General points:

The RSS would stress the importance of the Census in providing more than just national figures;  its value and use depends on a key feature – the ability to provide highly disaggregated  figures (often for small geographies) that also permit the joint analysis of a range of variables.  The Census is also resource that is in constant use as a key information source throughout the ten year inter-censal period.  Census outputs take two key forms – highly detailed cross-tabulations for separate locations of interest and anonymised micro-data.  Both forms of output must be available, not just to government, but to a much wider user constituency.  (In addition there is a third form of output in the longitudinal study.) The current outputs are available to a huge constituency of users outside government and provide enormous economic benefits.  If the current Census is to be replaced by something that combines administrative data at the personal level then the issues of access for this wider constituency need to be addressed as an integral aspect of the evaluation.

The RSS supports the “Beyond 2011” project and agrees that it is right to investigate whether an alternative to the traditional Census would prove advantageous. Nevertheless the traditional census provides a huge range of information. As well as providing the most vital facts about society at local and national level, this is a crucial underpinning of large parts of the evidence base for government, both central and local, for the NHS, and for business and researchers. It is a major foundation block of the UK’s information system both in respect of the uniquely detailed information it provides and also as it is the benchmark on which numerous sample surveys are founded and against which they are calibrated. We believe it provides substantial value for money.

Thus it is crucial that alternatives are fully and properly explored. While it would clearly be desirable to find a lower cost method to replace the census, it would be a false economy to reduce costs if this resulted in overall much lower information content.  The current ONS "Beyond 2011" programme of research is to be welcomed as a means of establishing as clear as possible a picture of the genuine potential for assembling a viable census replacement system.  It is anticipated that any such system will need to comprise a combination of administrative and survey sources, the latter required to address important variables which are not collected in any comprehensive administrative systems.

The work of the ONS covers England and Wales. Separate studies are under way in respect of Scotland and Northern Ireland. It would be a major concern if there were substantial differences in the systems adopted for the different parts of the UK.

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