office for national statistics census transformation programme

Office for National Statistics Census Transformation Programme Market Engagement Exercise 13 May 2015 Presentations, Transcripts and Frequently Asked Questions Contents Welcome - Ian Cope Why does the Census Matter? – Glen Watson About ONS and the Census Programme – Ian Cope Designing the Census – Ben Humberstone Delivering the Census – Shaun Garvey Procuring the Census – Simon Matthews A transcript of each presentation is also included after each Presentation title page.

Census Transformation

Programme: Supplier Briefing Day

& Transcripts

Ashes Suite, Kia Oval, Kennington, London SE11 5AS

9:30 am to 12:30 pm on Wednesday 13 May 2015

WELCOME

Ian Cope – Director of Census, ONS

Supplier Day Transcript: Ian Cope – Welcome

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Ian Cope – Welcome / Introduction

Welcome; my name is Ian Cope, Director of 2021 Census and I am delighted to have so many of you

here this morning. As you can see, it is almost standing room only, and a great venue. I understand

that they will be playing cricket later on, so I am glad you are facing this way (towards the stage) and

not towards the crease!

Just to cover the aims and objectives of this morning: this is really about briefing suppliers on the

Office for National Statistics plans for delivery of the next census. It is an opportunity for us to meet

with suppliers, to listen to their ideas and their solutions, and the ways in which they can help us

deliver the next census.

There was a lot of networking going on just now and there will be an opportunity for that at the end

of the presentations as well. There is a particular emphasis on promoting awareness of the Supplier

Form Survey, and you will hear more about that later. This is the very start of part of a wider

programme of market engagement activity; we are on the start of a journey.

In terms of what we are going to cover in our presentations this morning, there will be a key-note

speech from Glen Watson, following which I will tell you something about ONS and the Census

Programme. Ben Humberstone will talk about designing the census, he is the Deputy Director for

the Design; Shaun Garvey will talk about our plans and timeline for delivering the census. Finally,

Simon Matthews will explain the procurement process and where we are with all of that; then there

will be time for questions and answers and a further networking opportunity at the end.

Housekeeping procedures were explained.

There will be time for questions at the end of the briefing and so if you could keep your questions

until the end. All of the information from today, the slides, the speeches, the presentations, and any

questions asked will be published. We are taking a recording, and producing notes for suppliers, so

there is no need to take detailed notes unless you want to.

This morning is a great opportunity to network and engage with the ONS staff. The senior census

team are sat down in the front of the audience; I will introduce them at the end of the briefing, there

will be a good opportunity to chat to them. We really want to hear from you as well.

I am now going to hand over to Glen Watson on ‘Why the Census Matters’. Glen was the Census

Director for the 2011 Census, I was in charge of the operations and I worked to Glen. He is now the

Director General for Population and Public Policy and I still work for him. I am going to hand over to

Glen now.

Aims and Objectives

• To brief suppliers on ONS plans for delivery of the next

Census.

• To enable Office for National Statistics (ONS) to meet

with suppliers.

• Listen to new ideas and solutions that may assist ONS with

delivery of the Census.

• To promote awareness of the Supplier Form (survey)

• Part of a wider programme of planned market

engagement activity.

Agenda

• “Why does the Census Matter?”

Keynote address by Glen Watson, DG Population and Public Policy

• “About ONS and the Programme”

Ian Cope, Census Director

• “Designing the Census”

Ben Humberstone, Deputy Director of Design

• “Delivering the Census”

Shaun Garvey, Deputy Director of Delivery

• “Procuring the Census”

Simon Matthews, Interim Head of Commercial

• Questions and Answers

• Closing comments (breakout / further networking)

Guidance

• No fire alarms expected this morning

• Please silence all mobile phones.

• Time for questions at the end of all of the presentations.

• All information will be published (no recording needed).

• Please take the opportunity to network and engage with

ONS staff… we want to hear from and about you!

WHY DOES THE CENSUS

MATTER?

Glen Watson – DG Population and Public Policy, ONS

Supplier Day Transcript: Glen Watson – ‘Why does the Census matter?’

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Glen Watson – “Why does the Census Matter”

Thank you Ian and good morning everyone. What a fantastic turnout, I am delighted to see

so many people here… I always love coming to events and talking about the census, I just

love the census!

Now why is it so important? Well it’s a national institution isn’t it. It’s been going for over 200

years and we have done it every ten years apart from during the Second World War, and it is

part of our national infrastructure.

This is a first opportunity for you to think about how you can help us succeed in 2021, in the

way we did, I believe, in 2011.

Now it’s so important because it matters; it affects so many day to day decisions, which

affect all our lives, whether you are talking about:

investment decision in roads, rail projects, schools hospitals its underpinned by

population figures from the census, resource allocations to local authorities

health bodies, or

European regeneration grants

They are underpinned to a degree by population figures from the census.

Whether you are talking about, survey planning, bus routes, utility supplies, language

translation services that local authorities provide… it’s underpinned by data from the census.

And if you are running a business and you are trying to decide where to develop your

services, what product lines to pursue, where to locate your stores, your headquarters you

will be interested in population figures, work distribution figures.

If you are interested in policy making around age or training and you work in a central

government department, you will be using results from the census.

If you are into equality monitoring, equality proving, looking at changes, target setting,

whatever, in the space of gender or ethnicity, you will be interested in the census results.

In our own world if you are interested in producing official statistics in any aspect of life in the

UK, the census is bedrock because it provides the denominator for the capita per head

rates, GDP per head, employment rate or mortality indicators etc, etc.

The census is really fundamental to life in the UK. The results are used extensively by local

government, central government, businesses, academics, by the voluntary section, by

community groups. The census really is for absolutely everybody, even if you are just an

ordinary citizen interested in what your neighbourhood is like, the characteristics of what the

population is like in your own area, you will use the census results.

So as Ian said, I was the director of the census for 2011, for 5 years actually from 2007 –

2012 and it was probably the best, toughest job I have had. So… good luck Ian!

It really is a massive challenge, at its peak we had something like:


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40,000 people working on the census

over 25 separate companies supplying services and working in partnership with us

we had a formal partnership with every single local authority in the country

we printed over 100 million items

took nearly 2 million calls to our call centre, and

40 articulated lorries arriving at our processing centre every day…

… and ONS doesn’t normally do things on this scale.

Which is why we need your help, which is why we are reaching out, we need some of the

talent in this room and beyond to help us make a success of the next census.

I said I loved the census; it’s like a bug, it gets you under the skin and I have never lost it. It’s

fascinating, its high profile, it’s a massive logistical challenge, its politically sensitive and it

can be a bit scary at times because you have to get it right on the day. To that end, it’s a bit

like the Olympics really, it has to be right and ready on the day.

Even now, we are choosing the date for the 2021 Census, so it’s a real, real special thing.

It’s also quite amusing, quite funny at times and so I am going to share with you two or three,

things that made me smile during the 2011 Census…

There was the man who rang the help line and asked ‘I missed my mother-in-law off

the census does that mean she has to move out?’

There was the person who tweeted ‘those people in the census office are really

clever, not only do they have my personal information, now I have licked the

envelope they have got my DNA as well’! (Trust me we do not have a DNA

database!)

There was the person who wrote on the form, occupation ‘lion sculptor’ description of

occupation ‘I chip away all the bits of stone that aren’t lion’.

Then there were the forms that we delivered to the wrong places and were returned

to sender. One we addressed to the occupier of Heathrow Airport … not quite sure

what we expected there… and one we addressed to ‘The Occupier, Statue of Earl

Hague, Whitehall’

These stories are just a little reminder that with the best will in the world, there are

imperfections in an otherwise very, very good census.

So we will be wanting to work with partners who share the same feelings that we do, which

is about a total commitment to success. We want people who will feel that their reputation is

tied into this just as much as ONS’s reputation is and want to make this work whatever it

takes. We were lucky in 2011, we worked with some fantastic people, some fantastic

partners, some in this room. They understood this and time and time again demonstrated

they would go the extra mile and an absolute commitment to make the census succeed. We

had partners working with us on printing, logistics, data capture and processing, online

capture, recruitment, training, payroll, postal delivery, security, systems development, public

relations, community engagement, management consultancy and much, much more.

Now we know that being in the private sector you all want to make a profit, and your

organisations want to make a profit. We respect that, but we think the census is much more


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important than the bottom-line and that’s why we want you to commit to success if you are

working with us on this, the same way we do, however challenging it might get.

