
UK's 2021 census could be the last, statistics chief reveals - cmsefton
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51468919
======
curiousgal
Talk about about being cheap! 900M is like 90M per year, that's a cheap price
for understanding the structure and characteristics of a population. You can
never repliacte a census using random surveys. It's the holy Grail of data.

Data from U.S. census from centuries ago is still being used to teach
econometrics. But hey, if they were stupid enough to leave the EU then they're
capable of doing anything.

~~~
mattlondon
> But hey, if they were stupid enough to leave the EU than they're capable of
> doing anything.

This is quite offensive. Please don't tar the entire country with the same
brush.

This was - and still is - a highly controversial & divisive subject. It was
only voted in by 51.89% vs 48.11% of the population ...at the time - more
recent polling suggests it has flipped (1)

1 - [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-
second...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-second-
referendum-latest-poll-remain-ten-points-leave-bmg-a8114406.html)

~~~
xkemp
It still aptly demonstrate the ability of the UK to shoot itself in the foot.
Nobody believes that this necessary reflects badly on any _individual_ British
citizen. Unfortunately, in a democracy it only takes the barest of majorities
to make bad decisions.

But to cheer you up: it's still better than in the US, where it's entirely
possible to screw the country with slightly _less_ than a majority (or even
plurality).

~~~
CalvinSlime
I'd rather not be part of an organisation that feels the need to set an
example to scare other members from the idea leaving. Yea the UK will suffer
but partly because the EU is being vindictive.

~~~
ben_w
> set an example to scare other members

Ok, that attitude is fine. If I thought the EU was doing that, I would‘ve
moved to Canada.

Trouble if, the only thing the EU has the _power_ to do is to remove U.K.
access to EU membership benefits. That’s not “vindictive”, it’s what the UK
voted for after being repeatedly told this would happen.

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rwmj
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10584385](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10584385)
"National census in 2011 could be last of its kind"

[https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/thelastcensus](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/thelastcensus)
"the enduring problems with the 2001 count may mean that after 200 years it
could be the last one in its present form. It may have demonstrated that
measuring population in our more mobile society is just too difficult."

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thombat
So the 2021 census is projected to cost twice as much as the 2011 one did, but
unfortunately the cause of this isn't explored in the article. However it does
note that there's "a drive to get most people to complete next year's census
online".

Could it be the the UK govt has yet again had an IT project spiral into
runaway costs?

~~~
okasaki
The population is higher, and the pound is worth less.

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yardie
The census is used as the baseline for a lot of statistical models. It’s not
cheap but it is extremely accurate. So if your model starts with garbage data
you get garbagr results. Hell, even the guy in charge of it doesn’t appear
convinced. Like we’re going to “magic science” our way out of having to do it.

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biscotti
Datashine is probably the best representation of the previous (2011) UK census
data:

[https://datashine.org.uk](https://datashine.org.uk)

I’m somewhat amused sibling comments have been downvoted for pointing out the
demographic shift these censuses illustrate, reason enough imo to think the
decision to end them could be more political than from a concern for what they
might cost.

Peter Thiel after all predicts the future for European countries is to end up
as either surveillance or Islamic states, something I’m guessing the natives
would neither take kindly to nor be too comfortable knowing the likely
consequence of this for their offspring. This is the elephant in the room &
the deciding factor that led to the Brexit vote, & you can pick any of Angela
Merkels recklessness, Daves dodgy timing or the Saudi / Turkish / UAE funding
of mosques that encourage next to no mixing or liberalisation of this
demographic to thank for that.

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krapp
Why do we even need to take a census in the age of omnipresent state
surveillance? Our governments already know exactly where we are and what we're
doing practically at all times, tracking our web activity, listening in
through our phones and devices, reading our mail, tapping into the data
servers of the few tech companies that won't happily hand over our private
data directly to governments with a smile. And in a few years the mass
deployment of facial recognition software and self-driving cars will allow
governments to correlate race and gender to our travel and purchase habits
down to the last second and foot.

An actual census seems like a quaint atavism. The UK can just ask the NSA to
count its citizens and provide whatever demographic data is required, and the
US can ask the same of the UK. Problem solved.

~~~
akmarinov
Publicly admitting that is probably something that they don't want to do.

