Census day

[BBx]

Essex is going to get nada this year by the look of things

BB x

[Nutcase]

We were on holiday when the date passed. Got back home and 2 days later knock on the door chasing up why it hadn't been done. Giz us a chance Done it that night, 10 mins on the net

[SidewinderINC]

Originally Posted by vix

What DO they do with the data?

Basically what knips has said, but also so they can statistically show where different jobs are and how the country is split up into different economic and industrial regions.

For example the south east is big for chemical/biological science, the south west not so much - the census will show that.
It's just nosey statistics

[Desmo]

Originally Posted by Knipples

Use it to work out who's living where, what they need and therefore central government can work out how much money they need to give to the councils. It's a headcount basically, so they know how much money to divvy out. Yer supposed to fill it in so they have accurate population data.

You see I don't buy that and think it's a load of BS. They need a census that only runs every ten years to work out how much a local council will get when they know how many people are living in the area via things like council tax and god knows what else.

We had a knock at the door today asking why ours hadn't been completed. Said we'd do it online.

[SidewinderINC]

Originally Posted by Desmo

You see I don't buy that and think it's a load of BS. They need a census that only runs every ten years to work out how much a local council will get when they know how many people are living in the area via things like council tax and god knows what else.

We had a knock at the door today asking why ours hadn't been completed. Said we'd do it online.

See my post above, i wasn't as detailed as I should have been.

It's for statistics about what people in the UK do for a living, how healthy people are and how many people live in certain areas etc. etc. compared to 10 years ago to show how the country is evolving.

Completely useless to most people, but some people in the national statistics office get all hard over it.

[vix]

I get all that, but why did they need to know who's staying in your house on that date etc.

[SidewinderINC]

Originally Posted by vix

I get all that, but why did they need to know who's staying in your house on that date etc.

that i have no idea!

These questions ask basic information about visitors staying overnight on census day, Sunday 27 March.

We collect information on the name, sex, date of birth and usual address of visitors to make sure that everyone is counted at their usual address. Counting people at their usual address allows us to produce high quality counts of the population that are required for planning and funding decisions. Collecting details for people who are away from their usual address helps us to make sure we haven’t missed anyone.

Local authorities need information on domestic and international visitors to ensure effective planning of service provision. The data are also used to measure the total demand on services such as transport and health in areas with a large number of visitors who are working or studying.

These questions were first asked in 1801.

Apparently..

[Will]

I find some of the questions a little intrusive, and some don't offer the flexibility I want to answer them the way I want to.

The thing is they have most of the details from our HMRC, Council Tax bills, Vote register, and so on.

Why they need to know what sort of central heating I've got, and who I had round on the 27th I know not... what if you pulled and had a one night stand and didn't know her name?! There's no way I'm going to be telling them about that!

As for my employment, they're a little tetchy about describing what I do, so I asked HR what I should say and they gave me a nice succinct explanation of what needs to be written.

I spend more than 30 days away from the UK a year, but I am not going to tell them that where I go, I didn't, and I'm not telling them if I have property abroad or if I stay in a hotel. I was as cryptic in some of my answers and decided the choose the most applicable one to what I wanted to reveal to them.

[Tak]

The heating one could be seen to work out where to put funding; no need to put loads into electric if 80% of people have gas.
As for the work one I just put admin as both the job title and job description

[Belmit]

I love how, on the whole, the description of most people's job is already in their title e.g.

Job: Software Manager
Description: Managing Software/Team

You only get about 20-30 characters worth of space so not much more you can do!