This one in 2021 will be very different than 2011, there will be a lot more online collection,

there will be a lot more data online from other government administrations. There will be

more reuse of the systems and processes built so that they can benefit the whole of ONS,

and the whole of the UK official statistics system. There will be a need for quicker data

capture, quicker data processing, accessing faster and more imaginative presentation of the

results, so these are just a few of the new challenges for 2021 and you will hear a lot more

about that this morning.

And then there will be the usual perennial challenge, it gets harder and harder every time

there are more people in the country, there are more properties, more diversity, population is

more and more mobile and people are less willing to respond. A better overall response in

2011 compared to 10 years earlier was a remarkable achievement and we will be setting

ourselves high standards and high targets for 2021. This mobility, this diversity brings a load

of challenges when it comes to marketing and gaining community engagement. So, as I

said, you will hear more about the challenges during the morning.

So this will be a fascinating undertaking , it will be a rollercoaster-ride and the partners that

we select to work with us will be doing something of national importance, that I believe will

stay in their memories for years and years like it has/does in mine.

Now I am very sorry I am unable to stay the whole session this morning but I have to dash

off to headquarters for the ONS Audit Committee. Believe me I would much rather be in this

room, talking about the census, but I hope by the end of this morning you will succumb to the

census bug, you will feel engaged and involved in this ready to use your best talent,

imagination to work out how you can help us because, as I say, this is a very special, very

important endeavour that we are about to embark on, so I will just leave it there and hand

back to the team and thank you all very much for your interest so far.

Thank you.

https://2011mc.census.gov.uk/index.php?module=documents&action=download&id=23


ABOUT ONS AND THE

PROGRAMME


Supplier Day Transcript: Ian Cope – ONS and the CTP

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Ian Cope – “ONS and the Census Transformation Programme”

Thank you Glen. He is supposed to be at the ONS Audit Committee now and has taken time

out of his busy schedule and has to dash off now.

I am just going to speak a bit more now about the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and

the Census Transformation Programme (the Programme).

About ONS

ONS are a part of the UK Statistics Authority, and the UK Statistics Authority is an

independent body that is set up to be at arms length from government. It reports directly to

the UK Parliament through the Public Administration Select Committee, as opposed to

normally through a minister; and also to the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly

for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

ONS was established by the Statistics Registration Services Act of 2007 and has the

statutory objective of ‘promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official

statistics that serve the public good’, a quite wide ranging scope; and that ‘public good’ is

defined as

informing the public about social and economic matters;

assisting in the development and evaluation of public policies of central government,

local government authorities; and

(more widely) regulating the quality of the statistics that are produced; and

publicly challenges the misuse of statistics.

Andrew Dilnot is the chair of the UK Statistics Authority and occasionally has to write to the

members of parliament if they are doing something wrong and misusing statistics!

ONS is also the executive arm of UK Statistics Authority and we are the UK’s National

Statistical Institute. We are also the largest producer of official statistics in the UK. The UK

has a decentralised statistical system, so you have statisticians in defence and agriculture

etc.

We produce about 750 outputs per year, which equates to about 3 every working day and

that’s on a wide range of economic, social and demographic topics. On economic statistics,

for example, we produce: the CPI, the measure of inflation, information on GDP and how the

economy is growing; the balance of payments and national well being, and labour market

participation and employment rates. Also information on retail sales and how that’s changed;

a wide range of economic statistics that you will hear in the press almost every day.

On social statistics there is obviously the census itself and we produce a wide range of other

statistics on the population. Inward and outward migration is a rather topical subject; crime

statistics; births data and weekly deaths, which are very important, particularly during the

winter.

We produce annual population estimates; we take the census data, updated every year by

births, deaths and migration and also produce 25 and 50 year population projections. There


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is information on health and social care; how people spend their money; national well being.

A more light-hearted but popular output is the annual statistics on baby names… and I

wouldn’t be at all surprised if Charlotte wwent up the rankings by this time next year!

About the census

Moving on to the census itself, ONS is responsible for the census in England and Wales and

we work with the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government make the regulations for the

census in Wales. ONS is also responsible for producing the UK Census outputs and

providing those to international bodies such as Eurostat and the United Nations. The

National Records of Scotland are responsible for running the census in Scotland, and the

Northern Ireland Research and Statistics Agency run census in Northern Ireland.

We have a UK Census committee to harmonise things like the census date, the questions,

branding etc. At the moment our engagement with suppliers is focussed around England and

Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland may join in with those contracts.

Protecting the confidentiality and the privacy of census data is a key priority; the public are

concerned that their personal information is held secure. This came under quite a lot of

scrutiny following the introduction of the Patriot Act in the United States of America. ONS

put in place very strict physical and IT security, we carried out wide ranging independent

reviews. We also carried out lots of independent penetration tests and also commissioned

an Independent Information Assurance review, so the public could have confidence that their

data was held securely.

We don’t share any of that personal identifiable information with government departments;

with local authorities or with commercial users. The personal data is then held secure for a

hundred years and is then released so it can be used by genealogists and family historians.

Maintaining the public’s confidence in the security of the census is a top priority.

The census comes under significant public interest. Ministers will have to introduce

secondary legislation that is required, we have a wide range of parliamentary questions on

census on particular points. The Public Administration Select Committee, that oversee the

UK Statistics Authority, will probably call for evidence and then the Treasury and Cabinet

Office each take a keen interest. We will have a string of gateway reviews through the

course of the programme.

As Glen mentioned in his address, there are a wide range of stakeholders who have an

interest in the census. Local authorities are big users and they care about the results; ethnic

minorities and faith groups will be interested in the questions we ask and how their groups

can be properly represented in the census. There are a wide range of other interest groups

including privacy groups, that we are already engaged with. And then of course there is the

public themselves and we get correspondence and Freedom of Information requests.

Particularly around the time of the census itself, as you will see from some of those earlier

images we really get media interest.

2011 Census

So this is a high profile public event at the time that it happens. In terms of the 2011 Census,

that programme started in 2002, and so you will see that although the census is every 10


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years that was a 12 year programme and we closed it last September and you will see that

although the census is every 10 years, that was a 12 year programme. We closed out the

2011 Census by publishing the General Report in March of this year. The General Report is

about 300 pages and basically describes how we ran the Census in 2011 and is available

on the ONS website.

The reason that we run the census is that it makes people’s lives better. It enables business,

government and local authorities to make decisions to make the life of the public better and it

delivers very real benefits. We have quantified the benefits from the last census at about 490

million pounds per annum, which represents a payback period of about 14 months. So the

benefits very significantly outweigh the costs.

The 2011 Census was widely recognised as being very successful:

various academic users including the Economic and Social Research Council, have

described the 2011 Census as either ‘the best census since 1981’ or ‘the best

census ever’;

the National Audit Office did a ‘good practice guide’ which described exemplary

programme delivery

throughout the programme we received positive gateway reviews;

the 2011 Census programme was awarded a Major Projects Authority ‘successful

projects in government’ last March, one of the six projects to win a award, alongside

the Olympics

The 2011 Census was run well and its success was widely recognised.

2021 Census

Moving on to the 2021 Census which is what you will be slightly more interested in perhaps.

The first phase, which we called the Beyond 2011 Programme, ran from 2011 to January

2015. That was looking at whether there were alternative ways we could run a census in the

future and what was the best way to provide small area population and socio-demographic

statistics. We started off with about eight different options and aimed to produce a

recommendation by September last year.

As part of that process we whittled down to two front running options and consulted very

widely in the autumn of 2013 on the two front running options. One option was a census

once a decade, like that conducted in 2011, but primarily online; the alternative option was a

census based on administrative data that we knew the Government already holds, and large

annual surveys.

We had a large number of responses on this consultation, and this is some of the feedback

we had (slide), including that from:

the Information Commissioner’s Office, have worked with ONS on a number of

occasions and recognised we have a strong track record and have protected

personal data from previous censuses;


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Public Health England stated that without the census to identify small groups, health

services or interventions may not be identified planned or provided for in adequate

numbers or location; and

The response from the Greater London Authority stated that the online census was

the only option available to meet the statistics required to meet the needs of London

government.

We had quite a wide range of responses and this lead to the National Statistician’s

recommendation being issued to the Government on the 27 March 2014, which was ‘an

online census of all households, communal establishments…’ (diverts) (communal

establishments, for those that don’t know, are managed institutions like student halls of

residence , prisons, army bases, hostels etc.) (resumes) ‘…with support for those that are

unable to complete the census online. Plus greater use of administrative data and surveys to

enhance the statistics, making the best use of all of the available data and acting as a spring

board for the future’.

