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Britain's census is not fit for purpose and should be urgently updated, the New Local Government Network has warned. The national population survey is used to calculate the allocation of £100bn of public cash to councils and primary care trusts. The next census, due in 2011, will be outdated and insufficiently detailed, wasting the £500m to be spent on collating it, the local government think-tank claims in its latest report, Local counts: The future of the census. The NLGN proposed a new census which would: - focus on how a new system based on existing administrative database sources could be introduced in time for 2011 - get rid of the civic duty legal compulsion for people to register their address - create a new duty on councils, their partners and central government to share share data. The NLGN report proposes that Britain follow the example of the Netherlands, where administrative databases are used to provide an updatable, ‘rolling' register, rather than a one-off census which is out-of-date as soon as it is published. NLGN director, Chris Leslie, described the current methods to collect the census data as ‘outdated', and said the NLGN's idea for a new census would help those local authorities which did not have the information to work out where best to spend their money. NLGN's latest research indicates that distrust of census statistics has already led some councils to develop their own population data, obtaining the information from existing resources, including GP address records and the electoral roll. Mr Leslie, said: ‘We are urging the Government to be a little braver and think more laterally to find a more accurate and efficient way of doing this.'

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WHITEHALL

Census waste of money and needs reform says local government group

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