Community advisers will help make Census count

10 Mar 11
Concerns among local authorities that the 2001 census under-counted migrant communities have led to the deployment of 41 community advisers in this month’s £480m exercise
By Mark Smulian

10 March 2011

Concerns among local authorities that the 2001 census under-counted migrant communities have led to the deployment of 41 community advisers in this month’s £480m exercise.


Census information is used in the allocation of some £100bn of public spending each year, according to the Office for National Statistics, including those grants distributed to local authorities on a per capita basis.

A number of councils claimed following the 2001 census that their populations had been under-counted because census staff could not find and engage with members of migrant communities.

This led to a lengthy campaign by the Local Government Association for more accurate counting methods.

The community advisers, who have relevant language skills, will help managers in this month’s census to ‘engage with all of the groups within a local community who might need additional help to complete the census’, an ONS spokeswoman said.

They will work with representative organisations in migrant communities to explain how the census should be completed and how the information is used.

‘Community advisers will provide reassurance that people's information is confidential and secure,’ she said.

‘It is important that this explanation and reassurance is given to all sectors of society.’

An LGA spokeswoman said: ‘We have worked with ONS on meeting our concerns about counting hard-to-reach groups, and we do think the ONS has put into effect measures to avoid the problems that arose last time.’

The LGA campaign for reforms to the census saw its then-chair Sir Simon Milton say in 2008: ‘Official statistics on how many migrants are coming or where they are going are inadequate.

‘Councils are hampered because they can’t plan effectively for population change and inadequate statistics are used to allocate money. Much-needed funding for local services isn’t getting to the right places.’

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