Francis Maude, the Minister for the Cabinet Office responded on behalf of the Government

in July 2014, saying that the Government welcomes the recommendation to have a

predominantly online census supplemented by greater use of administrative data;

recognises the value of the census and the fundamental importance to society. He also said

that the Governments ambition was that future censuses after 2021 will run using mainly

information already available to government and can be done in a more timely basis, but that

will be dependent on dual running and testing against the 2021 Census.

So that means we now have three strands within the Programme. The first, obviously, is

running the 2021 online census. That’s doing the development, doing the research; and then

implementing and running the 2021 online census. We want to maximise the online

response but also provide help to those that are digitally excluded.

We then need to integrate our population statistics outputs. We produce the census outputs,

we get hold of administrative data from elsewhere in government and surveys, we then

enhance and mash up those sources. We are aiming to produce trial statistics based on

administrative data in the autumn of this year. These will initially be just population

estimates, we aim to produce characteristics information year by year, and enhance and

grow that source.

The Beyond 2021 strand is all about the future and is looking at acquiring new administrative

data sources and looking at how can we produce reliable estimates that could replace the

traditional census going forward. We will evaluate those population estimates based on

administrative data against the 2021 Census outputs.

This is my last point before I hand over. I am just going to summarise the major changes

from the 2011 Census, Glen has alluded to these already. We are planning for ‘online first’

and that has implications for how we run the census. We want to make greater use of

administrative data that is already held by government. We want to leave a legacy and build

more systems that can be reused by ONS and other parts of the statistical service. These

include an address register; online collection; dissemination etc; you will hear more about

those.


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So we expect there to be (as there was last time), a mix of some systems that are built as

one-off operations; some of those will be built in-house and some of those we will out

source. There will be other systems that we build for re-use and, again, some of those will be

built in-house and some of those we will be outsourced. That precise mix is something that

we are working on between now and the end of the year. That will help inform our sourcing

and procurement strategy.

I am now going to hand over to Ben Humberstone, the Deputy Director of Design, he is

going to talk about designing the census.

• Independent body at arm’s length from government

• Reports directly to the UK parliament, Scottish Parliament,

National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly

• Established by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007

• Established with the statutory objective of ‘promoting and

safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics

that serve the public good’.

• The public good includes:

• informing the public about social and economic matters

• assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy; and

• regulating quality and publicly challenging the misuse of statistics

UK Statistics Authority

• Executive office of the UK Statistics

Authority

• UK’s National Statistical Institute and

largest producer of official statistics

(~750 outputs per yr)

• Statistics on a range of key

economic, social and demographic

topics

Office for National Statistics

Economic Statistics

• 2011 Census

• Migration

• Crime

• Births and Deaths

• Population Estimates

(Mid-Year) & projections

• Health and Social Care

• Family Spending

• Well-being

• Baby Names

Population, people and places

Census responsibilities

• ONS responsible for:

• Census in England and Wales

• Welsh government make regulations for Wales

• UK census outputs to Eurostat; UN etc

• ONS works closely with census offices in

• Scotland (National Records of Scotland)

• N Ireland (NI Statistics and Research Agency)

To harmonise: census date; questions etc

• NRS and/or NISRA may join ONS for some

contracts

Protecting the data – important from the

start

• Security and confidentiality are top priorities for Census

• Came under a lot of scrutiny in 2011 – Patriot Act

• Strict physical and IT security

• Independent security reviews - IIAR

• No personal data shared with OGDs/LAs

• Personal data secured for 100 years

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Significant public interest

• Ministers

• Parliamentary Questions

• Public Administration Select Committee,

Treasury, Cabinet Office, Gateways etc

• Stakeholders (Local Authorities, faith groups)

and interest groups (Privacy groups, etc)

• General public – often through Freedom of

Information requests and correspondence

• Media

2011 Census programme closure

• Programme started in 2002

and closed in September 2014

• March 2015 - 2011 Census

General report for England &

Wales laid before parliament

and published

Census delivers benefits to users

£490million pa

is the overall quantifiable benefits as at end of Feb 2014

• Equivalent to £9 per person in E&W pa

• Payback period achieved- 14 months

2011 Census recognised as successful

• Academic users have described the 2011

Census as ‘The best census since 1981’, and

‘The best census ever’

• National Audit Office described the census

programme as having 'exemplary programme

delivery‘

• Positive Gateway reviews

• Won a ‘Successful Projects in Government’

award from the Major Projects Authority

(MPA) - March 2014

2021 Census

Phase one - 2011-2014/15

• Programme to identify the best way to provide

small area population and socio-demographic

statistics in future

• Provide a recommendation in September 2014

A census once a decade

-like that conducted in 2011,

but primarily online

A census based on

administrative data

and large annual surveys

ONS consulted on two options

23 September to 13 December 2013

Some consultation feedback

The ICO has worked with the

ONS on a number of occasions

and we recognise that the ONS

has a strong track record of

protecting the personal data

from previous censuses.

The Commissioner has

confidence in the ONS’

approach to data protection

as demonstrated by

previous censuses.

We consider the decennial

online census to be the only

option able to deliver the

statistics required to meet the

needs of London government.

Both London Councils and the

GLA are committed to working

closely with the ONS in

developing improved population

estimates for the capital.

... Without the census to

identify these small groups,

health services or interventions

may not be identified, planned

nor provided in adequate

numbers and locations.

The census is the only source of

data that identifies all groups

within our population, however

small they may be.

National Statistician’s recommendation

• An online census of all households and communal

establishments in 2021 - with support for those who are

unable to complete the census online.

AND

• Increased use of administrative data and surveys in

order to enhance the statistics from the 2021 census and

improve annual statistics between censuses.

Make the best use of all available data to provide the population

statistics required

and

offer a springboard to the greater use of administrative data and

annual surveys in the future.

Way forward agreed with Government

• “The Government welcomes the recommendation for a

predominantly online census in 2021 supplemented by

further use of administrative and survey data.

• Government recognises the value of the census and its

history as a bedrock of statistical infrastructure. The census

provides information on the population that is of fundamental

importance to society....

• Our ambition is that censuses after 2021 will be conducted

using other sources of data and providing more timely

statistical information .... dependent on the dual running

sufficiently validating the perceived feasibility of that approach.”

Minister for the Cabinet Office, July 2014

Three key strands going forward

1. 2021 online Census operation

• Developing and implementing 2021 online Census

• Maximise online response, minimise digital exclusion

2. Integrated population statistics outputs

• Producing census outputs

• Enhancing census outputs with admin & survey data

• Trial estimates from 2015 onwards

• Population estimates and characteristics

3. Beyond 2021

• Acquire new administrative data

• Develop new methods using admin data and surveys

• Evaluation against 2021 census outputs

Major changes from 2011 Census

• Planning for online first

• Greater use of administrative data already

held by government

• Legacy - Build more systems for ONS re-use:

• Address register; online collection; dissemination

systems etc

Build: One off Reuse

In house a a

Outsourced a a

DESIGNING THE CENSUS

Ben Humberstone – Deputy Director of Design, ONS

Supplier Day Transcript: Ben Humberstone – Designing the Census

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Ben Humberstone “Designing the Census”

Introduction

Good morning all, I’m Ben Humberstone, one of the two deputy director’s on the 2021

Census, as Ian says, with primary responsibility for design. What I’m going to run through

are some very high level design principles that we’re thinking about, and considerations, and

what I’d ask you to do is think about things that you know, things that you do, and the type of

areas where you think you could help contribute towards the 2021 Census.

2021 Census Objectives

OK, so the 2021 Census objectives are, we have six of them.

The first is to run a high quality 2021 online census data collection operation. This is a huge

operation targeting every household and person in England and Wales looking to try and get

a completed census return from them.

Secondly, we also want to produce integrated outputs from census, admin and survey data;

so, if you like, unlocking the potential of data already held by government to ensure that we

can get the best, most rounded estimates and best picture of the population in 2021 that we

possibly can.

Thirdly, we need to make a recommendation about the future state of the census and

population statistics beyond 2021, so that is it feasible for example to use administrative data

in the future to replace that huge and costly census operation, and we’ve got a whole stream

of work looking at the type of information that we can glean from data already held by

government.

