Returned your Census Forms Yet?

[mangaman]

That's not quite how I read it.

It seems the government has no issues with the principle of the census, its just the means by which the data is collected they are questioning.

Maybe I'm a cycnic but the Govt sees the census as a waste of money and sees a watered down, non-rigorous one as the way forward.

For all the bluster about the census, it only works as a historical record if it is an enforced snapshot of one day a decade.

Cobbling together different databases would be cheap but useless as a historical archive - which the census has been for centuries.

 

[Bayerd]

Here's a bit more Census info-


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqm-JlSncK8&feature=related

 

[subaqua]

The money they squeeze out of you is spent for you on things for you.

The level of funding your area gets from central gov is based on the census, so if you duck out then you deny them (and you) some funds.

Everything else they spend the money on relates directly to people.

Do you want a school place set aside for your kids? If you have kids then you do, if you do not have kids then you dont want the money wasted on providing a school place. Same with fire service, health, housing need, water and everything else.

Surely you do not want them to wase money and to use what they have most efficiently then you would give them a good idea of the need/demand for each service by giving the information.


Have you ever been to Eastbourne? Full of old people. Hardly any kids. Is the place full of empty classrooms? No! with the right information they gear the service to the need of the local population. The census told Eastbourne it had x number of old people and x number of kids, which probably is miles off the national average. So Eatbourne spends more on health and less on education to fit the need.

If they have no information then they spend needlessly on a guesstimate of need and end up spending your money on a wasted class place instead of grannys new hip.

totally agree, but lots of the info they want is not needed to forecast school places etc.

and if its only being done once every 10 years thats woefully inadequate for predicting school places.

the south of Waltham Forest ( leytonstone ) has a chronic school place shortage with 1 form entry schools now taking in "bulges" with portakabins etc . 10 years ago schools were being closed or shrunk as there was "no demand"

How does my position in the company i work for help in determining that, or whether more or less hospital beds are needed. am i less likely to be ill than my next door neighbour or the guy across the street?? ( actually i might be as construction is one of the highest risk employments to work in, but no more so than any other town in the UK).

the census is great as a snapshot of the day it alledgedly happened but as an overall planning tool there are far better ways and far easier/cheaper ways of collecting/collating Data already held by multiple government executive agencies

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

The money they squeeze out of you is spent for you on things for you.

The level of funding your area gets from central gov is based on the census, so if you duck out then you deny them (and you) some funds.

Everything else they spend the money on relates directly to people.

Have you ever read the likes 'The Silent State'?
The truth is that they ALREADY know everything us and waste tax payers money on making databases, running whole departments for it all and for the PR about how great they are doing.

In London you are never more than 6 feet away from a Database

What data are you actually concerned about them finding out about?

Nothing, but as I say, they probably know everything including your inside leg measurements already, so to me, it's actually quite a pointless and money wasting exercise. I mean, how much did all of that cost, really?

Ok, so people can track me down in 100 years time, but that is of little comfort seeing as I'll probably be dead.
Besides, they can do it now on Facebook.

 

[Arch]

As an aside, we've found a few unopened census forms in the recycling. If we were minded to, we could send in completely false information about the occupiers of an address - and if there were any comeback it would come back on them. So if you are going to refuse, at least shred the bit with your address and internet code on....

 

[fossyant]

Just done mine online - TBH much easier than filling in manually as the 'non needed' questions are filtered out. 10 mins only.

 

[XmisterIS]

In London you are never more than 6 feet away from a Database

On Wednesday night I saw a rat scurry across the road in Portsmouth, not 6 feet in front of me ...

 

[Over The Hill]

As an aside, we've found a few unopened census forms in the recycling. If we were minded to, we could send in completely false information about the occupiers of an address - and if there were any comeback it would come back on them. So if you are going to refuse, at least shred the bit with your address and internet code on....

Or if you do it on line too!

The official advice is to tear off the front page and dispose of that securely (shred burn etc) as that has your details on it. Then the rest of it can go in the recycling.

 

[on the road]

As an aside, we've found a few unopened census forms in the recycling. If we were minded to, we could send in completely false information about the occupiers of an address - and if there were any comeback it would come back on them. So if you are going to refuse, at least shred the bit with your address and internet code on....

That wouldn't make any different anyway unless you knew who actually lives there because the forms are sent to the 'occupier' rather than a named person.

 

[Arch]

That wouldn't make any different anyway unless you knew who actually lives there because the forms are sent to the 'occupier' rather than a named person.

Which bit wouldn't make a difference?

If I filled one in, in the name of W4nky McSh1tfest, with clearly false data, and sent it in (in paper form or online), the authorities, if they check such things, would come back to the occupier of the property, who threw it away - I don't know if there's a penalty for taking the piss, as well as non-completion, but the occupier would have to prove they hadn't sent the form in. I wouldn't necessarily be doing it to get at a particular person, just to cause trouble. Or I might happen to want to cause problems for the occupier of a certain address, without knowing who they actually were. If I happened to find a discarded form in a box habitually full of unrecyclable crap and half full tins of beans, believe me it would be tempting. Almost as tempting as the thought of posting the contents of the tin back through the letter box....

Taking the address and internet code off means the form can't be sent in, physically or online.

The moral anyone can take away from this, is not to piss off your binmen.

 

[snailracer]

I don't understand the hostility towards the census. The data provides a useful source of statistics, without delving too far into peoples lives. The questions arn't too probing and it only takes about 5 minutes to fill out the individual section. Some people look for a reason to be annoyed.

Google "Nazi census" and ask yourself whether it really couldn't happen here. Ironically, it was also an American company (IBM) that provided the data processing (punch-card systems back then) which the Nazis used to identify undesirables through their religion, race or ethnicity, value and confiscate their property, and worse, with unprecedented speed and efficiency.

 

[on the road]

Google "Nazi census" and ask yourself whether it really couldn't happen here. Ironically, it was also an American company (IBM) that provided the data processing (punch-card systems back then) which the Nazis used to identify undesirables through their religion, race or ethnicity, value and confiscate their property, and worse, with unprecedented speed and efficiency.

I think you're clutching at straws here

 

[Arch]

The Nazis had trains too. Doesn't mean they (trains) are inherently evil.

 

[Norm]

For the brave souls who are not completing your census returns or defacing them, I envy you your strength of character to take on a state apparatus in such a brave and honourable way.**

IMO, in 200 years, when our descendants are trying to use the 2001 / 2011 census data in the same way that we are using the 1801 census data, there will be a whole raft of the country's population which is filed under "sorry, you don't get to find out anything more about your predecessors than they were towards the further reaches of the paranoia scale".


**note: may contain traces of sarcasm

 

[Hover Fly]

I had a look at the form for the house I'm staying in temporarily. I see they aren't interested in whether or not you have an inside toilet this time.