Through the post today I received a request to fill out the census form with the threat if I didn't I would get a fine of up to £1,000
It looks as if Professor Sir Ian Diamond thinks everyone has internet access,
Go to
If you want a paper form go to the same URL!
You omitted "or call 0800....". How many do you know with no internet
*and* no phone?It is true there are some people with access to neither the internet nor a telephone. If they had the letter and do nothing they can expect a knock on their door (or tent flap or whatever). The question of a fine only arises if people still don't fill it in.
...or call 0800 141 2021
It's on the page twice.
or call the number that is given on the letter and also on the leaflet.
No you didn't. You received a request to fill it in.
I would guess that 99.999% of internet connections are made through a phone line, whether POTS, fibre, or mobile. So it is likely that someone with no phone connection will have no internet connection. There might be one or two who use a satellite link, but I doubt there will be a significant number. In other circumstances, I suppose a person without internet connection might have been able to use a library or even internet cafe, but the pandemic has put paid to those.
Indeed. I have telephoned and requested a form to fill out. It was all automatic, using the ref number on the "threatening" letter.
Out of interest, has anyone yet seen the census form or what questions will be asked?
I got my invite from Starlink the other week, think I'll pass for now...
Haven't seen it yet but I believe you have to know what sex you are today.
They should have another question: "Are you Woke?" -- for which one of the answer tick boxes should be "Am I what?"
and another "Just f*ck off and grow up a bit, will you?"
John (not "woke", and by no means asleep)
Thank you for the reminder, I have now entered my details after requesting a text message with the 12 character code.
but the letter doesn't tell people without internet access that they can get a paper form
you have to go to the website to find that out
It's well worth filling in the census form accurately. Provision of local services is based on it.
To the extent local services are provided, of course.
yup, filled mine in earlier this week
compared to previous years it's a noddy questionnaire
The only contentious question was "please give a description of your job (or previous one if currently not working)" (120 words) which I thought was well OTT, and not particularly easy to usefully collate as a set of answers
I've filled in the on-line form. Two days ago and I've already forgotten what the questions were.
My letter does. Perhaps Sir Ian is sending different letters to different folks.
Nick
Did mine yesterday (it can be altered if the situation changes before the due date). Questions about the household, property, education, religion, employment, car ownership come to mind.
It's a shame that the 2021 Census is electronic: I presume that the few who complete the paper form will have it converted into an electronic state and the papers will then be shredded. In 2011 I left a message in the additional comments boxes for my great-great-grandchildren who might be searching their ancestry in or after 2111. This year I'd hoped to write something like "Marty! I'm stranded in 2021! Bring the DeLorean and come and get me!"
Nick
The OP's point was not everyone had internet acess to ask for a paper form. Mine was that a lot of people without internet access do have access to a phone and so can use that to ask for a paper form. In other words, I agree very few have internet but no phone but there is a significant minority who have no internet - about 4% of UK households last year - but very probably a phone.
does yours not say you can get one by phoning the 0800 number it gives?
You forgot the winking smiley...
Well, it might have been true 150 years ago when most people were born, lived, married, had their children, and died without moving from the place they were born. Today it's completely different and most people move around many times throughout their lives, often hundreds of miles, or abroad, and back again. A census every ten years is a pointlessly expensive exercise in obtaining and analysing out-of-date information. If its local services that information is intended to provide it could be obtained more accurately and quickly through county and district councils, and many other sources of information, such as GP surgery registration info (anonymised, of course). There is. of course, a vast amount of information already online for the majority of the population, which is far more up-to-date than any census will ever be.
So, despite previous UK governments saying they were going to stop the census (was it before the previous one or the one before that?), here we are again. It can only be for yet another form of official snooping - and isn't the UK already known around the world as one of the most snooping democracies around?
Countries do not need to perform a census on their whole population every ten years. The Netherlands have not had a census for 50 years; the Scandinavian countries base their data on registers and sampling. Other countries also base their data requirements on, for example, a 10% sample every year or two.
No no no - you haven't been listening to The News on't wireless: the emaciated local services that we have become used to over the last decade or so (less and less, year by year) will look like a County Council Cornucopia compared to what we'll get in the future, after they start paying for Covid!
It'll all be self-help. And warring tribal factions, as the Police get cut to half of the half-size force they've been made in the last decade or so (see above).
Cheerful Charlie
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