---

Census

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.Letter from Stephen Penneck, dated March 2010:"As the Director General for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking what methodology will be used to count (a) people in immigration removal centres and (b) asylum seekers in the 2011 Census. (323453)""ONS will count those people in immigration removal centres in the same manner as it will count people in prison. ONS have liaised with the Ministry of Justice to develop procedures for enumerating prisoners, and are currently in discussion with the UK Borders Agency to extend this planning to cover immigration removal centres.""Specially trained field staff will visit such establishments and work with the management to ensure that census returns are made in respect of all inmates. Three prisons were included in the 2009 Census Rehearsal to ensure that plans for the 2011 Census are effective and practical.""Where asylum seekers are living in the community, Census field staff will not know whether or not they are asylum seekers, and the census questionnaire will not seek this information. Such people will be enumerated via a combination of special enumeration and general enumeration procedures dependent on their length of intended residence and their place of residence. Both language support and translation services will be available. In addition, field staff will have received specific training in how to best encourage people to complete a questionnaire and deal with refusals. There will also be a tailored publicity and communications strategy to accompany this."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

508 c508W; 323453

Session

2009-10

Subjects

Census

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk