2011 Census Update

The most recent census of England and Wales took place on 27 March 2011 with a number of new approaches designed to improve census return rates in all areas and with all population groups. These included:

1. wide engagement in the community with the help of local authorities, representatives of target population and accessibility groups and a national publicity campaign

2. post-out of all household questionnaires (around 25 million), based on a newly developed national address register

3. online completion: people were able to complete and submit their answers online or fill in and return the paper questionnaire

4. questionnaire tracking and targeted field follow-up: to identify and follow up households which had not returned a questionnaire

For more information click here to see the ONS Census 2011 Website

What is happening now?

ONS are currently matching the results of the Census Coverage Survey with the Census as a whole. Once this process has been completed, estimates and characteristics of those missed off the census (errors, failure to fill in the form, new houses missed etc) are “imputed” and added to the results. Running along side this will be the Quality Assurance process. This process compares the Census results with administrative data sources such as School Rolls, Council Tax records, GP Patient registers and any results falling outside certain bounds are then checked more rigorously and if necessary, amended.

For more information on the process click here to see the ONS Coverage Survey and Quality Assurance

Release of 2011 Census Data

ONS are adopting a phased release of Census data starting at higher levels of geography and working down to smaller areas. They have only committed to the first date of July 2012, all other dates are indicative and will be confirmed nearer the time.

July 2012 : Local Authority level Age and Sex data, Households.
Late 2012 : COA level and above Univariate and Key Statistics data.
Early 2013 : COA level Multivariate data CAS and CAS Theme
2013 : COA level more detailed tables Standard Tables
2013 : Migration and Travel to Work
2013 : More specialised data , Minority group Tables, Alternative Population Bases

CONTACT: piers.elias@teesvalleyunlimited.gov.uk