ONS are currently undertaking research on potential replacements for the conventional census in 2021. Although that seems a very long way off, recommendations need to go before parliament next year and the preparatory work is already well advanced. Based on the series of roadshows run by ONS last autumn, they have not received convincing high-value use cases for small area population attributes.  Arguments such as “they are used to target local services” are not sufficiently robust to stand up to the inevitable financial scrutiny.  A leading option is to derive basic age/sex data from linked administrative records and to use social survey data to obtain the types of population attributes that would previously have been obtained from the census – (ethnicity, LLTI, tenure, car ownership, employment, etc.) This would clearly not deliver small area data of the current quality, if at all.

We are urgently appealing to the research community to have your say: if no case is made, it seems entirely likely that ONS will not be able to include generation of costly small area data as part of the recommended option.  If you can demonstrate high-value research (and ideally high-valued impacts!) based on small area 2001 census data, please mail us – we need to marshall further evidence by the end of February.

Ideally, we are seeking identifiable research with an estimate of value and impact and/or an indication of why it could not be done without high quality small area data.  If you can supply a paper or URL where further details could be pursued, better still.  NB This is about England and Wales, although Scotland and Northern Ireland will be reviewing the same issues in due course.

If you want to find out more about Beyond 2011, see http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/what-we-do/programmes—projects/beyond-2011/index.html  Although there is not a formal consultation currently open, you can also mail them at beyond2011@ons.gsi.gov.uk

St. John The Baptist Church, Ballyrashane, Coleraine, Northern Ireland. © Copyright Bill Daly (used under Creative Commons licence, click image for further details)

And along the way, I’ve spotted some things that have made me think.

Did you know, for instance, that in Northern Ireland, once you have specified what religion you follow now, the Census has no interest further interest in your beliefs?

Unless, that is, you are of no religion now, in which case you have to answer the follow up question about what religion you were brought up in.

This means that the census will be able to show if you were brought up Catholic and now don’t follow any religion, but not if you were brought up Catholic and then became a Methodist or even a Buddhist. That strikes me as a bit of an assumption that you’ve always followed the beliefs you hold now.

And then there’s sex.

Straightforward? Well, maybe not. The ONS have not (so far) defined this category beyond “Classification of person to either male or female.” (from the 2001 definitions).

NISRA, on the other hand, have (for the 2011 census) published a definition which includes information for people who are transgendered:

“Transgender and transsexual individuals were asked to select the option which they identified themselves as, irrespective of details on birth certificate and with no requirement for a Gender Recognition Certificate.”

(The Gender Recognition Act didn’t exist when the 2001 census happened – Wikipedia link)

I wonder whether in previous censuses (and maybe even in England and Wales for 2011) there has been a presumption that this question should be answered according to what is stated on the birth certificate and how this impacted on the people for whom this is relevant.

I shall continue to keep my eye open for any quirky or unusual items and report back when I find them…

Update: Since I filed this blog entry this morning, I’ve discovered a couple of extra relevant things:

• Scotland’s guidance to people filling out the census also included similarly-worded advice to NISRA:
  “I am transgender or transsexual. Which option should I select?
  If you are transgender or transsexual, please select the option for the sex that you identify yourself as. You can select either ‘male’ or ‘female’, whichever you believe is correct, irrespective of the details recorded on your birth certificate. You do not need to have a Gender Recognition Certificate.”
  (from their notes attached to Individual Question 1)
• While I have (so far) been unable to find any similar advice or definition from the ONS, I did find this interesting paper discussing ‘Trans Data’

We plan on putting this data in our new interface InFuse, but in the mean time you can find the data on our website at:

• 2011 Census data

We have reformatted the data to make it easier to import into statistical packages, this is available in .csv and .xls format. In addition, we have also included the original data and definitions file supplied by the Office for National Statistics and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.

Once we have processed the data we will be inserting it into InFuse.

What is InFuse?

