MRG Evening Meeting: The National Census

The topic of the first MRG meeting of 2002, held last night, was the National Census that took place last year. The UK-wide survey will already have had some impact on the advertising industry, thanks to the use of a variety of media to promote the “Count Me In” message the ONS adopted to persuade people to cooperate, but from a research point of view, the real impact will come at the end of this year and into next year as the data becomes available and is incorporated into the figures of data organisations such as JICPOPS and the industry auditors.

Speakers Ivor Millman of Granada Media and Roger Holland, chairman of JICPOPS, explained first the history and development of the census, then how it works in a modern context. Holland went on to report that the ONS feels early indicators show that the data quality is high, with 98% of households represented.

One key difference with the 2001 survey, from a researcher’s point of view, is that for the first time data will become available to business users at the same time as it is given to Government departments, rather than the latter taking precedence, as before. Key statistics should be available in early December, while the main results, both local and national, will come in the first half of 2003.

The ONS website (www.statistics.gov.uk) should allow data to be manipulated by visitors, with functions such as mapping, and while some will be available free of charge, paid-for data is promised at a reasonable rate, in contrast to the 1991 Census.

The discussion which followed was mainly concerned with just how accurate the data will be, and how far Census figures will go to iron out the discrepancies seen between the universes of data providers such as RAJAR and BARB. Cost cutting measures were blamed for some worrying experiences of those in the audience, including the helpline and email queries that weren’t answered, forms not collected, the fact that a return address was not on the form itself in case the envelope was lost and the question of how the form coped with owners of second homes.

Many of the issues raised by the audience will be hard to answer before the data is available, and can be compared with both the 1991 Census data and the projections made in the interim. It seems that despite the technological advances made since the days of pencils and punchcards, the wait for the data, Holland pointed out, is always longer than you want it to be.

Subscribers can access notes on more MRG meetings in “MRG Reports”, click button on left