Project Objective
The aim of the Legislation Project was to ensure that:
the legislative procedures necessary to put into effect the arrangements to carry out the 2001 Census were followed to an agreed deadline;
the arrangements conformed to other relevant legislation and confidentiality requirements; and
Ministers were kept fully informed with the plans for, and progress on, the Census, and Ministerial and Parliamentary decisions were made in good time.
The prime aims of the project were achieved. There was extended Government consideration of the census proposals, particularly those reflecting the requirements for new questions on income and religion, the revisions to the ethnic group categories, and the date of the census.
The built-in contingency for delays in these processes were adequate to ensure that final deadlines were met, though the amendment necessary to the Census Act to provide for a question on religion in the census involved additional legislative procedures, which did put at risk the inclusion of the question in the 2001 Census as proposed.
Though the project liaised with many other projects, this report is written independently and therefore should be considered within the context of their evaluations.
Legislative and Parliamentary Framework
The key milestones required to establish the legislative and Parliamentary framework for the 2001 Census were achieved. These included:
The White Paper on the 2001 Census of Population drew on the consultation process for data needs and set out the Government's proposals for the questions to be covered, together with a background to the need for information. It also covered confidentiality issues, the arrangements for conducting the census in the field, the processing of the data and disseminating the results, and the requirements for legislation to give effect to these arrangements.
The White Paper was published in March 1999, two years before the Census, in order that there should be time for public discussion of proposals.
Census Order and Regulations
Parliamentary approval for the Census Order is required in order that:
the date on which the Census is to be taken;
the persons by whom, and with respect to whom, the returns for the purpose of the Census are to be made; and
the particulars to be stated in the returns; the matters in respect of which particulars may be required are set out in the Schedule to the Act
may be specified in secondary legislation.
A change to primary census legislation was needed to provide for a question on religion in the 2001 Census. A subsequent amendment had to be made to the Order to add 'religion' as a particular to be supplied.
The Order was made in March 2000 which provided sufficient time for the subsequent Regulations to be made, enabling the appointments of field staff to be made on schedule.
An amendment to the Census Act was required to put into effect the proposal to include a question on religion in the 2001 Census. The draft legislation was introduced as a Private Member's Bill in the House of Lords, and gained Royal Assent in July 2000, in time for subsequent amendment to the secondary legislation to be made.
Other public and Parliamentary activities
A case was made by representatives of the Sikh and Kashmiri communities that the question on ethnic group should separately identify these categories. Parliamentary time was given to debate the issues of the 'Welsh' tick box and under-coverage in London.
Date of the Census
There was only a limited choice for the most suitable date for the 2001 Census and a date of 29 April was announced in 1996. This date was close to the 2001 local elections in England, which were originally planned to take place on 7 May. However, in the event the outbreak of foot and mouth disease led to postpone both these elections until 7 June, and so the overlap of census and election campaign activities was largely avoided.
Security and Confidentiality
The confidentiality and security of personal census information is protected by means of several measures and procedures. There are statutory provisions that protect against the disclosure of confidential information collected in the census, and security and disclosure control measures are adopted to protect the physical security of the forms and the data during processing and the integrity of the resulting statistical information made available in output.
All such measures were subject to independent review and the results of these were reported to Parliament prior to the Census itself.
Census News