Our new web interface, InFuse, exploits the full potential of the Census. It gives users a simple, intuitive search across entire census datasets, and the integration of data and metadata helps them to understand and explore the data more effectively. Instead of hunting through lots of individual tables, you can easily find out if the data you seek exists. InFuse already contains 2001 census data, and we are now working on including 2011 as well as past censuses.

Boundary Data

We have also uploaded a whole set of 2011 census boundary data. This was supplied to us form the Office for National Statistics in Shapefile format. We have converted the data into other formats such as MapInfo, and KML for England and Wales. The official Northern Ireland boundary data is not covered under the Open Government licence, so we cannot make it openly available, but we will be releasing an alternative version.

• Take a look at our 2011 Boundary Data Page

We have also started integrating the census data with the boundary data, and this page will grow in the coming weeks:

• Integrated census and boundary data

UKBORDERS will provide access to the official Northern Ireland boundary data (as well as the other boundaries)

Documentation

It is often useful to refer to further documentation when you are using census data:

• Census Definitions
• Questions
• Quality Assurance

What’s Next?

We will continue updating these pages as more data and documentation becomes available. In particular we will be working on getting the 2011 census data into InFuse and integrating the census and boundary data.

The CDU has acquired a set of digital boundaries to release with its 2011 Census data release.

2011 Boundary Data at the CDU

The Office for National Statistics very kindly supplied us with a set of its official ONS/Ordnance Survey

We have acquired data at the following geographical levels for England and Wales -

• Country
• County
• County/UA (Unitary Authority)
•  Region (GOR) in England
• Local Authority District (includes Districts and UAs)

These are all boundaries in place as of December 23rd 2010.

By amalgamating some of the boundaries we have created the following additional datasets -

• England and Wales as one entity
• Counties of England
• Counties, Unitary Authorities and Metropolitan Counties (including Inner and Outer London) of England and Wales

We created the County/UA/Metro County level dataset as we felt that the existing County/UA dataset was a bit muddled,  as it included the districts that made up Metropolitan Counties, but not the Metro Counties themselves. The Metropolitan Counties were not included in the County level dataset so we needed to find a home for them and the districts (along with UAs) had a home in the LAD level boundaries.  As we have data for Inner and Outer London, we have also amalgamated the districts that form these two entities and included them in this level of boundary data as well.

2011 Boundary Data at the CDU

Persons present in private households:
Residents in households by age (includes absent children and those who died before the Census)

Example 1971 census question

As the table was named Persons present – I did wonder if it meant bodies that were present in houses on census night (only for a moment). But that obviously doesn’t take into account of the absent children.

When looking at the table itself you can see there is a column named “Children ever born to married women” which includes the absent and dead children. So “those who have died” only relates to children born to married mothers who have later died.

It’s sometimes necessary to take a look at these documents to clarify the definitions and the wording of the question. We also have the original definitions and census forms on the CDU website. For 1971 they can be found at: http://cdu.mimas.ac.uk/1971/1971_documentation.htm

As part of the work we’ve been doing in developing the InFuse application, we’ve been integrating the metadata and data. So far we’ve

done this for 2001 census data – but we will be extending this work to earlier censuses, as well as preparing for the 2011 data!

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/the-2011-census/census-consultations/planned-events/index.html

Lots of interesting information, they will continue to use the 2011 Census prospectus to disseminate information. The Geography prospectus will be published 31May 2012.

We found the event very useful, and learnt new thing such as they will be producing data for one type if ward this time (as opposed to the distinction between CAS and ST Wards in the 2001 census). There was a fair amount of discussion concerning comparability – and that’s something we’re very interested in the CDU. We also, did an unplanned demo of our census interface InFuse – and received good feedback concerning this.