Fourthly, and absolutely fundamentally important, is not only to protect, but be seen to

protect confidential personal data, nobody will give us or complete their census forms if they

don’t have confidence that we can keep their data safe. And again, this is another area

where we’re keen to work with the best methods and techniques available at the time to

ensure that we’re able to make those assurances, so people can respond to the census in

confidence that their data will be kept safe.

Fifth, we also want to maximise the potential for wider benefit to ONS, so what we are

developing as part of the census that could be used elsewhere, and Ian and Glen have both

covered some of the other outputs that we produce as an office. We have a large survey

operation which is very similar to the field collection operation of census, trying to make sure

that we use that and I’ll cover that in a bit more detail in a minute.

And finally, providing value for money.

Census Operation Schematic

So, don’t worry if you can’t see this, this is a very high level schematic of the census

operation in 2011 and our business process model.

So essentially we want to specify needs, we want to find out what our users want, what they

need. We then design the questionnaire, the collection methodology, a field operation to

meet those needs, then we build it, we do the collection, we process it, we analyse, then we


2

disseminate the results for people to use and add value to the economy, to make better

decisions about the UK. So all fairly straight forward in theory.

So we start with the questionnaire design, we make sure we get the right questions on there

that meet the needs of our users, in 2011 we printed the census forms and distributed them

to every household in the UK, and Heathrow airport, and our Hague statue, as you heard!

That also had a unique reference printed on it to enable web data collection so people could

fill in their forms online for the first time. That was about 15 – 16 percent response we got

online in 2011. We’re turning that on its head, we’re thinking about for example, perhaps,

printing out invitations to respond, sending all those out to every household, we’ll be very

careful with the address register, we’ll prune it, make sure it’s right in order to enable people

to respond. We’ll also have to look at helping people who can’t respond on the web for

whatever reason to ensure that we can get the maximum response possible. That is

absolutely critical to us.

So once we’ve done that, that will be supported by a whole load of comms and social media

and marketing and publicity to ensure people know about it, they know the date, they know

what they’re supposed to do. They’ve got access to help from ONS as we did last time with

either telephone help, web help, or in 2011 with Field Enumerators visiting address to help

people fill in their forms if they hadn’t returned them.

We’ve got a huge case management operation that we need to think about and develop to

enable us to track the responses we’re expecting with the responses that we’ve actually

received. So that’s critical, so we can then target our follow up to ensure we’re only going to

the places where we were expecting a response. So, not sending an enumerator to Hague’s

statue for example!

We’ve then got a huge processing operation, so we would expect 60 million individual

responses to the census, we’ve got to process all that data, we run a census followed by a

Census Coverage Survey, we match the two sets of data together and we use very advance

statistical techniques to create an estimate of those who have responded and those who

haven’t responded.

We need to get the response rate as high as possible in order to make sure that the

estimated part of the population is as small as possible, but we are one of the most

advanced countries in the world in terms of estimating for non response and adjusting for it.

So that’s pretty much what we do as an over view.

Phasing in Detail

I’ll go through some of the areas in a bit more detail.

The census design phase, so specifying needs, design & build, Ian and Glen have already

mentioned it, as have I, online first, this is a fundamental change to the way we design

questions to the way we collect the data. So previously, to give you an example, the coding

of occupation when people fill in their occupation we needed to scan that data in to process

it, then we needed very detailed algorithms to try and link that to classifications that we

knew, where this gives us the opportunity for people to self determine from drop down lists

etc, so using the new technology to our best advantage.


3

We need to think about things like hand held devices, so how does the Census form look on

a tablet or smart phone. Are we expecting a response to come in that way, how would we

facilitate that.

We need to consult on requirements from key stakeholders and interest groups. There’s a

whole range of people who have an interest in on what goes on census, whether it’s

requiring specific ethnicities, nationalities or the way we ask a whole range of questions. The

topics we include are also vitally important; we can’t produce results on topics that we

haven’t captured so they need to link to our users requirements.

And finally in terms of the design the five areas of reuse that we’ve committed to are

absolutely fundamental so the 2021 census leaving a legacy for the way that ONS and the

Government Statistical Service do their business starts with the address frame development,

fundamental Glen mentioned that the address frame left after the census becomes our

sampling frame for our survey’s, for our business survey. So getting that right is absolutely

fundamental and a lot of effort is going into that. Survey management systems, we have

social surveys going on all the time.

Many of you or hopefully some of you will have been sampled at some point by one of the

ONS surveys, like the Labour Force Survey or the International Passenger Survey which are

our key measures of employment, the labour market, national migration and so on. It’s really

important we leave a legacy that from census enables us to do that work better. Online data

collection obviously that I’ve already covered.

Administrative Data Management and processing systems, we’re moving into the area of big

data, thinking about how that can be used for official statistics, how can we unlock the

potential of all this administrative data that the Government already collects and using it

effectively by either linking it, producing new statistics from it, or integrating it with survey

and social data.

Fundamentally though, obviously maintaining that privacy and confidentiality of individuals

and businesses data. And finally the systems for the dissemination of statistics, we need to

make sure that we make best use of social media, of the web, of new ways of getting our

message out there. It’s no good collecting all this data, processing it, analysing it, if nobody

can use it because it’s not in a form that’s easily assessable to a whole range of users from

people making decisions, huge investment decisions about where to site factory’s,

supermarkets etc through to people trying to provide or get evidence to support lottery

applications or whatever else.

2021 Census Collection

So, the 2021 Census collection, I’ve already mentioned a huge media publicity, marketing

and comms exercise. Community liaison, Ian’s already mentioned, our links with local

authorities, thinking about how we’re going to do that, how are we going to maximise

response first time it’s the cheapest way that we can get people to respond is if they know

about, if they understand the importance of it and they respond without us having to follow

up. So thinking about how we can do that is absolutely critical.

The address register I’ve already mentioned, thinking about the residential addresses, Ian

mentioned the communal establishments or managed accommodation which is incredibly


4

difficult to do, but we’re putting that together. There’s a huge list that’s going to enable us to

not only target where we send the forms or invitations to respond, but also to manage that

form tracking process to ensure that we’re getting the response back from where we expect

it.

The invitation to respond, printing, delivery, social media, can we get the message out there,

can we get people responding without an invitation to respond, do we need to print

invitations to every household for the whole of the England and Wales, we’re thinking of

those things at the moment.

And then we’ve got a help desk operation, telephone and website to enable people to

respond. It’s absolutely critical that we make it as easy as possible and that we put little

burden as possible on potential respondents and that links to assisted digital. How we can

help people who don’t have access to the web or don’t have access to the modern forms of

communication and we’re thinking about all those things.

So, carrying on with collection, so that’s, if you like, in advance of the big data collection

operation. We then do that data collection operation, then we’ve got to follow up, we’ve got

to contact people who haven’t responded yet and households that haven’t responded yet

and how we’re going to do that.

You know, do we need a huge field force of, last time it was about 35,000 staff recruited for

about, between 8 – 12 weeks. Do we need to do that again and how can we target that most

effectively. It’s those sorts of design considerations that we’re thinking about. If we do, we’re

got recruitment and training and pay and distribution of material and kit. And we’ve got

remote workers all over England and Wales, how do we get, how do we manage those

effectively and again it’s these sorts of areas where we’ll be looking for help from suppliers

like yourselves, to get these operations right.

We’ve then got the Census Coverage Survey which I’ve mentioned which is a follow up

operation, slightly smaller than the census never the less, just as important, which will

probably be run along the lines of a traditional survey with interviewers, but may not do,

again we’re thinking through all these options and opportunities that new technology affords

us. As I’ve said, enabling response is critical, but what’s our mix of web, paper and other

forms of contacting the public and getting response back. It’s going to have a huge impact

on our costs and we’re thinking that through at the moment.

And finally if we’re using paper capture, the printing, the delivery, the scanning and the

receipt of paper forms where we can’t get a response any other way. So processing and

analysis, we need to store the data, we need to clean it, we need to estimate it, we need to

impute or add in missing variables and people and we need systems in order to do that or

services in order to do that.

Quality Assurance

We run quite a sophisticated operation compared to most other countries in the world in

terms of the statistical techniques that we use, to estimate for missing people and variables

and that’s really important that we maintain that because it produces a really rich database

at the end of the operation that can be analysed in a whole range of different ways.


5

Quality assurance is absolutely fundamental to that and as I’ve mentioned, hopefully ad

nauseam , privacy and confidentiality, we protect that in a whole range of ways including the

disclosure control that we do before we publish any outputs and that we check when people

are accessing the census data that it’s properly disclosure controlled so that no information

on individuals is released inadvertently.

