FOI Ref: FOI/2022/4358
You asked
Regarding the previously answered FOI/2022/4273, please answer the following questions:
Were the population estimates for Oxford City amended as a result of any of the feedback from that Local Authority (or any other Oxfordshire Local Authority)?
If so, were they increased or decreased? And what was the main reason for the amendment? And what element of the population did the amendment relate to?
Please also provide any correspondence with all of the Oxfordshire Local Authorities relating to the 2021 Census. These include:
- Oxford City Council
- Cherwell District Council
- Vale of White Horse District Council
- South Oxfordshire District Council
- West Oxfordshire District Council
- Oxfordshire County Council
We said
Thank you for your request.
In response to your questions, our paper, 'Maximising the quality of Census 2021 population estimates, published 28 June 2022 alongside the first release, provides details of what changes were made to the census population counts and where. No Oxfordshire Local Authorities are listed.
Concerning the earlier release of data, communal establishment data had inadvertently been included in the household totals. This error was corrected by resupply of the data, resulting in the observation from West Oxfordshire.
Regarding your follow-up FOI request, in order to conduct a comprehensive search to locate all of the requested correspondence with Oxford councils relating to the 2021 Census, we would be required to search for around 10 years' worth of material across a range of staff members, some of whom have moved onto other areas and organisations. This search would need to include their email accounts, personal workspaces, desktops, SharePoint files, databases, as well as archived files to locate every piece of possible correspondence with the Oxfordshire councils. During this process, a substantial amount of material would need to be sifted to locate information in scope.
Once located, this would then need to be extracted and compiled and prepared for release.
The cost limit for responding to FOI requests is £600, which equates to 24 working hours. We believe that this limit would be exceeded by actioning this request.
We would recommend narrowing the scope of your request so we can answer within this limit. This can be done by reducing the time limit of your request to cover correspondence with Oxfordshire councils during the Quality Assurance process only.
Once we have received your tailored request, we will be happy to assist with your request.