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BBC News - 07/03/11

The 2011 Census is getting under way, with forms posted out to households around the UK.

The public will be asked questions about their jobs, health, education and ethnic background and must base all answers on who is in their household on Sunday 27 March.

The form is compulsory, but a question about religion is optional. The answers will be used to plan public services.

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I received mine in the post this morning and would be interested to know if other forum members consider it to be as overtly intrusive as I do.

I have no qualms whatever in telling HMG I'm of the Flying Spaghetti persuasion. My beef is with any 3rd-party involvement.

EDIT

TroubledTimes wrote:Are you sure you received it? Royal Mail is renowned for losing items.

valid point.

Lockheed are doing the number-crunching but they are subject to the Patriot Act so the promise from our government that all remains confidential can be over-ruled by the US government.

Filled mine out online tonight.... what is intrusive about it? Very little info...who, where, how many rooms...are you working... how do you travel. Whats the beef?

maudibe wrote:Filled mine out online tonight.... what is intrusive about it? Very little info...who, where, how many rooms...are you working... how do you travel. Whats the beef?

Twenty days too early. What if you peg out before the 27th? Or unexpectedly host some Libyan refugees? Or buy another car on a whim? You'll have to amend your details, else it won't be accurate.

Mean Mr Mustard wrote:Twenty days too early. What if you peg out before the 27th?

If I peg out before the 27th I'll be very cross that I spent a chunk of my limited time left on the planet form filling! ...

I doubt the information really is private ... but I'll still do it.

Could be the last one ever.

I haven't got the form yet, but from what I've read on the web, there won't be many questions with straightforward answers .

Thanks for all of your feedback to date.

Incidentally, were you aware that households face a potential fine of £1000 for refusing to fill in and return a form?

I'm going to do it but, purely out of interest does anyone know how many people were fined last time for not filing one out?

nexus wrote:I'm going to do it but, purely out of interest does anyone know how many people were fined last time for not filing one out?

Only a few, from what I've heard on the radio.

IIRC there was a bit of 'whistleblowing' last time where someone came forward and admitted that if you put in your name, address and date of birth they would consider the form completed and you wouldn't be fined.

HMG was not happy about this information being leaked, and who knows what the guidelines will be this time but I doubt that any sections left blank will result in a fine.

A statistician with a ten percent sample size will know everything a bean counter will know with a hundred percent accounting. I shouldn't think they need to make a fuss over a few paranoid oddballs that don't want to be counted.

It's pretty important from the point of view of allocation of resources on a regional basis. I really think there is no harm about revealing the kind of information they require. Why the hell they felt the need to commission a US defence contractor to do a bit of data collection, I do not understand.

If anyone wants to see one of the more interesting uses of census data you should check out http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk which has lots of 2001 data. Try inputting your post code on the right hand side and you can see whether you live in total deprivation or not.