2021 Census Dissemination

So finally the 2021 Census dissemination, there’s a whole range of options here, there’s

huge opportunities with web based outputs, data visualisation, info graphics, social media,

comms and open data. As an organisation we’re developing in some of those areas, but the

census affords us a huge opportunity to really push the boundaries of what’s possible with

outputs, statistical outputs, making them accessible to not only policy users who normally

like a spreadsheet of data that they can plug into their formula, but also with the public, with

schools, with a whole range of people who can really make the most of those opportunities.

Concluding Comments

So, the 2021 Census design, in essence, focuses on or depends on a sound address

register, effective comms, excellent field work, high response rates, innovative methods,

accurate processing, well designed outputs. So yes, it’s easy, all we need to do is get the

delivery right… and on that note I will hand you over to my colleague Shaun Garvey, who is

responsible for delivery.

2021 Census Objectives

1. Run a high quality 2021 online census data

collection operation

2. Produce integrated outputs from census,

administrative and survey data

3. Make a recommendation about the future state of

the census and population statistics beyond 2021

4. Protect and be seen to protect confidential personal

data

5. Maximise potential for wider benefits to ONS

6. Provide value for money

Business Process Model

Specify Needs

Collect

Disseminate

Design

Process

Build

Analyse

QUESTIONNAIRE

TRACKING

QT

Database

Generate

Questionnaire ID/

Internet Access

Code & Link to

Address

Questionnaire

Design

Pay to$

Design of each

Questionnaire

Envelope & Leaflet

PRINTING

Print

QuestionnairesAddress

Register

Development$

Personalisation

Addresses

HOUSEHOLD

PUBLICITY

TV

Press Radio

Internet

DELIVERY

Questionnaire

Delivery

Web Self

HelpNew Address/

Details of Forms req’d

Help/

Information/

Additional

Forms

New Address/Details of Forms Req’d

Contact

Centre

DATA CAPTURE &

PROCESSING

Web server

Internet completion

Household &

Person detailsCheck in &

Authentication

Receipting

Mail Centres

Post

Back

FOLLOW-UPFollow-up Teams

Follow-up lists/

New Addresses

Warehouse

Check-in &

progress tracking

Questionnaires

Scanning & Data

CaptureCoding Export to Authority

Fulfilment

Centre

Details of

Fulfilment req’d

2021 Census Design Phase

• Online first

• Consultation on requirements

from key stakeholders,

government, interest groups

• Five areas of reuse: • Address frame development;

• Survey management systems (e.g. case

management, field staff management);

• Online data collection;

• Administrative data management and

processing systems;

• Systems for the dissemination of statistics

Specify Needs

Collect

Disseminate

Design

Process

Build

Analyse


Specify Needs

Collect

Disseminate

Design

Process

Build

Analyse

• Media, publicity, marketing and

comms, community liaison

• Address register – residential,

halls of residence, care homes

etc.

• Invitation to respond • Printing, delivery

• Social media

• Helpdesk – telephone, website

• “Assisted digital”


Specify Needs

Collect

Disseminate

Design

Process

Build

Analyse

• Follow up - contact

• Fieldforce • Recruitment and training

• Pay

• Distribution of material/kit

• Census coverage survey

• Enabling response

• Mix of web, paper, other?

• Capture – printing, delivery

scanning, receipt

2021 Census Processing and Analysis

Specify Needs

Collect

Disseminate

Design

Process

Build

Analyse

• Store data – admin data, Census

• Clean data

• Match/integrate data; Census to

Census coverage survey, admin

data etc.

• Estimation – missed people/

variables

• Quality assurance

• Disclosure control

2021 Census Dissemination

Specify Needs

Collect

Disseminate

Design

Process

Build

Analyse

• Web-based outputs

• Data visualisation

• Info-graphics

• Social media

• Comms

• Open data

2021 Census Design

Specify Needs

Collect

Disseminate

Design

Process

Build

Analyse

• Success depends on; • Sound address register

• Effective comms

• Excellent field work

• High response rates

• Innovative methods

• Accurate processing

• Well designed outputs

• Census delivery...

DELIVERING THE CENSUS

Shaun Garvey – Deputy Director of Delivery, ONS

Supplier Day Transcript: Shaun Garvey – Delivering the Census

1

Shaun Garvey –Delivering the Census

Introduction

Thank you Ben. Good morning everyone my name is Shaun Garvey, I am deputy director

for delivery for ONS and I am going to talk about delivering the census. I will start by

outlining some of the metrics from the 2011 Census delivery to confirm the scale of the

census that has already been talked about.

Scale of the census

I would like to start with some information on the ‘people’ scale of the census.

In 2011 across England and Wales, the census covered around 23 million households and

communal establishments (which we classify as army bases, hospitals, and universities)

and as mentioned before, we are talking about a coverage of around 60m people and ONS

employing a field force of 35,000 people, to support the census activity.

This next slide confirms some of the key operational metrics from the printing, logistics and

data capture processes. As has already been said the census has been predominantly

paper based process until 2011.

In 2011 some 30 million questionnaires were printed and mailed to households, which were

then subsequently returned in the post.

There were versions in both English and Welsh languages produced and we also supported

around 56 other languages with translations.

We printed and distributed around 1.6m forms and support literature for the field force.

When the census forms were returned this equated to 650m pages to be processed. That’s

scanning the data captured from the 50 or so questions per census form completed . That

process took around 8 months for that operation after the census date.

And then re-enforcing Ian’s message on security we then had 2,000 tonnes of

questionnaires to be securely pulped and destroyed.

So moving onto the response rate and helpdesk information

As I said earlier the census captured information on around 60m people in England and

Wales

ONS achieved a 94% response rate in 2011....

With 16% responding online.

During the census process some 1m to 2m calls were made to the census helpline

At the peak call volume 570 staff were employed to manage those calls

On the actual morning after the census day in March 2011 calls to the helpdesk peaked in

one hour at 8000 calls in one hour.


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Across the 10 weeks that the helpdesk was operational it averaged about 22,000 calls per

day to support the public in completing the census forms.

The final operational activity as Ben outlined, is the outputs and dissemination process and

this output started as soon as the scanning process was feeding data.

That process started in the July after the census and finished just over a year later in

September 2012. We have just published 8 billion data cells-worth of information from that

census – and that is going to be ongoing in the forthcoming years.

Supply-chain clustering

The next slide illustrates how ONS clustered the operations for the delivery model between

in sourced and outsourced activities in 2011, it is a very busy slide but it will be clearer in

your hard copies;

As you look at the screen on the top right corner in the lilac box this first box covers the in-

sourced activities and spend for ONS. So this covered activities such as programme

management / procurement and contract management / communications etc. It also includes

the cost of ONS staff, IT contractors and the field force, and the spend in this cluster came to

£210m.

Moving around to your left this goes round to the Managed Services slide which provided

legal, management consultancy and technical advice. We spent around £5m across various

contracts in this area.

Moving down to the next large box this covered Field Force Management, under what was

called the Route C contract. We spent £30m on the recruitment contract for the field force,

which also covered the training activities and payroll services for the field force.

We spent a further £4.5m on a contract to supply the field force with equipment and

materials and manage the logistics to supply that to them. And we spent £2.8m printing this

material for all the support material they needed.

Moving onto the next box, the main outsourced area in 2011 the Data Collection and

Process cluster. This was known as the Route A Contract. Within this there was a prime

contract delivering:

the IT infrastructure for Route A services

questionnaire printing and tracking of the 30m questionnaires

the helpdesk and web support services

the data capture and processing from both the online and paper based inputs

This cluster amounted to a spend of £165m.

Within this there were also separate contracts for the mailing services for the questionnaires

for both the outward and inward journey and also the sorting process on the inbound activity

and these amounted to £7.5m and £11.

The box at the bottom represents the Advertising cluster.

This was a single contract of £10m that covered the various media channels that we used.


3

Finally on the right hand side the red boxes , this represents what we categorised as the low

value spend contracts and the services are listed - we had 22 contracts in this area.

The total value of spend in this area was an average £200k per contract with the total spend

in excess of £4m.

This next slide really illustrates our spend by cluster or by category split between IT and

non- IT services visually - the split for example in recruitment and payroll is a small

percentage on IT and a large aspect on non- IT services.

Delivering the 2021 Census – Phasing

Phase 2 : Research slide

Over the next few slides I will talk about the delivery phases for the 2021 Census.

