Small teams of census officials will be checking addresses in five local authorities in England and Wales over the next six weeks as preparatory work for the 2007 Census Test, which will be a major step in planning for the next Census in 2011.

The Test will be held next year in five local authorities - Bath and North East Somerset, Camden, Carmarthenshire, Liverpool and Stoke-on-Trent, where a sample of some 100,000 households has been selected in some 564 Enumeration Districts (groups of 200-300 addresses). Maps of the areas within each of the Local Authorities to be included in the Test are available at Bath and North East Somerset, Camden, Carmarthenshire, Liverpool and Stoke-on-Trent

Between 4 September and 13 October 2006, trained checkers employed by the ONS will be visiting addresses in each area to make sure that the addresses on the street actually match addresses listed on the existing register. The Census Test itself will take place on 13 May 2007.

The check covers more than the 100,000 sampled households. About 40,000 additional neighbouring addresses across the five Test areas will be included so as to provide larger operational workloads more akin to those that would be designed for the Census itself.

The checkers will establish which properties are residential (identifying communal establishments separately) and will distinguish those that are inhabited, vacant or derelict. Checkers will either call at the address or just conduct a visual check depending on the circumstance. The checkers will also identify newly-built properties, conversions, shared dwellings and those addresses that should be taken off the register because of recent demolition.

This page last revised: 25 August 2006