You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following information:
1. As a percentage, the number of census papers received by your organisation or somebody collecting census results on your behalf, that were 'spoilt'. This being in the UK for the 2011 census?
2. The number of people reported for criminal offences relating to the census in 2011?
3. The number of people successfully prosecuted for criminal offences relating to the census in 2011?
4. As a percentage, the number of census papers received by your organisation or somebody collecting census results on your behalf, that were 'spoilt'. This being in the UK for the 2001 census?
5. The number of people reported for criminal offences relating to the census in 2001?
6. The number of people successfully prosecuted for criminal offences relating to the census in 2001?
7. The total cost in monetary terms of the 2011 census?
8. The total cost in monetary terms of the 2001 census?
9. As this would have been subject to a policy decision, a copy of any reports and decision notice, setting-out the justification in adding the 'voluntary' questions to the current 2021 census?
10. The total cost to date in monetary terms, for the current UK 2021 census?
We said
Thank you for your request. Please see the following answers to your questions.
1. As a percentage, the number of census papers received by your organisation or somebody collecting census results on your behalf, that were 'spoilt'. This being in the UK for the 2011 census?
We are responsible for the conduct of the 2011 Census in England and Wales. We have not reported on 'spoilt' census papers.
Processing of 2011 Census questionnaires began by scanning questionnaires and capturing the data. Accuracy rates were used to report on the quality of captured data and were measured against a set of targets as the percentage of passes out of the total number of cases sampled. All targets for data capture accuracy were exceeded and broadly in line with achieved accuracy rates for 2001 Census.
As part of the data capture process, a person record was created each time at least one mark was detected in any of the person questions. However, these records could be created in error if, for example: there was dust on the scanners that was incorrectly interpreted as a mark; or where respondents crossed through whole pages of the questionnaire as not being relevant. A process was developed to identify genuine person records based on analysis of 2001 Census to establish combinations of key variables that were most often present on genuine responses.
For a person record to be counted as a genuine response and kept in the data the following information had to be present on the record:
name (from individual questions or household members table) or date of birth, and
at least one other item, different from the above filter, from: name (from individual questions), date of birth, sex, marital status, or name (from household members table)
If a person record did not meet these requirements, then it was considered to be a false person and was flagged as an invalid person record.
The removal of false persons process removed a total of 982,400 person records (1.8 per cent), compared with the removal of 3,297,800 person records (6.3 per cent) in the 2001 Census. It should be noted, however, that a large proportion of the false person records identified in the 2001 Census had been created by processing errors rather than respondent errors: marks on forms that were the result of printing quality and handling, as well as dust settling on the scanners, had been captured as responses. Fewer records had to be removed in the 2011 Census because of improvements in the processing as a result of the lessons learned from 2001, and because a modification to the rule used to identify false persons minimised the number of genuine responses removed.
Further information about the 2011 Census data processing is available in Chapter 5 of the 2011 Census General Report.
2. The number of people reported for criminal offences relating to the census in 2011?
3. The number of people successfully prosecuted for criminal offences relating to the census in 2011?
As a result of non-completion of the 2011 Census form, the Crown Prosecution Service took 286 cases to Court; 270 of these cases resulted in guilty convictions. Further information about non-compliance and prosecutions following the 2011 census can be found in chapter 3 of the 2011 Census General Report.
4. As a percentage, the number of census papers received by your organisation or somebody collecting census results on your behalf, that were 'spoilt'. This being in the UK for the 2001 census?
We are responsible for the conduct of the 2011 Census in England and Wales. We have not reported on 'spoilt' census papers.
Processing of 2011 Census questionnaires began by scanning questionnaires and capturing the data. All quality standards were met or exceeded. Within the 11-month period between July 2001 and May 2002, 24.1 million forms were processed for England and Wales. This amounted to some 18.5 billion tickboxes and 6.1 billion characters captured. Of these some 207 million tick boxes (1 per cent) and 1.1 billion characters (17 per cent) were sent to keyers for manual correction. More details on quality standards are included in the 2001 Census Quality Report.