Phase 1 closed in December 2014 which Ian covered in his commentary. We are

now in phase 2 of the Programme Delivery, which started in January this year. The

research, design and prototyping phase, this is planned to complete at the end of

2016. It will involve:

o defining the sourcing and procurement strategy supported by detailed plans

AND business decisions on what ONS will insource and outsource

o the development and testing of the design for the 2021 Census that can be

potentially tested on a large field scale test in 2017

o refining the total programme cost estimates and define the overall census

budget and also deliver a final outline business case to Treasury

o building the capacity and capability (including input from the wider ONS

services ) to deliver the census and wider benefits

o confirming the approach to how we use the online data collection and the use

of technology

o making proposals to the extent to which administrative data can be used in

2021 Census

Phase 3: Testing –which runs from January to December 2017.

Test(s) - During this phase we will carry out tests possibly including a large scale field

test. This is to validate some of the design assumptions resulting from phase 2. It will

enable us to be in the position of being able to sign key contracts from the

procurement activity. It will enable us to confirm the budget for the overall programme

for the lifetime of it. And finally it’s going to allow us to review the extent that

administrative data will be used in the 2021 Census operations and outputs.

Going on to phase 4

This is very much a learning phase of activity that runs from January to December

2018 . This is to take aspects that we have learnt from the 2017 test and focusing on

the areas we need to change, also really focusing on the scalability of the services

for the rehearsal the following year.


4

So phase 5 is the rehearsal phase to run between the January 2019 – June 2020

During this phase we will carry out a large scale rehearsal of the complete end to end

solution and services needed to deliver the census. We will aim to include 100k

households in the rehearsal – but this is a voluntary process for the public. And the

100k households is a number we have looked to use in previous rehearsals. We will

review this nearer the time given the planned online data collection model which is

obviously going to allow far greater access to a number of households with limited

costs impact.

We will launch a publicity campaign in selected local authority areas to publicise the

event, basically rehearsing and mirroring what we will be doing in the live event in

2021 and so the use of radio / bill board adverts / online social media etc.

We will recruit a full field force team to both follow up on the online activity, but also

the ‘non-respondents’ / communal establishments to assess each area of the

process . That activity is one of the key areas to focus on so that we know we are

going to hit the target response rate.

We will collect actual data both online and in other media forms from the public. We

will complete the activity by fully processing all the data including the operations for

analysing and disseminating as we would in the 2021 process.

This will also include an evaluation of what we will be doing beyond 2021.

So phase 6, this is the actual operational phase and runs for an extensive period

from: July 2020 – December 2021, with the actual main online collection being

planned for spring 2021.

It will involve an estimated 25m+ households increasing from 2011 and obviously 60m plus

people across every household and community establishment across England and Wales.

We will have a field force recruited and trained to support the target of a 94% response rate

and the size of this will be determined from information from the test 2017 and rehearsal in

2019. And then as Ben has outlined we will follow up a couple of weeks after with the

census coverage survey which acts as part of the quality assurance process

Moving into phase 7 the analysis, output and dissemination

And so having collected all that information from the public, we will run this process in

2022 and 2023. This will analyse and then output the census results and supported

potentially by administrative data and then this will provide evidence to underpin a

recommendation on the future production of population statistics in 2023.

So finally phase 8 the evaluation and future planning – 2024


5

Following all the operational activities we will evaluate the programme and publish a

report on the 2021 Census which will be laid before parliament as we have just done

with the 2011 Census.

We will then make a recommendation to government on the future of population

statistics in England and Wales.

Concluding comments

To summarise census delivery, it takes around 7 years of planning and preparation to

achieve this activity. In total the 2011 Census we spent around £487m on the operation.

As I think I have outlined, together with previous speakers this is a complex operation and

requires full integration and some flexibility to support a successful delivery. ONS need a

strong mix of in-house and external expertise to really deliver this process. And on that point

I will hand you over to Simon Matthews, who will inform you about our plans for the

procurement and management of the census suppliers.

Scale of the Census

• People Scale

• 2 Nations – England and Wales

• 23m Households and Communal

Establishments (e.g. Army Bases, Hospitals,

Universities)

• 60m people

• A field force of 35,000

Scale of the Census

• Printing ,Logistics and Data Capture Scale

• 30m Census Questionnaires printed and mailed

• 2 language versions produced

• 56 language translations

• 1.6m Administration Forms printed and

distributed to Field Force

• 650m pages scanned and Data Captured

• 8 months to process questionnaires

• 2,000 tonnes of questionnaires securely pulped

Scale of the Census

• Response Rate and Helpdesk Scale

• 94% achieved in 2011 - 16% on – line

• 1m+ calls to the Helpdesk

• 570 Helpdesk Staff at peak

• 8,000 calls offered recorded in 1 hour 28th

March 2011

• 22,000 calls received on average per day

• Helpdesk Operational for 10 weeks

Scale of Census

• Outputs and Dissemination

• Processing Commenced July 2011 / Closed

September 2012

• 8 billion data cells published and counting..

How the 2011 Census was delivered

Outsourced – Data Collection / Processing.

Insourced / Resourced / Employed

Outsourced – Managed Services.

A high-level view of how the 2011 Census delivery was clustered:

Office for National Statistics

Route A Contract

Route C

Contract

LegalServices Provider

Management Consultancy Services

Consultancy

Support / Technical Advisory Services

Single Prime Contract (£165m), to deliver:

• IT infrastructure for Route A;

• Questionnaire Printing;

• Questionnaire Tracking;

• Contact Centre;

• Web self Help;

• Internet Data Capture;

• Data Processing;

• Address Register .

Single Prime Contract (£30m), to deliver:

Provision of

Recruitment, Payroll & Training services for Census Field staff for the 2009 Rehearsal & 2011

Census.

Outsourced – Low Value.

Post Out Services

Post Back

Services

Two separate Contracts, (procured / won separately) (£7.5m out, £11.5m back), to deliver:

• (Out) collect 30m questionnaires

from printer, and deliver to households;

• (Back) collect and return all via scanning / sorting process.

22 separate Contracts (sourced via differing routes), mixed values (total £4m, average £200k each) providing:

• Mobile phones;

• Branding;

• Market research;

• New media;

• Diversity;

• General / on-line PR;

• Translation;

• Media Monitoring;

• Secure distribution;

• Accessibility;

• Education / awareness.

Advertising, Design and

Media Buying

Single Contract (£10m), to deliver:

Advertising in press / media / television /

cinema / radio / static and other.

Field Logistics

and Public Fulfilment

Single Contract (£4.5m), to deliver:

Provision of

field supplies to field staff, fulfilment of requests for materials from

field staff and public.

Print Manage

Single Contract (£2.8m), to deliver:

All printed documents for the Field Force and public

fulfilment (excludes Route A Questionnaires and

ERBs)

Outsourced - Field Force Management.

Outsourced – Advertising.

Three Contracts (separate suppliers, £5m), to deliver:

Provision of legal /

commercial, management accountancy and specialist

technical / consultancy services.

ONS Staff and IT Contractors (£140m)

(Programme Management, Governance, Procurement / Contracts

Management, Census Design, Data Dissemination, Reporting /

Forecasting, Stakeholder Communications / Engagement).

Field Force (Temporary) Staff (£70m)

(Management / staff wages and on-costs)

2011 Services : IT / Non-IT split

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Non-IT

IT

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Programme Phasing Overview

Phase 2: Research,

design and

prototyping

Phase 3:

Testing

Phase 4:

Development

Phase 5:

Rehearsal

Phase 6:

Collections

Operations

Phase 7: Analysis,

output and

dissemination

Phase 8: Evaluation and

Future Planning

Phase 1: Beyond

2011 Programme

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Phase 2: Research, design and prototyping

Phase 2: Research,

design and

prototyping

Phase 3:

Testing

Phase 4: Development

Phase 5:

Rehearsal

Phase 6:

Collections

Operations

Phase 7: Analysis,

output and

dissemination


Future Planning

Phase 1: Beyond

2011 Programme

Summary

• Define Sourcing and Procurement

• Development and Testing

• Refine Programme Cost

• Build Capacity and Capability

• Confirm Online Data Collection

• Review and propose Admin Data Use in 2021

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Phase 3: Testing

Phase 2: Research,

design and

prototyping

Phase 3:

Testing


Phase 5:

Rehearsal

Phase 6:

