2011 UK Census

I attended the London Census outputs roadshow in October and brought up the
question of errors in tenure entries in the 2001 census, whereby
particularly tenants of housing associations receiving stock transferred
from local authorities were confused about their landlord and gave wrong
answers. I was shown questionnaire changes which will help to limit these
errors, but suggested also the use of NROSH (the National Register of
Social Housing) to check entries via postcode or maybe even NLPG UPRN. The
administration of NROSH is now the responsibility of the Tenant Services
Authority. I have discussed this with Paul Askew, who leads the section
for NROSH, and learned that they are willing to talk about it. The
contacts there are Paul (ku.vog.xsg.ast|weksA.luaP#ku.vog.xsg.ast|weksA.luaP) and Amanda Hall (
ku.vog.xsg.ast|llaH.adnamA#ku.vog.xsg.ast|llaH.adnamA).

I found the roadshow most useful. As there are several themes to the consultation as a whole, would it be possible to publish a summary timetable for the various subjects to be included? I wouldn't want to miss any deadlines.

Post your thoughts and questions here.

The roadshow schedule for the Autumn consultation events is:

Tuesday 13 October - London
Civil Service Club, 13-15 Great Scotland Yard, London SW1A 2HJ

Wednesday 14 October - Wales
Cardiff Marriott Hotel, Mill Lane, Cardiff, Wales CF10 1EX

Monday 19 October - Gateshead
Newcastle Marriott Metrocentre, Marconi Way, Gateshead NE11 9XF

Tuesday 20 October - Manchester
Manchester Malmaison, 1-3 Piccadilly, Manchester M1 1LZ

Wednesday 21 October - London
Civil Service Club, 13-15 Great Scotland Yard, London SW1

Monday 22 October - Leicester
Marriot Hotel, Smith Way, Grovepark, Enderby, LE19 1SW

See more details about the events, and how to register here.

I think in general at sometime or other all of these will be needed.

The only extra I can think of is similar comparisons and metadata for geographic changes. As OA's are not constant, i.e. some will be split or merged (< 5%) information to identify these will be required. Indeed being able to select these, may even be required as they will potentially be the areas of greatest change.

Thanks for the enquiry. If you are referring to digital boundary files for Output Areas and other closely related areas, as detailed in the 2011 Census Product catalogue http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/product_boun_oa_mid_mif.asp then these are available from ONS Geography free of charge using the form and contact details given at http://www.ons.gov.uk/about-statistics/geography/products/boundaries/index.htm.

There are prerequisites for the supply of boundaries for other geographies as detailed on the ONS Geography website.

I am told by a friend that he was looking at the ONS site recently and apparently they don't do any digital boundary data any more, and you are redirected to Geoplan - http://www.geoplan.com/Mapping_Solutions/GIS_Mapping_Data/Output_Areas - whose price for the output area boundaries is £600.

Is this true, will COA boundaries be charged for?

It was originally planned to time the census to avoid this. Since the date was set however, I have heard that it will still get some students at term-time and some at vacation. I don't think it was for lack of trying by the census agencies.

I need to determine an accurate population at a small geographical level, which places students at their vacation address (i.e. location of domicile). This data is used to calculate participation in Higher Education. Using population data which places students at their term-time address distorts the participation rates because areas with a high density of student accommodation will have the participation rate underestimated, as the number of students domiciled in the area is lower than the number of students resident in term-time in the area. A good example of this is Aberystwyth, which is a small seaside town with a University, there are a high number of students in term-time, but a low number of students domiciled there. Possible ways of overcoming this problem might be by producing a small number of tables using a population base where students are placed at their vacation address, or some other way using the second address field?

Calculating participation rates is likely to become an area of increased focus for government departments, and I would like to be able to calculate more accurate participation rates. It is possible to determine from Census 2001 data the exact number of students whose term-time and home addresses are different, enumerated at their home address, but it is not possible to cross reference this data with all students enumerated at their term-time address in order to identify which students to remove, therefore the number of students to be removed must be estimated from available data.

I have raised this on several occasions and have no idea how or if this might be addressed in the 2011 Census.

Initial thoughts;

I would sugest the addition of SARS as a topic and to split the geography section into statistical and administrative. Not sure what you intend to include under "special data products"

The section on SDC is welcome, but the implications of it may need to be included in the "understanding" section as well.

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taking all the different published breakdowns and averaging the totals sounds like a lot of work to get a more unbiased result. But the proposed licencing and access arrangments should improve things considerably. I'm hoping to further develop a bit of MapBasic software to batch generate self containment convex hulls, derived from 'Range Manager' http://solutionsgroup.tripod.com/rangeman.htm but adapted , maybe renamed as 'Migrations Mapper' or something.

I would also add that whilst the OA to OA has issues when used with very small counts that it does have uses. It is especially valuable if then being aggregated to higher levels of geography where this disturbance is then minimised.

In 2011 this is worth remembering when whatever arrangements are put into place, otherwise a useful dataset may lose it's value if access is unduely restricted.

The small cell adjustment (SCA) method was used to protect the confidentiality of individual respondents in 2001 Census data and does have significant effects on the utility of some tables.

The origin destination tables, especially at low geographies, will be greatly affected.

The method itself should be unbiased, so that a total of 50 people travelling from OA1 to OA2 would have an expected value of 50, but there is significant variation between the published total (which is a sum of protected counts) either above or below the unperturbed total.

The variation can be seen for OA to OA counts broken down by different variables. For example, using a breakdown by age and sex could give a total of 25, a breakdown by economic activity could give a total of 33. By taking all the different published breakdowns and averaging the totals, one gets a still unbiased estimate and with far less variability from the unprotected count.

For the 2011 Census, we have already proposed that origin destination tables at low geographies are protected not by SDC methods, but by licensing and access arrangements. The precise details of this approach have not yet been finalised.

Originally posted by BLine 3 Mar 2009.

We try to use the detailed OA to OA origin :destination tables to estimate 'self containment ' patterns for migrations and travel to work patterns, to help in identifying funcitonal housing market areas. At this scale pretty well every cell is '3', which potentialy causes a lot of distortion. Common sense would suggest that longer distance moves/commutes are likely to be smaller numbers.

But if changing the disclosure rules looks like an unwinnable battle, what would help is some work to show how much distortion it actually does cause. I've experimented by changing all '3' cells to 1 or 2, to see the effect, and it is noticeable. But a check against the real numbers at different distances could perhaps give an average variation that could be applied.

Admin note: Comment content moved to the disclosure control comments section here.

Thanks for your comments Hywel. Your point is well made and appreciated, and in future we plan to avoid any use of the 3-D stuff and keep a better balance of statistical graphical presentation vs colourful web pictures.

The past graphs should also be replaced gradually with traditional flat versions

Sorry to make a rather negative comment with my first posting but 3-d charts are far from best statistical practice (and are one of my pet hates). Using them here does not set a good example.

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