The Census, which takes place every ten years, provides vital information about the UK population. As part of our preparations for the next Census in 2011, ONS is following up the general consultation which took place in 2005 with a detailed consultation on user needs for ethnicity, national identity, language and religion information from the 2011 Census in England and Wales. This will help us to better understand users’ and stakeholders’ requirements.

If you wish to contribute your views, please complete the questionnaire and return it to ethnicity&identity@ons.gov.uk. The response deadline has been extended to 30 March 2007. Your comments, along with those of other interested people and organisations, will help us to better understand the key data requirements and to be aware of the range of views held, and the relative priorities for information given the constraints of space on the Census form. Please feel free to forward this questionnaire and consultation on to others in your own or other organisations who may be interested.

When giving us your views please bear in mind that space on the census form is limited. We currently estimate that ethnicity, national identity, Welsh language and religion will take up two-thirds of a page on the Census form in 2011, which is slightly more than the space allocated in 2001. The eventual questions used in 2011 will have to balance the requirements for information with the constraints on questionnaire length and the need for census questions to be clear, concise and acceptable to respondents. Difficult compromises will have to be made to achieve this.

You may be aware that a Census Test will take place in 2007. The questionnaire for the 2007 Test, published on 31 October 2006, shows the questions on ethnic group, national identity, religion and language at the latest stage of development. However, these questions are by no means finalised. Your responses to this consultation, along with those from other users and stakeholders, will inform further question development. Question testing research with members of the public will take place in 2007. ONS will then make recommendations in 2008 on the questions for the 2009 Rehearsal and 2011 Census, which will then need to be agreed by Parliament in early 2010.

The 2007 Census Test questionnaire is available at: www.statistics.gov.uk/censustestquestionnaire

If you wish to refer to the 2001 Census questionnaire, this is at: www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/census_form.asp

The report on the 2005 consultation is available at: www.statistics.gov.uk/about/consultations/
2011Census_response.asp

Our review of ethnic group, national identity, religion and language considers issues such as:

• acceptability of terms
• categories included and excluded
• collecting national identity data separately from ethnic group data
• continuity with 2001 data on ethnic group and religion
• allowing multiple responses in the ethnic group question
• level of information required on languages

Please contact ethnicity&identity@ons.gov.uk if you have any queries. Thank you for your assistance.

Note: This consultation does not cover migration topics. If you require information from the 2011 Census on topics such as country of birth, year of arrival in the UK, country of citizenship or similar, you may wish to respond separately to the migration consultation.

This page last revised: 22 January 2007