Collections

Operations

Phase 7: Analysis,

output and

dissemination


Future Planning

Phase 1: Beyond

2011 Programme

Summary

• Testing to confirm delivery design for

2021

• Finalise procurement to allow

contract award

• Confirm Progamme Budget

• Confirm use of Admin Data in 2021

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025


Phase 2: Research,

design and

prototyping

Phase 3:

Testing


Phase 5:

Rehearsal

Phase 6:

Collections

Operations

Phase 7: Analysis,

output and

dissemination


Future Planning

Phase 1: Beyond

2011 Programme

Summary

• Review outputs from 2017 test

• Development of Systems and

Processes for Rehearsal

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Phase 5: Rehearsal

Phase 2: Research,

design and

prototyping

Phase 3:

Testing


Phase 5:

Rehearsal

Phase 6:

Collections

Operations

Phase 7: Analysis,

output and

dissemination


Future Planning

Phase 1: Beyond

2011 Programme

Summary

• Large Scale Rehearsal

• c. 100, 000 Households

• Publicity

• Field Force Recruitment Training and Operations

• Data Collection

• Analysis and Dissemination Process

• Evaluation of 2021 Design and Delivery

• Post 2021 review

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Phase 6: Collections Operations

Phase 2: Research,

design and

prototyping

Phase 3:

Testing


Phase 5:

Rehearsal

Phase 6:

Collections

Operations

Phase 7: Analysis,

output and

dissemination


Future Planning

Phase 1: Beyond

2011 Programme

Summary • The Main Operation for England and Wales

• Spring 2021

• 25m+ Households

• 60m people

• Online Data Collection

• Field Operation • Recruitment / Training/ Deployment/ Operation

• Collection of Administrative Data • Analysis and Dissemination Process

• Evaluation of 2021 Design and Delivery • Post 2021 review

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Phase 7: Analysis, Output and Dissemination

Phase 2: Research,

design and

prototyping

Phase 3:

Testing


Phase 5:

Rehearsal

Phase 6:

Collections

Operations

Phase 7: Analysis,

output and

dissemination


Future Planning

Phase 1: Beyond

2011 Programme

Summary

• Data Analysis

• Production and Dissemination of

Results

• Use of Admin Data

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Phase 8: Evaluation and Future Planning

Phase 2: Research,

design and

prototyping

Phase 3:

Testing


Phase 5:

Rehearsal

Phase 6:

Collections

Operations

Phase 7: Analysis,

output and

dissemination

Phase 8: Evaluation

and Future Planning

Phase 1: Beyond

2011 Programme

Summary

• Programme Evaluation

• Publication of General Report –

Census 2021

• Recommendation on Future of

Population Statistics

Census Delivery

• c. 7 years of planning and preparation

• 2011 £487m spend

• Complex Operation

• Integration and Flexibility to ensure

successful delivery

• To deliver census ONS needs a strong mix of

in-house and external expertise

PROCURING THE CENSUS

Simon Matthews – Interim Head of Commercial, ONS

Supplier Day Transcript: Simon Matthews – Procuring the Census

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Simon Matthews: “Procuring the Census”

Introduction

Good morning everybody my name is Simon Matthews. I am the Interim Head of

Commercial for the Census Transformation Programme. It’s going to be my privilege and my

challenge to put together the programme procurement strategy for buying the 2021 Census,

and also for developing the commercial case and ensuring that we put together a robust

approach that picks up on all of the feedback we receive during the course of the market

engagement.

Firstly, can I just offer a further note of thanks to you all for giving up your time this morning

to come here to listen to our plans and proposed approach to where we are. ONS can’t do

the census without you, we won’t do the census without you and we need to be hearing from

you and one of the very big messages I gave to the programme board at the start of my

involvement was, we need to engage quickly, we need to engage structured, in a way that

enables you to be able to contribute to our plans and we need to bring you into our camp to

ensure we are developing what works with you and your market place.

So I’ve got to say thanks very much indeed for you all taking the time this morning. I hope

we’re able to give you some value by attending and keeping you informed by how we’re

going forward with our plans.

This morning I’m going to pick up on two parts of my presentation:

the first part will look at ONS as a client, and talk to you a little bit about how we

approach our commercial relationships with our suppliers; and

the second part of my presentation will look at developing our programme

procurement plans, how we’re going to go forward and how we’re going to involve

you in those plans and the sort of things we’ll be looking to cover off.

ONS as a Client

So ONS as a client. We are a very multi-headed organisation, in the first part we are a

contracting authority under the public contracts regulations, and we are a public authority

under the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act. What this means to you,

and should give you, is the trust and assurance that we are regulated in our dealings with

you, and that gives you protection, that gives you a platform with which to engage with us

on. So if we all work within those environments, and work within the rules those platforms

describe then we will be able to work together in a structured fashion, and deliver some

really successful programmes.

We’re also an experienced client, we’ve kind of done this census thing once or twice before

and that means we’ve got an understanding of the scale and complexity of the challenge

we’re setting forward for. Now many of you are new suppliers and many of you are existing

suppliers, so some of you will have that experience and some of you won’t, trust us, we

know the complexities of what we’re trying to achieve.


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And therefore, when we go forward with our strategy in the autumn, and our commercial

case is part of the business case, we will bed into that what we understand to be the scale

and complexity of coming forward, and you’ve already heard from Ian, Shaun and Ben today

about some of the issues that we’re tackling in the course of this census.

We’re also a willing client. I think this is something we want to get a message across to you

is that, and it’s been said already, we can’t do this without you, the census technology has

moved on considerably since 2011 to 2021 and indeed over the course of the next five years

it’s likely to move again.

Now you’re at the front of that pushing out boundaries, you are in that environment where

you’re testing new technology, where you’re testing solutions; and therefore we need to be

willing to listen and engage in that and bring that on board, so as to help us find the optimum

solution for what we’re trying to achieve.

We are a public sector body, we are funded by the public sector, therefore we have an

obligation to ensure that everything we do is in the best value for money interest to the public

sector and that is what we’re trying to do.

Procuring the 2011 Census

In terms of procuring the 2011 Census, some of the themes that came through from the

presentations you’ve seen earlier are in the range of high, medium and low risk contracts. If

you think of contracts lasting from one month to seven years, or contracts of £10,000 to

£106,000,000, if you think of 37 different suppliers and interfacing the outputs from those

suppliers, you then begin to start to understand that the clustering and the mapping of the

supply chain is actually quite complex.

If you think of the number of organisations involved with the procurement of those

opportunities and the number of organisations who started out the process of early market

engagement, it’s actually a really complex map that we’re going to have to work with here.

And therefore we have opportunities for everybody inside that organisation; we need a

diverse range of suppliers covering off SMEs, BAMEs; we need social enterprise; we’re

going to need support for multi-nationals, nationals, locals, regional’s.

We have opportunities for everybody to come and put their products and solutions in front of

us and help us to deliver what we’re doing. We also have to get the balance right between

delivering from in-house resource and out sourced supply chain function and that is a really

important balance to us.

One of our key themes is systems for reuse and making sure we identify where systems for

reuse can add real value back into the public sector, so we will be quite keen to understand

exactly where that interface lies, what is the best solution, is it build capability, is it work with

the supply chain and partnership to deliver that.

And lastly, we’ve got to follow on a very successful previous census, one of the six projects

in March 2014 to be awarded the MPA award. These are successful, nationally significant

programmes, and therefore any suppliers who work with us will be very privileged and will

have to earn that right and work very hard to get to that line of becoming an ONS supplier on

the census.


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So the message to all, start thinking now where you position yourself, where you want to be

with all this because it is going to be a good competition and we do want best suppliers to

come through that competition. By being here today, you’re making the right start in that

process and we hope your involvement through that engagement will help sculpt your

positioning and sculpt where you fit into our programme and our plans.

So what about the 2021 Census?

Well, as I said it’s a great time to get involved, we’re circa 12 months out from starting

procurement activity in earnest, in launching opportunities. We’re going to be putting our

business case together in the autumn and submitting that in time to get approvals in the

early part of next year, so it’s absolutely the right time for you to get involved, and those

suppliers I did speak to earlier this morning when I came in today were very much keen to

understand more and I hope today we get back to you.

We’re keen to listen, staying engaged is a key thing, leaving here today and putting us on

the shelf for six months until we come back with our proposals again isn’t going to wash.

What we need you to do now is go back to your offices fill out your Survey Monkey form,

they supply a survey that we’re doing and help us stay in contact through our 1:1

engagement process as we go through the summer. The richness of market engagement

comes from proper dialogue, structured dialogue and you telling us what you’re up to, what

you’re challenges are, what the issues are you’re facing and how we can work together to

ensure we deliver a proper census in the future.

