The future of the census
Our Policy Officer Seán Hutton on why we hope the three census authorities streamline their questionnaires so that we can continue to represent Irish communities in specific matters.
Irish in Britain has attached great importance to data deriving from the Census, which is why (as the Federation of Irish Societies) we campaigned hard and successfully to have an Irish category included the Ethnic Group Question in the 2001 Census, and why, since then, we have campaigned to get those qualified to do so to ‘Tick the Irish box’. Irish in Britain uses census data widely in our representation and advocacy work and we encourage our affiliates to do likewise.
In their most recent communication the ONS have pointed out that the Census is a vital source of information for local and central government. They use it for things like deciding where to allocate funding.
This article concerns the decennial Census in England and Wales. While the three Census authorities in the United Kingdom work closely together, there continue to be slight differences in the forms of the Census questionnaires between those for England and Wales and those carried out in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Since 2010 there has been a lively debate on the cost and the structure of the Census as we knew it. The 2011 Census was carried out as a paper–based census, but the 2021 Census will be carried out as an online census. Organisations in the voluntary sector have stressed the difficulty which this will create for those with literacy deficiencies, and the government has stated that care will need to be taken to support those who are unable to complete the census on line. In the 2011 Census there was an online completion option but only 16% of those who completed the questionnaire chose that option.
In its initial assessment of user requirements for Census 2021, the Office for National Statistics, in May 2016, identified ‘Ethnic group’ as “one of the highest operational requirements”. Also, the current thinking of the ONS is that there will be minimal change between the questions asked in the 2011 Census and those proposed for that of 2021, although a very small number of prospective new questions are being tested. This was confirmed in a subsequent meeting of the ONS Census Advisory Committee. The maximum continuity and comparability between censuses are valued by the ONS and many census users.
For those who are arguing for a new and more frequent population count, the historical 10–year gap between Censuses is regarded as a weakness.
In the lead–up to the 2021 Census, a major program of research is being carried out to see to what extent administrative data (such as that collected as a matter of course by government departments) and data from other surveys, can be used as a reliable substitute for the data collected heretofore by means of the census questionnaire. The result of this research will have a bearing on the decision as to what form the successor to the 2021 Census will take.
Tests are being currently carried out as part of the ONS’s strategy for delivering a successful Census 2021 in England and Wales. These tests will involve 100,000 randomly–selected households under the following authorities: Blackpool Borough Council, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, Powys County Council, Sheffield City Council, South Somerset District Council, Southwark Council, West Dorset District Council. These areas have been chosen, the ONS explains, for the following reasons:
These areas will provide a mix of rural and urban locations,
Some of the areas will have a substantial student population (a category considered hard to enumerate),
The areas will have a range of broadband coverage (remember that this census will aim, for the first time, to be a largely online census),
The areas chosen also include concentrations of ethnic groups and multilingual areas.
In the Isle of Wight, also, ONS will be testing an assisted digital device, designed to assist people fill in the Census form on line, involving 8,000 households.
These tests are designed to assist ONS to make sure that the 2021 Census will run as smoothly as possible.
In mid–2018 a Census White Paper, which will contain the proposed topics for inclusion in the in the 2021 Census questionnaire, will be published; and in Spring 2019 there will be a Census Rehearsal of the near–final 2021 Census design. In 2019 the finalised Census questionnaire will also be considered by Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales.
Following the Census of 2021, the process of considering what will succeed it will begin. In the meantime, technological advances, already impacting on how the census will be collected and processed, may influence the outcomes.
Given the purposes for which Census data has been used in relation to equalities and allocation of resources at national and local levels, it can be frustrating to realise the numbers of people of Irish heritage with entitlement to ‘Tick the Irish box’ chose not to do so. ‘Passport’ is one of the categories included in the Census and, as Brexit kicks in and as those with various degrees of Irish ancestry apply for Irish passports, we can look forward to Census 2021 with interest, to see what the impact of Brexit on Irish identities in Britain may be.