The B****Y Census

This must be the fifth one I have been on, and I could not remember the questions on the previous ones!

Looking at the questions now, I could find nothing remotely worrying. I filled mine in last week, and returned it by the first post. The closest the mark for some might be to define their religion, but surely they can simply put down no religion if they didn't want to go into it. Hardly an act of treason to do that.

I would doubt that there will be another Census in this form though - surely all the information already exisits in the data-bases of Gov't departments already, and surely all that would be needed is for this research to be carried out from pre-existing records.

ATB from George

Apparently, they can find out a lot more by looking at your bank account history.

The Tory Bankers Party will probably make it compulsory to have a bank account soon, anything to rip us off to keep those huge bumper bonuses up.

Meanwhile the estimated 1.5 million illegal aliens in the UK will simply toss their census questionnaires in the nearest dustbin.

Debs

What you need is a major earthquake - that stopped this years census from happening here in NZ!

I'd agree - and add what George says is true.

They want to know where I and my wife work? They know already via the tax system.

How many bedrooms my house has?

What possible purpose can this have?

And, at a time when services are being cut, I'd shudder to think about the cost of the whole data processing involved to yield exactly what information? Let me guess: In 2011, 23 per cent of houses had two bedrooms, 37 pert cent had three, 11 per cent had  one, 20 per cent were one bedroom flats, nine per cent  were bedsits.

Oh, and I have no religion. My wife is Christian. According to the form. But you can opt out of this question so what's the point of asking it?

What use does this have? To anyone?

And they can never proescute:

Imagine the conversation:

"You didn't fill the Census form in."

"Yes I did. I posted it."

"We never received it."

Shrug: "Well, I posted it!"

End of prosecution.

Er, that's my rant over.

I think you will find  that previous Censuses (Censi?) have actually been quite important in terms of gathering population data, especially with regard to housing, social distribution and planning of things like education, training and health provision. The Government has already hinted that this may well be the last paper Census as other methods may become cheaper and easier. However collecting and analysing this core demographic dataset is still going to be needed.

Of course the Census is arranged by The State so it must, by definition, be worth ranting about of course.

Bruce

Agree most of the above,  except the tory hate club stuff - not required & irrelivant

This census is information gathering got even more mad,  give 'em a computor & invent even more jobs for more public sector pension plans.

2011 census was planned & approved by the previous govenrment. 

2021 census is now being considered for the scrapheap & to gather the stats from other sources,  so at least they are now thinking VFM.

£480 million is more or less exactly 4 days of what we pay each & every day to finance the national debt  

The 35,000 temporary workers needed to chase up the bad people who don't fill in the form will be off the unemployment stats for as long as they can hang it out.

I hope they have figured out how to catch the illegals that we don't know where & who they are & who they couldn't send a form to anyhow.

Personally I would like to see the census remain but just names & very basic details

We have done it since 1801,  why stop now, provided its just the basic details.  

And what would the ancestor family tree researchers do in years to come ???

I filled mine & 'erselfs on line -  it took about 10 mins.  Move on

Hi George,

I just think that it's overkill.  Even if (read "though!") the government actually haven't a clue how many 4 bed houses are in the UK or what religion of person is living in them, what purpose does it serve for them to know?

Secondly, why in such detail?  Why do they need my full date of birth, when surely an age will do.  This is just the sort of fine detail they don't actually need but gives rise to more risk of fraudulent use when, sorry, if they again lose the data or let it get into the wrong hands.

I just think there's much better things to be spending public money on when 100's of public service jobs are being cut to "cut down on public spending".  If this is not an ideal thing to cut spending on, I don't know what is??

Hey ho... just my two penneth

I have no issues whatsoever with the concept of or requirement for a census. It took ten minutes and asked nothing I found intrusive or potentially dangerous.

Ranting for the sake of it if you ask me. There are surely more worthy targets.

Given the amount of information that has been collected in the past how come that insufficient provision has been made for the number of people, vehicles, old folk support etc that they have known about or have had the data to forecast the demand for many years.

Scrapping the census would at least give central government an excuse for not providing resources and allow them to get rid of a few more public employees.

Well one thing is for sure they are not going to use it as justification to build more schools, universities, hospitals, doctor's surgeries, social housing etc. etc...

It is easy enough to fill in if your situation is simple, but with many people now living in rented rooms without a live-in landlord/lady it is not so staightforward. The way I have interpreted it, each member of the household needs to fill in a section of the form and someone from the house needs to sign on behalf of everyone in the house. As most of the people in the house are practically complete strangers, how can one person take responsibility that all the information is correct?

PJT,

It's a bit extreme.... but an option!  Joking aside, I hope you and your family were safe and didn't get caught up in it all.

No, of course not. The Government is always wrong/going to do the wrong thing/at fault isn't it? By defnition. The current UK administration is actually sitting on a vast surplus it is jealously hoarding instead of spending it on anything.

Are you going to offer to pay a lot more tax in order to fund these things? 

I know it is fun but I find this endless cynicism about central government (of all hues) rather tiresome, and essentially so negative. Perhaps such distrust is well-earned, or perhaps we just like to adopt that position across the board rather than being a bit more selective.

Bruce

I thought it was supposed to reflect a typical day?

Why then pick the only one that's 23 hours long?

Bruce

If it were down to me, all essential services and utilities would be state-controlled.

As for the question of paying more tax, why not? And I am saying that as a basic rate taxpayer who can (arguably) afford it less. One of the problems we have now is the steady reduction in income taxes there has been over the last 30 something years or so, whilst at the same time increasing non-income related taxes, so the rich have been able to get richer at the expense of the poor. The current coalition government's latest solution to the economic situation, on top of attacking services for the most vulnerable in society, is to abolish the 50% rate in income tax as soon as possible. Even this goes too far for them even though it has been estimated that for most people earning over £150,000 this would equate to less than £7 a day. 

"If it were down to me, all essential services and utilities would be state-controlled."

Steve, 

It's a sign of how much the political landscape has changed in our lifetime that, even though I agree with this, I was almost shocked to see it written down!

David

The Census is a bit of fun, be creative.

Cheers,

OW

What is your religion ? - Naimite

If enough of us put this down it could be included in 2021

Trying to coordinate a small railway station design upgrade and 17 different stake-holders appeared for our first meeting.  Needless to say nobody wanted to speak first with an opinion, and each vested interest was in itself so small as to be a meaningless contribution anyway.

British Rail anyone?

 No, too much fighting amongst the branches; Chrome Bumper - should see the Bolt Down lot, Olive, and Black.

Cheers,

OW

Two more here for the Jedi cause.