Dialogue on Data - Census Report

Ipsos was commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to investigate public attitudes towards the census as part of the wider Dialogue on Data public dialogue programme. The research was conducted to better understand public feeling towards, and understanding of, the national census as part of ONS’s “Beyond 2011” consultation, which gathered public opinion on a potential change to the methodology used to gather the census. The dialogue also gathered participants’ views on two future options for the 2021 Census: a census gathered using the traditional methodology but predominantly online, or a new type of census based on the use of administrative data from government departments and a large representative survey of the population. This project also forms part of the wider Public Attitudes to Science 2014 survey, which collected quantitative data on the public’s attitudes towards big data.