The Load process aimed to check and ensure that data received was of the correct format and structure, including ensuring data specifications were met and were within valid ranges, removing respondent error and removing duplicate records within households and non-existent people.
Some forms were rejected by Load, either because the form identity was invalid for the area, was not on the geography address table and no address record had been supplied. Within this process, it was not possible to correct all forms and there were 1,600 Households and 50 Communal Establishments, containing 2.400 people that were rejected and not processed.
Manual checks on the data revealed that some people had entered themselves on a Census form more than once, and on occasions up to five times. Even where the extra people had been crossed out, the automatic nature of data capture meant that the details were captured leading to duplicate record identities. 42,800 people, or 0.9 per cent of supplied records were removed through comparison of birth, sex and records with similar names (allowing for mis-spellings or capture errors) within a household.
The 1999 Census rehearsal had shown a problem with non-existent people being created, adding 8 per cent to the population count due to
- Marks on the form caused by quality of printing and handling which the recognition software detected as a tick, including through dust settling through scanners
- The form filler crossing out pages that did not apply or that household. Lines going through response boxes were detected by the recognition software as a tick, and respondents writing N/A or similar in the name field were captured.
A rule was devised to remove as many 'false people' as possible while minimising the risk of removing real people. For a person to be accepted, either name or date of birth and at least one other of name, date of birth, sex and marital status had to be supplied. 3, 297,800 records (6.3 per cent) failed the '2 of 4' rule in England and Wales. Further information is available in Chapter 2 of the 2001 Census Quality Report.
5. The number of people reported for criminal offences relating to the census in 2001?
6. The number of people successfully prosecuted for criminal offences relating to the census in 2001?
As a result of non-completion of 2001 Census forms, 92 cases were submitted to solicitors and summonses issued in 80, with 38 prosecutions achieved. Further information is available in Chapter 4 of the 2001 General Report.
7. The total cost in monetary terms of the 2011 census?
The cost of the 2011 Census over the 12-year planning and operational period was £478 million. This was £4 million less than the budgeted figure of £482 million that was estimated in 2008 in the Government's White Paper. Further information on the breakdown of total cost into its component elements is available in Chapter 2 of the 2011 Census General Report.
8. The total cost in monetary terms of the 2001 census?
The total cost of the 2001 Census was £207 million. Further information on 2001 Census costs by component of activity is available in Chapter 3 of the 2001 Census General Report.
9. As this would have been subject to a policy decision, a copy of any reports and decision notice, setting-out the justification in adding the 'voluntary' questions to the current 2021 census?
The voluntary questions on religion, gender identity and sexual orientation were recommended by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for inclusion in Census 2021 after an extensive programme of research, consultation and engagement over three years, prior to being published in the Government's 2018 White Paper 'Help Shape our Future: The 2021 Census of Population and Housing in England and Wales
Further information on our question development and research that led to our recommendations on inclusion of these topics are available on the ONS website for sexual orientation, gender identity and religion.
The topics and questions for Census 2021 were set in law in early 2020 through the Census Order and Census Regulations. The ONS census legislation and policy webpage provides further details and links to the legislation. The final questions were included in the Census Regulations which were signed by the relevant UK Government Minister in relation to England and Welsh Government Minister in relation to Wales, and laid before the respective parliaments.
10. The total cost to date in monetary terms, for the current UK 2021 census?
ONS is responsible for the conduct of the Census in England and Wales. The Census is part of a bigger modernisation programme in the Office for National Statistics which will bring controlled online access to ONS's data collections, and which will integrate other sources of data with ONS survey data to create new insights and new and quicker ways of sharing statistics.
This modernisation is happening over an 11-year period, improving the way ONS collects, processes and shares its statistics. The cost of this modernisation, including all costs for the 2021 Census, over the 11 period is around £900 million - less than £1.50 per person (in England and Wales) a year over 11 years.