Census

[Sparx]

Every UK home was sent a survey, which aims to get a snapshot of how people live their lives.

Seems every household except mine then, we still havent had ours

BBC News - 7m households face Census visit

 

[ford prefect]

We did ours when pretty much when it arrived around three months ago and the census people returned it with a new one, apparently we returned it too early and couldn't predict who would be living in our house in four or five weeks time. Curious use of money really.

 

[Raven]

No it isn't.

You didn't read the simple instructions on the front so yours was invalid.

The data from the census is used for all sorts of things including town planning, how much money to spank up the wall on public services, economic forecasting, population, general statistics etc etc. Not to mention a decent historic record for future generations.

It's important that it is carried out on the same day where possible. They can't just pluck random figures out of the air.

 

[eksdee]

My sister, dumb **** that she is, decided to throw hers away because her "friends did it too". She's 40 and hasn't worked for 20 years or more, so certainly has the time.

Took me 10 minutes to fill out. Big woop.

 

[ford prefect]

No it isn't.

You didn't read the simple instructions on the front so yours was invalid.

The data from the census is used for all sorts of things including town planning, how much money to spank up the wall on public services, economic forecasting, population, general statistics etc etc. Not to mention a decent historic record for future generations.

It's important that it is carried out on the same day where possible. They can't just pluck random figures out of the air.

I was refering to returning it as a curious use of money (I suspect they returned an awful lot of them), especially given that you can still fill the census out online even now. I actually use census data as a guide myself for reports.

 

[Raven]

Well that's fine, you know afterwards who was staying at your house on the date of the census. There is no way you can know for sure before hand. What if a relative or a friend needed somewhere to stay for a bit at the last minute and you took them in? How would you know before hand that it will happen? What if someone living at your house suddenly decided to move out between the date you filled it in and the census date?

To get an accurate snapshot it has to be data from the same day, otherwise its pretty pointless.

 

[Jiggs]

Did it online, took about 5 minutes.

 

[ford prefect]

Well that's fine, you know afterwards who was staying at your house on the date of the census. There is no way you can know for sure before hand. What if a relative or a friend needed somewhere to stay for a bit at the last minute and you took them in? How would you know before hand that it will happen? What if someone living at your house suddenly decided to move out between the date you filled it in and the census date?

To get an accurate snapshot it has to be data from the same day, otherwise its pretty pointless.

Then as you can still do it online and they are going to spend the next four months chasing up missing submissions, it is pointless. When I use census data it is only ever as a very rough guide, the data is always skewed.

 

[Lamp]

last time 38 ppl were fined for not doing it

what if everyone refuses to do it? they gonna knock on every door / fine everyone?

personally, didn't find it a big deal. Made up a lot of the answers

Occupation: Shepherd
How do you get to work? By Sheepdog
Religion: Valar

 

[- English -]

last time 38 ppl were fined for not doing it

what if everyone refuses to do it? they gonna knock on every door / fine everyone?

personally, didn't find it a big deal. Made up a lot of the answers

Occupation: Shepherd
How do you get to work? By Sheepdog
Religion: Valar

well what a fool you look

;p

 

[Ezteq]

I mucked up the first one so just did the replacement, yep once you stop being overwhelmed by the size of the fucker and realise you only have to fill in name, occupation and house details twas a piece of privacy invading cake.

 

[Zenith.UK]

last time 38 ppl were fined for not doing it

what if everyone refuses to do it? they gonna knock on every door / fine everyone?

personally, didn't find it a big deal. Made up a lot of the answers

Occupation: Shepherd
How do you get to work? By Sheepdog
Religion: Valar

Your great-great-grandchildren will look on your census details in 100 years and think "Oh, when did he become a shepherd?"

I actually had a shepherd in my family. He was down as an agricultural labourer in the 1861 (aged 11), 1871, 1881 and 1891 censi. In 1901 he was a shepherd and 1911 was still a shepherd.

Don't think for one moment that the census is a waste of time. It provides useful statistics for the government of the day and historical data for future generations of family historians. I've scanned my filled out form so my family has a record of it's own for the next 100 years.