This includes the release plans for 2011 census aggregate statistics for England and Wales:

• First release July 2012: Age and sex, and occupied households estimates for England and for Wales
• Second release November 2012 – February 2013: Key and Quick statistics
• Third release March 2013 – June 2013: Local Characteristics
• Fourth release July 2013 – October 2013: Detailed Characteristics, Detailed Theme and Armed Forces

See the The 2011 Census Prospectus for further information

A long time ago, when we first got our hands on 2001 Census data we had to reject a number of tables as we found problems with them. The Office for National Statistics and the other NSIs (GROS & NISRA) also pulled some tables as they were found to be potentially disclosive or had some other issues with them that required more processing before they could be released.

Although these ‘missing tables’ have been worked on and published for quite some time now, the CDU has been unable to schedule any time to fomat them and put them into our database, we seem to be too busy going forward to look back. However, we managed to find the time and some extra resources to carry out the data collation and so are just about to release an extra 55 tables of data from the Key Statistics, Census Area Statistics and Standard Tables Datasets.

These tables are for England and Wales only, we shall be working on the tables for Scotland and Northern Ireland next.

There are some very interesting topics in these ‘new’ tables such as Migration, Same-Sex Couples, Distance Travelled to Work and Workplace Populations.

The full list of tables -

KS024 Migration

TT015 Welsh Language

TT034 Migration (Households)

CS005 Age of Household Reference Person by Sex and Living Arrangements

CS007 Age of Family Reference Person and Number and Age of Dependent Children by Family Type

CS008 Resident Type and Age by Migration

CS009 Age of Household Reference Person and Number of Children by Migration of Households

CS010 Household Composition by Migration of Households

CS014 Age and Dependent Children by Household Type (Adults)

CS015 Country of Birth by Sex

CS018 Sex, Amenities and Central Heating by General Health and Limiting Long Term Illness

CS022 Sex and Number of Cars or Vans in Household by General Health and Limiting Long Term Illness

CS024 Sex, Age and Limiting Long Term Illness by NS-Sec

CS028 Sex and Age by Economic Activity

CS031 Family Composition and Number of Dependents by Economic Activity

CS036 Sex and Industry by Age

CS037 Former Industry by Age

CS054 Shared/Unshared Dwelling, Central Heating and Occupancy Rating by Age

CS057 Tenure and Lowest Floor Level by Household Comparison

CS062 Household Composition by Number of Cars or Vans Available

CS063 Economic Activity and Age of Full Time Students by Household Type

CS064 HHs with Full Time Students Away from Home And Age of Student by Number of Students

CS065 Sex and Age by General Health and Limiting Long Term Illness

CS120 Sex and Age by Distance Travelled to Work

CS121 Sex and Distance Travelled to Work by Method of Travel to Work

CS126 Type of Communal Establishment by Resident Type and Sex

CS133 Sex and Age by Knowledge of Welsh

CS145 Type of Communal Establishment by Knowledge of Welsh

CS146 Sex and Age by Ability to Speak Welsh

CS147 Type of Communal Establishment by Ability to Speak Welsh

CT002 Theme Table on people Aged 50 or Over

CT006 Theme Table on Welsh Language

CT009 Theme Table on Ability to Speak Welsh

UV001  Population

UV002 Population Density

UV023 Migration (People)

UV029 Economic Activity – Full-Time Students

UV035 Distance Travelled to Work

UV037 Method of Travel to Work – Daytime Population

UV039 Method of Travel to Work – Resident Population

UV045 Tenure – Pensioners

UV052 Migration – Households

UV055 Dwellings

UV070 Communal Establishments

UV071 Communal Establishment Residents

UV073 Communal Establishments – People

UV076 NS-Sec – Workplace Population

UV078 Approximated Social Grade – Workplace Population

UV080 Distance Travelled to Work – Workplace Population

UV082 Living arrangements

UV093 Same-Sex Couples

You can access these tables in Casweb - shortly they will also be available in InFuse

• Manchester 17 April
• York 18 April
• London 19 April
• Birmingham 25 April
• Newport 26 April
• London 27 April