Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)
MS KAREN
DUNNELL, MS
JIL MATHESON
AND SIR
MICHAEL SCHOLAR
28 JANUARY 2008
Q200 John McFall: Do you agree with
the Statistics Commission argument that the debate about the future
of population counts should not be limited to professional statisticians
because of the major political and financial considerations involved?
Ms Dunnell: Yes, I do. At the
end of the day, I think government departments and other users
will want to depend on National Statistics which has the stamp
of quality but, as with all our work, we work very widely with
other producers and users and academics and local authorities
and so on, and they are a very important part of developing the
best methods that we can possibly have. So yes, we are very comfortable
with that.
John McFall: What a magnanimous approach!
Q201 Nick Ainger: Ms Dunnell, the
European Commission carried out a survey in all 27 EU countries
in spring of last year about the level of public support for official
statistics. The Scandinavian countries seemed to come top. We
were 27th out of 27. Does that concern you?
Ms Dunnell: It does, indeed. Yes,
it does.
Q202 Nick Ainger: Bearing in mind
the answers you have just given to our Chairman, John McFall,
surely the lesson to be learned from that is that the Scandinavian
system seems to have the confidence of the people who want to
use the statistics. Should you not be moving rapidly to using
their method of counting the population rather than persisting
with a system which seems to be getting more and more difficult
to be effective because of changes in population, changing housing
arrangements, all that sort of thing? Should we now actually accept
that the census has had its day and we should now be looking at
different systems of counting the population?
Ms Dunnell: Yes, we are looking
at different systems. What you are talking about, I think, is
the method that some Scandinavian countries use of using their
population register instead of a census. They use it for their
census and also for their population estimates. We are pursuing
ideas around whether we can create registers for statistics from
the existing registers that we have but the first thing to say
is that there are several registers in the UK, none of them actually
do the job adequately, and also we believe that to have a really
reliable register for this purpose you need to have some legal
backing to it. For example, in Scandinavian countries the population
are legally bound to report changes of address every time they
leave, and we do not have any administrative systems in this country
which require that as a matter of law. It really would be a question
of having a new kind of legislative framework for this but also,
of course, changing the culture of our population. So yes, if
a population register could be made to work properly, we would
be the first people to be accessing it.
Q203 Nick Ainger: If you are going
to wait for legislation to come along to do that, surely you should
be making the case in order to have statistics which we can have
confidence in, that are accurate and, for example, local government
and our health service is confident that the information on which
they receive their resources is accurate, or we are not going
to get anywhere. We will just be having this debate going round
and round. Surely a decision should be taken that the traditional
census has had its day and we should now be moving on to something
quite different.
Ms Dunnell: Yes, except that we
have done an awful lot of work with colleagues across government
in the last few years. We had a major part to play in a project
called the Citizen Information Project. This was done in preparation
for the introduction of the national identity card scheme, and
the conclusion of that work, which was a very large piece of work,
was that the national identity card scheme should go ahead on
a voluntary basis and create a register and use existing registers,
in particular the one that is used for National Insurance purposes.
That is the situation that we are in in relation to that. It would
be quite difficult, I think, for the ONS to make a case to Parliament
on its own that something like this was necessary. Maybe that
will change in the future but until we have something which is
actually there and we have a requirement that people change their
address and notify somebody when they leave the country, we are
not very confident that a register will be suitable for the kinds
of purposes that we need to measure the population every year
and have a benchmark every ten years.
Q204 Nick Ainger: Sir Michael, do
you think this should be the first thing which the Statistics
Board should be looking at? At the end of the day, because of
changes in society, because of migration, we have a far more fluid
population than we have had in the past, we have homes in multiple
occupation and so on, and it is very difficult to track population
but because those statistics are so important to the delivery
of modern government, surely a decision needs to be taken that
the traditional census needs to be replaced now with something
quite different. Would that be a priority issue for the Board?
Sir Michael Scholar: I am sure
the Board will want to think very carefully about that. As the
Committee knows very well, to run a census is a very expensive
thing to do and if it is not effective, it is very far from being
a value-for-money exercise. Listening to your questions and Ms
Dunnell's answers, what occurred to me was that you want the best
means of measuring, counting the population which is available.