On the other hand, stopping a census for dumb reasons is one way to do it
without publicly admitting they already have the data.

~~~
krapp
They don't need to publicly admit anything, thanks to Wikileaks and Snowden,
it's a matter of public record.

Since we don't have any choice about whether or not to participate in the
panopticon, and it's clear no one is going to do anything to stop it, then it
should at least serve some public good. Offer a public API and let Western
countries build services directly on top of it.

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leto_ii
It's funny to think that there was a time when the only way to get massive
amounts of data about the population was to go door-to-door and ask questions
to people.

On the other hand relying on indirect data or even surveys can have serious
limitations, especially if you base administrative/budgetary decisions on the
data collected this way.

~~~
arethuza
7% of households in the UK still don't have internet access:

[https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/househol...](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/bulletins/internetaccesshouseholdsandindividuals/2019)

~~~
vidanay
After the census, it will be 6.732%

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specialist
What's the ideal _implementation_ of a modern census?

We now have multiple demographic databases accounting for all peoples, both
living and dead, updated in near real time.

Facebook & Google, telcos, credit rating agencies, data aggregators, NSA, law
enforcement, credit card companies, voter registrations, medical records, etc.

Instead of sending people around with clipboards and surveys, why don't we
just run some queries on the databases we already have?

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TazeTSchnitzel
I wonder if they'll think, well, other countries manage without, why do we
need it?

But the UK doesn't necessarily have what those countries do. Sweden doesn't
need a census because it forces everyone to register their address and family
relationships with the central government within 7 days of those changing. The
UK by contrast has many disparate single-purpose databases which do not form a
coherent whole.

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rkwasny
Isn't it surprising that the government cannot send a text message to whole
population:

Please fill in this online census questionnaire
[https://[unique_link_here]](https://\[unique_link_here\])

Some ads/incentives here and there to remind people to fill it and one should
have 90%+ completion rate.

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guiriduro
But how will we track the evolution of the jedi religion in the UK without it?

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s9w
It's hard to comprehend how these things could possibly cost as much as they
do. A billion pounds to send some letters? Huh

~~~
ben_w
£1bn total is about £15/person. Delivery has to be guaranteed because the
letters are a legal requirement. If each delivery covers two people, but
sending out and returning are both paid for by the government, and if it
counts as a 100-250g large letter 2nd class, that’s already £2.52/person
without the cost of printing, processing, or storage.

~~~
estel
If everyone answered their one letter I'm sure the census would be a lot
cheaper, but I think most of the real cost comes from employing thousands of
people who go around the country knocking on the doors of those who haven't
responded yet.

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londons_explore
> said an estimated £906m would be spent

I wonder how exactly it costs this much? What is the money spent on?

Lets imagine the 'MVP' census. A printed 10 page document (£0.45), mailed to
each household (£0.61), in an envelope (£0.02), times 27.6 million houses.
Return mailing costs another £0.61+0.02. Scan every sheet. OCR it (free).
Hand-enter 1% of responses where OCR errors are excessive. 276,000 documents
hand entered at 5 minutes per document, £10/hr. £0.0083/household. Total
costs: £47M

Cost of running a few trial runs of one 10,000 house town or city to perfect
the process: £100k

Pay for a year 1 statistician to make graphs, one social scientist to design
questions, one manager for the team of printing/scanning/hand-entering people,
one IT person to keep/archive the data and get it on the web, and a head of
department. Also a little office. Total fixed costs £800k.

The whole thing can seemingly be done for 5% of the quoted cost. And that
excludes any potential efficiencies gained by having an app to collect
responses, or bulk discounts from postage companies. Also, while a redacted
version of the full dataset is published, I would expect the government
department to also offer commercial statistics services on the non-redacted
dataset where such analysis doesn't impact customer privacy. That should earn
them tens of millions at least.

~~~
Tenoke
These are more or less the absolute minimum cost for doing it - and when has
anything beyond an MVP cost the absolute minimum?

Any real-world project, especially at that scale has much more external costs.
There is also enforcement, publicising, security handling, approvals, way more
than 1 person to come up with the questions (1 random employee designing the
census would be such a waste if you get an average social scientist, that it's
ridiculous to propose), compliance, double-checking, etc. etc.

Going from 47m to 906m - when you account for the costs that exist in the real
world for something as big and comprehensive like this - is actually fairly
reasonable.

