Scotland moves 2011 census online

UK-- The Scottish public are to be given the option to complete the country's next census online, it was announced this week.

The 2011 population count will be the first time people have been given the choice of filling out the survey online, or opting for the traditional paper form.

It follows a decision earlier this year by the Office of National Statistics to add an online option to the 2011 England and Wales Census.

Scotland's Registrar General Duncan Macniven said: “We studied other countries' approaches to using the internet for census returns and concluded that it has many benefits. The online option has the potential to improve the quality of the results because we can help people navigate through the questionnaire and consider how to answer each question.”

New online forms will be tested during a rehearsal census in March 2009 on 50,000 households in west Edinburgh, Lewis and Harris.

Meanwhile, the £18.5m contract to process Scotland's 2011 census has been awarded to information systems company CACI, which will work with the General Registrar for Scotland (GROS) to develop a website, printed questionnaires and IT systems for automatic handwritten data capture and coding.

CACI will carry out the data capture and coding process before GROS statisticians analyse the data and prepare it for release.

The firm previously processed the Republic of Ireland Census in 2002 and 2006.

Author: James Verrinder

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