If it is necessary, if this can be achieved by a Scandinavian
type system and if that requires introducing a mandatory notification
of change of address, it may be that the Statistics Board would
want to grasp this nettle and propose it to Parliament. Whether
the Government of the day would be prepared to introduce such
a measure or ask Parliament to vote for such a measure you will
know better than I, I guess, but until a system which is a clear
improvement on the system we have can be envisaged, I would be
most reluctant to give up the traditional census because, as I
understand it, it is a vital part of the arrangements for making
the best estimate that we are able to make of the size of the
population and its distribution.
Q205 Nick Ainger: Can we move on
to some of the problems which do exist in having a successful
census. The work that was done prior to the 2001 census did not
really flag up any particular problems. I can tell you there was
one that was not flagged up and that was the Welsh tick box, which
did cause very serious problems and I think had a detrimental
effect on the final outcome. You have done some tests in 2007.
Has anything come out of that work, that pilot study, in 2007?
Ms Dunnell: Yes, I think we have
learned a lot from it. Would you mind if I ask Jil Matheson to
answer?
Ms Matheson: We carried out, as
you know, a test in five local authority areas in 2007 and there
will be a dress rehearsal next year and so on before the census
itself. It was an extremely valuable exercise because what it
showed us was several things. One was that the co-operation and
collaboration between ONS and local authorities is vital to a
successful census. That was one of the lessons from 2001 and we
used the test almost to develop case studies of how this co-operation
works. We and the local authorities involved I think have learned
a lot about that and have confirmed the importance of that relationship.
That was one aspect. The second aspect was about some of the process
in that we did, for example, an address check in the five areas
using available address registers plus ourselves checking. That
confirmed that none of the available address registers are up
to the standard that we need for census purposes and that we will
need to build into our planning our own enhancement of the address
base. That was number two. Number three was that actually you
can post out census forms and people will post them back, which
was an important part of the test and will inform the strategy
that we have for 2011. Then, number four, the other aim of the
test was to look in particular at the impact of including a question
on income: did it impact on response rates to the census test?
The answer to that was that response was lower where there was
an income question—not hugely lower but slightly lower where
there was an income question.
Q206 Nick Ainger: You mentioned one
of the issues which was highlighted was the accuracy of the address
register. We have had evidence suggesting that those organisations
which have responsibility for different types of register need
to have their heads banged together to actually produce an accurate
register because otherwise the post-out which you intend to do
is going to be very difficult. We are going to have problems there.
Which are the organisations that need their heads banging together?
Ms Matheson: There are currently
three organisations, who we are talking to directly about what
we are finding and about the evidence about the quality of address
registers. One of course is Ordnance Survey. The second is Royal
Mail and their postcode address file. The third is the Improvement
and Development Agency of local government. Each of them produce
an address register, each of which has for census taking purposes
and population statistics purposes some deficiencies and so we
published last year a report on what we had found in the test
and engaged with them about some of the difficulties. The overall
policy responsibility for banging heads together, to use your
phrase, is with DCLG.
Q207 Nick Ainger: Do you know what
action they are taking? Obviously, unless it is addressed quickly,
we are going to have a major problem in 2011.
Ms Dunnell: They are not taking
any further action. We work with them very closely and last year
they concluded that they could not go any further with it, and
I have confirmed with them prior to this hearing that they have
no further plans to do anything at the moment. So we are moving
ahead, as Jil explained, with our 2011 plans on the basis that
we will check the three available ones with our people on the
ground ahead of the post-out part of the census and we have built
that into our plans. Frankly, it now is too late, I think, for
the census. That is our plan now.
Q208 Nick Ainger: What estimate have
you made that the post-out is going to miss households? Is there
a percentage that you have worked out? Are there going to be some
people, because there is not a really accurate address register,
that are not going to receive a census form?
