Oliver Duke-Williams
banner
oliverdw.bsky.social
Oliver Duke-Williams
@oliverdw.bsky.social
Professor of Population Information; UCL Dept of Information Studies
Census Service Director @ UK Data Service
MA/MSc Digital Humanities programme
Census data is also set apart from most other sources through being mandatory - as well as having to be fit for purpose for main gov/academic etc uses, there's a moral need to make it accessible for all potential users
July 10, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Census data users are diverse and vary significantly in their needs; to realise that national asset, we need to provide a variety of routes to make the data usable
July 10, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Consultation doc mentions topics previously considered but not used (e.g. income), and topics used in England & Wales and/or NI, but not in Scotland

Finally - allows people to mention topics they think should be added to the census
June 18, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Some admin sources are good, others more limited; some comes from surveys that are OK at national or regional scale, but sample not large enough for fine categories / small areas

BUT! Clear that admin data v much part of planning / implementation of census and important part of future pop data
June 18, 2025 at 2:37 PM
The consultation doc is worth reading to understand the potential/limits of admin data - it lists current census topics and explains user need, and then summarises availability in non-census data
June 18, 2025 at 2:37 PM
The Scottish Government have now launched a consultation on 2031 Census topics - this was mentioned in the announcement yesterday, but I think the link was missing from the initial version of the document (I don't know how quickly it was updated)

consult.gov.scot/national-rec...
Scotland's Census 2031 - Topics - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space
Find and participate in consultations run by The Scottish Government
consult.gov.scot
June 18, 2025 at 2:37 PM
As trailed in the blog, we have a hybrid day meeting co-arranged by UK Data Service, BSPS, CeLSIUS and ONS, hosted at UCL where we will be discussing the future of the UK demographic system - and the role of a 2031 census in that system

Register:

ukdataservice.ac.uk/events/the-f...
The future of the UK demographic system — UK Data Service
A comprehensive resource funded by the ESRC to support researchers, teachers and policymakers who depend on high-quality social and economic data.
ukdataservice.ac.uk
June 17, 2025 at 11:43 AM