Addressing the Census

The Office for National Statistics is ramping up its work to deliver Census 2021. This work will include address checking through fieldwork and desk-based research to support enumeration planning: the census enumeration team is heavily reliant upon having easy access to an accurate and complete address list.

The ONS Address team will be using OS AddressBase as the address index for the next national Census, which will be taking place in 2021.

Accurate address data will help ONS to plan the Census roll-out across England and Wales, allowing support to be targeted where it is most needed. Getting the planning right will maximise the accuracy of the subsequent statistics produced.

The resulting high-quality statistics, analysis and knowledge gained from the Census will help councils make better decisions for their residents by providing a rigorous evidence base to take decisions on planning for infrastructure, transport, housing, education, social care and other front line service planning.

For this reason, the ONS needs to use the most comprehensive addressing datasets available. The agency recognises the importance of Address Custodians’ and Street Custodians’ work in providing data to continually enhance the quality of OS AddressBase and the National Gazetters.

• Improving the quality of residential property identification by increasing the number of properties classified to tertiary levels

• Enabling better identification of student hall accommodation, through the application of appropriate top level classification codes

• Enabling better enumeration planning by increasing the quantity of communal establishments coded to room level, and,

• enabling better identification of eligible residencies through better consistency of the data entered into status fields.

Every address and every individual piece of location data that’s maintained by a Custodian will have a direct value not only to the relevant council but also to the Office for National Statistics and, by association, to central government too.

“The accuracy of the location data being used by ONS is imperative. A high-quality census will be reliant on a high quality address framework, with which to produce accurate population counts and statistics.”

-Jez Halton Senior Research Officer, Address Index, Data Architecture, Office for National Statistics