and non term-time locations. This is in addition to our established methods for estimation of, and adjustment for, non-response or overcount.
- The addresses for the census enumeration are being taken from Ordnance Survey’s AddressBase product. Local authorities input into this directly through their Local Land and Property Gazetteer so don’t need to do any different work for the census.
- The list of addresses for the main print run of invitation letters has already been taken and we are in the process of updating this with new/changed addresses from AddressBase Epoch 80. Households identified will also receive a printed invitation letter with Communal Establishments also receiving field visits.
- We are working with GeoPlace (part of Ordnance Survey) to receive new address updates after Epoch 80.
- We won’t be able to print letters for these new cases but will be able to deliver an invitation letter through the field force.
- Working with GeoPlace means we are keen for local authorities to continue to update their LLPG. This is preferable to local authorities providing ONS with address information directly and there being inconsistencies with data formatting.
- Any household or communal establishment which has not received a Census Unique Access Code can use the Census Contact Centre to receive one.
Our intention is to receive a GeoPlace update around mid/late February (probably 24 February) and then mid/late March (probably 29 March). We are currently finalising this with GeoPlace and will confirm shortly. Hence addresses added to the LLPG will still be included in the Census process.
The census TV advert will be hitting our screens for the first time today. Here’s when you’ll be able to see it:
Friday 12 February:
- ITV: Emmerdale
- Channel 4: It’s A Sin
- Channel 4: The Last Leg
Saturday 13 February:
- ITV: The Voice
- Channel 4: Film: Mission Impossible Fallout
Sunday 14 February:
- Channel 4: The Great Pottery Throwdown
We will be writing formally to all Local Authority Chief Executives by the end of February to update them on all the latest issues around the census. We will ensure copies of that letter will be sent to all ACLMs and CLMs.
- Issue Nine - September 2020 – LA Guide, area profiles, Schools Education Programme, future workshops
- Issue Ten - October 2020 – CEMs and the LAPP, LA resources/products, Campaign update, council tax update, schools update
- Special Bulletin - November 2020 Maximising local engagement workshop FAQs
- Issue Eleven - November 2020 – Media toolkits, purple plaques, schools update, QA update, council tax, geography consultation
- Issue Twelve - December 2020 – Population profiles, school update, Council Tax update, Light up Purple
- Issue Thirteen - January 2021 – Students, February workshops, addressing update, website resources
- Issue Fourteen - 5 February – Rough sleepers, trading standards, call centres
Census 2021 Website: www.census.gov.uk
Recruitment: Census Jobs
Quality Assurance: ONS’s approach and processes for assuring the quality of 2021 Census data
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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