Ms Dunnell: Our objective of course
is not to have people missing out. Our strategy with the post-out
is to limit post-out to those types of areas where we are confident
it will work and we will not be posting out to areas which we
anticipate will be problematic and of course, our work on the
ground, which we will do as close to census date as we possibly
can, will help us to refine that information. We plan to go into
the census with a complete address register, compiled from the
existing ones and our own work on the ground.
Ms Matheson: If I may just add,
an important part of that is, as I mentioned earlier, the work
with local authorities. An important part of the approach is,
in advance of the census actually sitting down with address lists
with local authorities and getting their local knowledge of particular
things like multiple occupation or new build, which is where some
of the difficulties with the current address products is, so that
we have their local intelligence built into the process before
we actually start posting out or, where we need to, hand delivering
the forms.
Q209 Nick Ainger: Are you not concerned
at being dependent upon the efficiency of local government? I
am sure every Member of Parliament can tell you that every time
they go round knocking on doors with the electoral roll they are
amazed at the number of gaps there are in there. If that is the
basis of the information which is being provided to you, I would
not put too much confidence in that. You have identified that
things are more difficult than they were in the past in terms
of homes in multiple occupation, large new build and so on, significant
proportion in certain areas of a migrant population, and yet you
are proposing to cut the number of enumerators from 71,000 down
to between 45,000 and 50,000 for the 2011 census. Is that based
on budget problems or is it based on some different policy that
you are pursuing?
Ms Dunnell: It is based on a very
detailed analysis of where we think we can actually utilise the
resources that we have for the census in the most value-for-money
way. Jil can describe in a bit more detail how we have come to
this and how we are going to make it work.
Ms Matheson: Part of this was
that in 2001 one of the real difficulties was actually recruiting
all of those enumerators; having people there, ready and willing
to do that kind of work in a concentrated period was a real risk.
That made us think hard about enumerators, what people we need,
and how we effectively use them. Part of the evidence was that
actually enumerators in many cases did not make any contact with
households anyway. They were actually themselves just posting
the forms through letterboxes and, if you remember, in 2001 we
had a post back system so that households completed their forms—a
very successful system—and households posted them back.
So there was not actually that personal contact in many cases.
That plus one of the other things, because for all the reasons
that you have said, we are anticipating that there will be some
areas where enumeration is going to be difficult and there are
going to be some groups where we are going to have to work very
hard to get forms back. We wanted to in a very cost-effective
way be able to use the enumerators that we have, pay them better
than we did in 2001, train them better than we did in 2001 and
use them much more flexibly, together with, depending on the kind
of management information system that we are also developing,
if we do find, almost in real time, pockets of difficulty, we
can send enumerators there. One of the difficulties in 2001 was
that sometimes we did not know there were difficulties until some
time afterwards. That is why the strategy is developing as it
is.
Q210 Nick Ainger: Does that mean,
for example, that in rural areas you are not going to have any
enumerators and that you will be concentrating your resources
in urban areas where there is greater population movement or more
houses in multiple occupation? Is that the way it will work, that
there will be areas that will not have any enumerators or that
there will be but they will be covering far greater numbers? Is
that the way it would work?
Ms Matheson: Probably the latter,
although I am not sure it will always match that it will be urban
versus rural. It is not altogether that simple. For example, one
of the groups that you missed out when you were talking earlier
about difficulties are some of the gated communities that are
growing up. It is actually harder for an enumerator to make contact
than it is for a postal worker to be able to deliver a form. The
other part of it is that there will be contact centres and anybody
who wants an enumerator or needs some help in filling in the form
will be able to either get that help or ask for a visit.
Q211 Nick Ainger: Coming back to
what happened in 2001 and the Welsh tick box, where there was
a campaign for people not to complete the form, there appears
to be a growing issue around the possibility of Lockheed Martin,
an American company, obviously, having links with the intelligence
services there. There appears to be a groundswell around, if they
were successful in having the contract, not to complete the census
form. Have you any comments on that?
