ESSEX-UK-L Archives

Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2010-07 > 1278846054


From: Steve <>
Subject: [Ess] The final Census?
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 12:00:54 +0100


An article in Friday's Telegraph has been drawn to my attention, where
Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, says that the government has
already decided to scrap future censuses.

Linked to here http://tinyurl.com/32982aq

I copy my response below, which I am going to send to my MP through
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ and I would suggest that anybody else who
finds this as worrying as I do, do the same.

Regards
Steve


"Mr Maude, who has responsibility for the Census, told The Daily
Telegraph that the Government was looking for a “fundamentally” better
way of doing it. “There are, I believe, ways of doing this which will
provide better, quicker information, more frequently and cheaper,” he
said. "

So having decided that the current method is too expensive, they have
decided to do away with the current method and find a fundamentally
better way.

Isn't that the wrong way round? Shouldn't you prove that there is a
fundamentally better way, and how long it will take to set up, before
making the decision to go a different route.

"Instead, the Government is examining different and cheaper ways to
count the population more regularly, using existing public and private
databases, including credit reference agencies. "

And we all know how accurate public and private databases are. And that
everybody is included in them. Only once.

"Mr Maude said the Census was “out of date almost before it has been done"

Durh! Well obviously! Any count of living beings is only correct at the
time that it is done and unless you have enough counters then the
numbers will change during the counting. People are born, people die.
And a substantial minority of people will not be at any home on the day
of the census. People are a problem.

"Mr Maude said he hoped that the new way of counting the population
would be less intrusive. Questions for next year include the name, sex
and date of birth of any visitors staying overnight."

As has every census since at least 1851.

Pass this on to all mailing groups and forums you are members of because
these idiots need to be stopped from penny pinching in a way that is
going to lead to greater future government waste when they have even
more inaccurate figures on which to base their planning, never mind what
it will do to future Family Historians.

This thread: