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A census of popula tion and housing, even in a country as small as
Northern Ireland, is a major undertaking and much time, effort and
resources are devoted to it. At a national level it is the largest
single statistical exercise carried out by Government - indeed at
one stage during the 1991 census around 150,000 people were employed
on it in the United Kingdom as a whole.
Data collected in a census have many uses - foremost perhaps
being the provision of an accurate population count at local level.
In addition, the rich detail of census data provides essential
information to plan and deliver services to the population as a
whole and to various subgroups within it.
Due to the size of this undertaking and the importance attached
to it, the census thus requires a considerable amount of planning
and resources.
Planning for the 2001 Census began as
far back as 1993, a date necessitated by the scale of the project
being undertaken. Extensive preparations were required including
putting the necessary legislation in place, developing the
forms to be used and setting up and testing the mechanisms
by which the Census was undertaken. Key to this process was
consultation with census users and the general public to ensure that
the census struck the appropriate balance between the needs of
Government, business and academia with the requirement that the
public was not over burdened by the process and crucially that the
confidentiality of their responses was guaranteed.
The 2001 Census was taken on Sunday
29th April 2001. Prior to this date over 3,000 Census field staff
distributed over 600,000 Census forms to every household and
communal establishment in Northern Ireland which were then posted
back to Census Office. This exercise was
supported by an extensive publicity campaign which included
television adverts and a large scale poster campaign. Minority
groups were supported by the community liaison programme which
encouraged these groups to participate in the Census and provided
resources to ease the burden of completion. A telephone and e-mail
helpline was set up to assist the public with any difficulties they
had in completing the Census form.
The
Census processing project aims to create as a final result a
database that at person level reflects the most accurate estimate of
the Northern Ireland population possible. This is achieved in two
stages. Firstly the tick-box and hand-written information
which the public provide on Census forms are scanned in and
processed using optical recognition technology.
Secondly the results of a Census Coverage Survey, designed to
measure how the census did in counting households and people by
interviewing a cross-section of the population, are carefully
matched with
the results from the 2001 Census to highlight under enumeration with
additional individuals being imputed to produce a final database in
the one number census process.
A
paper outlining the methodology used in the census to achieve
complete information for the whole population is available HERE.
This
paper includes summary information on impact of these processes on
key variables, including religion and community background.
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