Ms Dunnell: It is obviously something
that we are spending quite a lot of time thinking about. Lockheed
Martin of course did play quite a considerable role in the census
of 2001, very, very successfully. They also carry out the US census
or large parts of it and also had a contract to do a lot of work
on the Canadian census. We do have to be very sensitive, as you
say, because the census becomes a very public issue around the
time of it. We do have to be very sensitive to that but at the
moment the procurement process is still under way and we have
not made any final decisions about who we will award the contract
to.
Q212 Nick Ainger: I think the worry
is that there is now new legislation in the United States, the
Patriot Act, which would possibly require Lockheed Martin to actually
provide information which they have gained through the UK census
to the United States authorities. I think that is where people
are now getting concerned, because it is a different legislative
framework.
Ms Dunnell: We are having lots
of legal discussions. Would you like to say a bit more about that,
Jil, where we are on the Patriot Act.
Ms Matheson: Yes, we are aware
of the Patriot Act of course and have discussed the Patriot Act
with both the potential suppliers. We are in a procurement phase
at the moment so I do not want to say too much more about that
but we have had discussions with them and we are taking legal
advice with a view to making sure that the commitment we give
to census form fillers is one that we can abide by, that is, that
the data are kept confidential and secure for 100 years.
Q213 Mr Love: There is growing evidence
from electoral registration surveys of an increasing resistance
among some groups, particularly in deprived urban areas, to respond
to the questions, the very simple questions, that are asked. How
do we make the census user-friendly for hard-to-reach groups?
Ms Dunnell: This is a very important
question. One of the things that we are spending a lot of time
on at the moment, as we have already emphasised, is working closely
with local authorities and that means identifying particular groups
within local areas who have organisations that we can work with,
because those types of organisations tend to be very helpful in
promoting the importance of the census, providing help with form
filling, and will help us, I think, in our planning at local level.
That is one thing. The other thing of course is to make the form
as easy to fill in as it possibly can be, and one of the factors
that I am sure will determine which areas we decide not to use
post-out will be areas where we know there are quite a lot of
people who would maybe have a problem with a big, long, English
form dropping through the letterbox. That I am sure is one of
the factors that we will take into account so that we will have
people on the doorstep offering to help with form filling. Also,
we are paying a lot of attention to the design of the form because
experience shows that it is the design and layout of the form
and the accessibility of the language which is in some senses
more important than the length of it. The other thing we are doing,
of course, is planning a very large publicity campaign around
the census which will address all the kinds of issues about why
it is so important, how confidential the information is, and this
will obviously be targeted at groups which we know are less likely
to respond. Then, of course, on the ground we will have quite
intensive follow-up of people who do not send the form back, because
we are planning to have a much better real-time management system
which will tell us who has not sent the form back after a week,
two weeks and so on, and we will also have call centres which
are able to help people who have particular problems. That is,
I think, most of it.
Q214 Mr Love: You are going to need
it all.
Ms Dunnell: We are indeed.
Q215 Mr Love: Can I come on to the
length, because you touched upon that? In a recent parliamentary
answer you gave you indicated that you had enough finance for
three pages for the census form but that there may be some priority
questions that you might not be able to include. Have you resolved
that issue and which way will it go? Are you going to get all
the priority questions into three pages or are you going to be
financed to stretch into four?
Ms Dunnell: Again, it is rather
like the question I was asked at the beginning about the extra
money for migration. We do need an extra £25 million to have
a fourth page and this is something that we are working very closely
with departments and the Treasury on finding a way round.
Q216 Mr Love: Do you consider that
a priority?
Ms Dunnell: Yes.
Q217 Mr Love: In other words, you
need more than three pages to ask all the questions?
Ms Dunnell: We believe that actually
we do need more than three pages, partly for the reasons that
your colleague raised, that at the last minute, if you get a group
of people jumping up and down about something like a tick box,
which I think might happen about the carers question, for example,
which you are all getting many letters about, it compromises the
whole thing. As a team, we are pretty convinced that we need the
four pages and we are engaged in the final stages now.
Q218 Mr Love: When will you get an
answer to that?
Ms Dunnell: In the near future,
I hope.
Q219 Mr Love: What does that mean?
Three months? Six months?
Ms Dunnell: Less than that. We
need the answer sooner than that and everybody knows that we do.
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