|
We undertook an inquiry into the proposed changes to the census not to consider whether there should or should not be another census but to consider the use of the data from the census by the Government, whether there were elements of the census that would be irreplaceable by other means and if the business of Government would be seriously impacted if census data was lost or changed.
We are committed to the principle of the Government basing its policy on evidence and social science based evidence needs to be just as robust as that from any other science. Social science in Government is strategically coordinated by a heads of analysis group and social scientists in Government departments are supported by a cross departmental resource based in the Treasury. We were concerned however that there was no clear voice, like the Chief Scientific Advisor provides in other sciences, to influence at a Ministerial level. We are more concerned about the lack of a Minister who could answer for Government as a whole whether social science provision was adequate and whether the data from the census and other sources was fit for purpose.
We found that there were many other social science surveys that would appear to overlap with the census. We were informed that these surveys could not replace the census and indeed depended on census data as a source of calibration. This dependence would appear to be due to the fact that there is no other survey that can approach the breadth of the census. We did hear of good use being made of non-census surveys to provide equivalent data in a number of areas in a much shorter timescale than can be achieved through the use of a decadal census.
There are a number of other key qualities of the census could not be replaced by other means. Census data provides a snapshot of the whole country at a moment in time which is invaluable to historians and to detect trends in the recent past; it also allows comparisons to be made of different areas in the country more accurately. The census also provides a means to recruit to longitudinal studies which, we are convinced, are the envy of social scientists in other countries. A wide variety of organisations and local historians told us that they depend on the availability of census data as they could not afford to finance any equivalent studies.
The key disadvantages of the census would seem to be the timeliness of the data. Census data is always at least two years out of date and up to twelve years just prior to a census day. In areas where the population changes rapidly census data would rapidly become non-representational. There is also a concern that the very presence of such an obvious dataset means that new and innovative solutions are not sought for social science as they can lean on census data whether or not it is the best solution.
We have concerns that social science could suffer if the census was to be discontinued without serious consideration as to how this data would be replaced. We have been told that surveys and administrative data can be used effectively but we have concerns that this would not easily scale to a nationwide coverage. There would need to be a serious consideration of how administrative data could be brought to a national standard to allow it to be more easily used as a replacement for census data. A particular concern would be recruitment to existing longitudinal studies.
However, we anticipate that the absence of a census would also potentially stimulate a considerable amount of innovation in social science and examination of how to produce social data of an equivalent standard, but to much quicker timescales, than the current census data.
| 
