2011 UK Census

Over time, efforts were made to begin expanding upon presentation of the pure 'Census in numbers'. This was seen through select online commentary and the series of 'Focus on' reports.

Select Census statistics continued to feature in non-Census specific ONS articles and publications, and the overall richness and value of the Census data was also exploited and demonstrated via third party products.

The online output questionnaire asked users for their views about the need for commentary to support the data for the 2011 Census, asking:

Question Is it important for your work that the Census Offices produce reports which provide analysis and commentary on 2011 Census statistics or are the tables of counts sufficient?

Around half of respondents say that it is important for the Census offices to produce reports which provide analysis and commentary in addition to the census tables, with the other half saying that just the tables of pure counts would be sufficient to meet their needs.

Members of the public, local government, academics and health sector users are more or less evenly split on this issue.

Central government, regional government and the commercial sector are the most likely to say tables of counts on their own will be sufficient.

Third sector users are the most likely to need added analysis and commentary.

If you want commentary, then what commentary do you want?

In the questionnaire, the respondents who want analysis and commentary on census tables were asked which census topics they will most like to see this added analysis for.

The topics most commonly selected are:

• Demographics (70 per cent)
• Households and families (60 per cent)
• Migration (60 per cent)
• Employment and workplace (58 per cent)

Do you want to see added commentary and analysis integrated in with the Census tabular data? If so, then are these broad topics similar to your own needs?

If not then which are?

Either way, perhaps we can move beyond broad topic listings, and hear some specific views about requirements in terms of detailed topic and theme, but also structure, timing and how integrated in with the data these should be.

Perhaps you have used excellent examples of 3rd party products in the past and feel that these will suffice in the future, or perhaps you just have examples of things we should all be considering.

We want to hear all views, so let us know.

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