Towards a high quality 2011 Census The 2011 Census Questionnaire Pete Benton Deputy Director, Census Programme

Overview Quick look at –Development history –Questionnaire content How does it all come together to produce a high quality population estimate? What about short term migrants?

Census provides statistics on: Population units: –people and housing & –key demographics (age, sex, marital status, ethnicity) Population structures: –households, families More detailed characteristics : –eg religion, labour market status, industry, qualifications, health/disability; etc Key requirement to ‘Get the Count Right’

Key lessons from 2001 Census Need to gather information on more than just usual residents –Include visitors Need more information to aid understand of coverage –Addresses/households –People within households

Subsequent changes in society More people at more than one address –Weekday residences for work –Holiday / weekend homes –Children of divorced parents International migration –More ‘short term visitors to UK’ – resident or not? Plus familiar issues of students, armed forces, prisons, hospitals, hotels, hostels Risk of undercount, overcount, or wrong location Need to count the right people, in the right place –and be able to demonstrate this with confidence

Questionnaire research to date Formal 3 month consultation (May 2005) Over 2000 responses from 500 users Scoring of user requirements Initial topic proposals Further topic-specific consultation Roadshows Question testing –Qualitative: Cognitive testing (6 waves over 3 years), focus groups –Quantitative: 2007 test, omnibus survey, postal tests

Summary of user requirements Most 2001 topics Many new topics, including: - income (not included) - language - second residences - sexual identity (not included) - national identity More than 3 pages of questions! Difficult trade-offs to be made Additional £22m funding for 4 th page of questions per person obtained

New topics - population Population units and structures –National identity –Citizenship –Visitors –Year / month of entry into UK Intended length of stay?? –Second residence address and purpose Population characteristics –Language

New topics - housing Housing characteristics –Number of bedrooms –Type of central heating (just ‘yes/no’ in 2001)

Removed topics (since 2001) Bathroom and toilet Size of workplace Lowest floor level

Changed questions (selected) Marital status – civil partnerships Ethnicity –Additional tick boxes –Revised grouping / wording Qualification – clearer categories Banded hours worked – actual hours in 2001 Address one year ago – identification of students Updated ethnicity

UK comparability 30 common topics –11 others in one or more countries Common wording in approx 40 out of 50 questions

Production of population estimates (1) Step 1: Create best possible initial address register Step 2: Census field work / initial questionnaire processing –Add new addresses –Remove non-existent addresses –Assess status of non-responding addresses –Remove of duplicate responses Step 3: Assess and adjust for coverage –Of addresses / households –Of people within households, and adjust –Using address register, census and CCS data

Production of population estimates (2) Step 4: Quality Assure –a) Using “Census” data Visitors, second residences, dummy forms, migration data –b) Using other sources Admin data, surveys, demographic data Step 5: Investigate –Further visitor / second residence matching –Further admin /demographic data analysis Step 6: Translate to MYE base –6 mths to 12 mths residence rule –Family/permanent residence to ‘majority of time’ address –Roll forward 3 months Step 7: Explain –Second residence data (questionnaires and dummy forms) –?? Short term migrant data / intention to stay

Step 8: Investigate / Prepare for the future? ‘Freeze’ admin datasets on 27 March 2011 Compare census and other sources Especially immigration data?

Second residences in coverage assessment / QA Duplicate returns from different locations: –e.g student counted at both term-time and parents’ address, people with second residences for the working week, children of divorced parents General matching process to search for duplicates –use second residences information to help During QA, use to explore address status –No usual residents, clearly a second residence?

Second residences in 2007 postal test 2.5% of respondents said they had a second residence A further 1% of respondents said they had a second residence outside the UK Of those who said they had a second residence: –87% entered the address 69% of those entered the full postcode 11% of postcodes were half completed 20% of postcodes were left blank Of those that entered an address, the highest frequency of location was London (13%), followed by West Sussex (9%)

Visitor information for Quality Assurance Sample matched back to usual residence –check whether they were missed where they usually live In CCS areas, match to CCS record for household they were visiting –check whether they were mis-classified –Apply the mis-classification rate to visitor numbers in non-CCS areas Full match in some LAs if QA suggests concerns Considered matching all –low cost benefit –Delays –Let the CCS do its job

Visitors in the 2001 Census From a sample of 7 Enumeration Areas: –9.5% of people recorded as visitors were actually recorded as usual residents too –1.5% were of no fixed abode and should have been recorded as usual residents –17% of visitors were overseas visitors –67% of visitors were from elsewhere in the UK 20% of these UK visitors were missed at their usual residence –4.5% of visitors did not have an address recorded It is estimated there will be around 2.1 million visitors on Census night in 2011

Use of short term migrant data Users will cross check census data with other sources –2001: used council tax lists 2011: likely to use information on migrants –Already challenging MYEs on this basis –Significant volumes (at present) Proposal: Migrants in UK for > 1 (3?) months fill in full questionnaire, with ‘intention to stay question’ –Filter out 3-6 month migrants from UR base –But use info on numbers / characteristics Likely to be poor quality, but plan would be to use to understand administrative sources –Aggregate, perhaps individual matching

“Not a census question” Snapshot – rapidly changing Quality –Will they answer the census? –Even if they do, would they answer an intention to stay question –If so, what would the quality be like? Would 1 month or 3 month cut off be better? –How could we use the resulting info anyway?

Research Focus groups / interviews (NCSR) Cognitive testing IPS interviewers Omnibus survey Postal test –10,000 random national sample of households 50% 6 month, no intention to stay, < 6mths as visitors 50% 1 month (full question set), with intention to stay –10,000 random sample from Northampton Similar 50/50 split

High level findings Would fill in the census, IF they realised they had to Would then answer an intention to stay question –With a reasonable degree of confidence –Better with a 3 month cut-off than 1 month Postal test –No impact nationally –Small, statistically significant impact locally Still analysing the data

Discussion Short term migrants –Better to ‘ignore the problem’ Discussion will happen post 2011 STMs will have to make a choice Either explicitly or implicitly –Better to have some information than none? Wouldn’t provide robust estimates New paradigm in census questions – include a ‘poor’ topic, solely to aid administrative source analysis A step into a brave new world or a foolish misadventure?