Strategy for Delivery

I also want to talk about developing a strategy for ensuring the successful delivery of the

census. It is an opportunity for everybody as I say, but the real message inside there is that

your involvement early in this process, your involvement through that process and

subsequently assisting us in developing that strategy will ensure that we have a market

tested strategy. That market tested strategy when it comes there means that we will have

competition in all of the opportunities, which will mean that Treasury and all our senior

stakeholders will all be very happy with the approach we are adopting, so this is where your

importance in us moving forward is really key.

In terms of a timeline, I have put up here approximate estimates of when we understand we

are going to be going to market with our different opportunities. Again I am very nervous

about sharing timelines with you at this stage, as you are all aware, things do change, things

do move, this is where we believe we will be based on the timelines that Shaun described in

his presentation earlier.

Two bits of this diagram I would particularly like you to focus on:

Developing Our Procurement Strategy: The very first bit, right at the front of the

opportunity here, we will talk about developing our programme procurement strategy

and building our outline business case. During this period here we will be making key

decisions relating to categorisation and clustering of suppliers and making decisions

about which particular types of procurement will fit in which category. Therefore your

involvement now will help us sculpt that and so that when we do submit our outline

business case and receive approval for our outline business case its approved in


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timely fashion to enable us to start. So the message there is help us and we can help

you. We will not prolong this process any longer than needs to be, we haven’t time to

do that, so what we want to make sure is that when we go in for OBC approval it is

robust and tested.

Approving the OBC: The second aspect I would like to pick up with you relates to the

supplier update and approval of OBC, we will come back to you when we have

firmed up our plans and present those plans to you in good time to enable you to see

where you fit and position yourself for those opportunities going forward. We are not

just simply going to launch an opportunity without you knowing about it. We will give

you good notice and we will allow you good time to work out whether you need to be

in the prime contract for that position, to be working with partners or joint venture’s or

however you wish to be working coming forward. We will present those to you and

give you that time. We then look towards procurement starting in earnest during the

early part of next year, to see that there are time periods allocated for pre-

qualification, tendering activity and award what we hope during that period is to firm

up which dates in which packages and when. We will give you a proper timeline that

ensures you are able to position yourself as best you need to be able to compete for

those opportunities.

So what can I offer you as a commitment from us in a means of trying to protect the

investment you are going to make in our procurement activity. I think the first thing to

recognise is we are going to have to engage with you at all stages of the process, not

necessarily the market engagement during tendering activity, but actually in a structured

fashion that allows us to ensure regulations are met, and ensure that it will involve as many

organisations as we can in our opportunities.

I want you to understand that we will be innovative in the use of our procurement and

contracting strategies. We are doing a big piece of work at the moment to understand which

contracts fit with which types of contract; a high risk contract is a totally different profile to a

low risk contract and a short term contract has another different profile to a long term

contract. There are different ways of doing something, it is not simply one contract will fit all.

We will have embodied principles across the programme, priority themes if you like but

inside these we will have individual contracts to cater for individual transfer and management

of risk.

We want to be transparent. I think it’s an overused term in public sector procurement,

transparency, robustness. The point about transparency is that you know where you are at

any one point in the process and we want to endeavour to do that through the course of

what we do. Part of our reason for having engagement as early as we are doing now, and

today, is to give you that opportunity to see where we are. That may not be exacting

information of where we are going to be, but it’s a start of talking and making sure you

position yourself accordingly. And lastly robustness; I think the back bone of any strong

public procurement programme is a robustness in the tendering approach; that your

commercially sensitive information will be treated as such; that your bids will be given every

fair opportunity of being evaluated accordingly. We will implement robust tendering

procedures which will absolutely protect your investment you make in your tendering costs.


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Next steps

So what are the next steps?

I talked about how you leave the room today and what you do. There are opportunities for a

question and answer session in a second and Ian will talk about how we can engage after

the event.

What I would like you to do is go back to your offices get onto Survey Monkey, get onto the

link and start to fill the form out. You might choose to take the questionnaire off line and

compose your answers before you put your answers online and submit. You have until the

8th June to fill the form out. We want to hear from as many people as possible on that form. If

everyone’s organisation that is represented here today can fill that form out, we will have

upwards of 200 forms presented to us and that’s a great start to enable us to build a really

strong database. We can then engage further during the course of the market engagement.

The survey will take about 60– 90 minutes to complete, it’s not particularly invasive but it is

really helpful and will provide us with really rich information to help in our procurement plans.

I then want you to support further engagement activity. You might be invited to take part in

one- to- one engagement sessions with ONS (depending on the answers you put on the

Supplier Form), and we may also be doing further updates for individual categories, it might

be workshops . We might involve different suppliers in different parts of that process. We

want you to stay involved with us, we appreciate your time. What we can offer you in return

is to make sure your time is used wisely by understanding more and helping you to

understand the programme, a better understanding of the programme. We will also post lots

of information certainly from today and other events that we do online to ensure you can

keep in touch with the programme as we advance through the development of our

procurement plans.

Concluding Comments

That concludes my presentation for today and I am going to hand back to Ian now as he is

going to invite some questions and answers from the floor.

Thank you very much for your time this morning.

ONS and Procurement

ONS are:

• a ‘contracting authority’ as described in the Public

Contracts Regulations 2015

• a ‘public authority’ as described in the Freedom of

Information Act 2000

• an ‘experienced client’, who understand the scale,

complexity and challenges in delivering a census

• a ‘willing client’, eager to work with our suppliers to

identify optimal solutions that meet our requirements


• Range of high, medium and low risk contracts.

• Diverse range of suppliers.

• Substantial elements delivered from in-house

and recruited resource.

• 2011 Census delivered on-time, under budget

and to the desired quality levels.


ONS are:

• PRESENTLY developing our plans for the future

procurement of the 2021 Census;

• KEEN TO LISTEN to all supplier organisations during the

market engagement exercise;

• DEVELOPING our strategy to ensure the successful

delivery of the 2021 Census.

Dialogue and Tendering

Award / Mobilise

Timeline for Procurement

2015 2016 2017

Supplier Briefing

Develop Programme Procurement Strategy Approve OBC

Develop Outline Business Case

Approve FBC

Phase 2: Research, design and prototyping Phase 3: Testing

Prequalification

Supplier Update

Procurement Commitment

ONS will be:

• ENGAGING with the marketplace at all stages of

procurement process;

• INNOVATIVE in the use of procurement and contracting

strategies;

• TRANSPARENT with our procurement approach, ensuring

a high degree of visibility and openness to suppliers;

• ROBUST in meeting our mandatory and statutory

obligations.

Please get Involved!

Go to the following link and fill-in the Survey:

• Survey will take 60 – 90 minutes to complete

• Support for further engagement activity

• Responses submitted will feed future

engagement

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ctp_supplier-form

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Chaired by Ian Cope – Director of Census, ONS

Questions and Answers

Wait for the microphone, and please clearly

state:

• your name… and…

• your organisation…

… prior to asking the question.

CLOSING COMMENTS


Closing Comments

• Thanks for your time

• ONS Staff are here to meet you…

please stay and meet us!

• Don’t forget to return the Supplier Form

(by 8 June 2015)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ctp_supplier-form

PRESENTATIONS END

Thanks for your support and happy networking!

Office for National Statistics Census Transformation Programme Market Engagement Exercise | Frequently Asked Questions and Supplier Questions 13 May 2015

Questions raised at Supplier Briefing

1

Section1 Supplier Question ONS Response Provided

2. CensusTransformation Programme

Given the assumption that the 2021 Census will be predominantly online, the proposals presented at the Supplier Briefing appear to be better developed than may be expected at this stage. Is this correct, or are ONS expecting further development of the proposals through a more iterative process planned in the future?

To deliver the CTP, ONS are adopting the use of agile technology, and are using a much more iterative approach than with prior censuses. ONS are presently at the research, design and planning stages of the census, and are fully expecting to involve suppliers in assisting with the development of the detailed plans for the delivery of the 2021 Census. Further, ONS expect there to be more involvement in the development of the detailed delivery plans during Phases 3 and 4 (a good example of this are the large-scale rehearsals planned for 2019, where the approach to be adopted for the delivery of the rehearsals will be developed in conjunction with the appointed suppliers).

9. DigitalTechnology

What is ONS’ view and approach to the GDS’ “Digital by Default” strategy? What guidance can you give suppliers on the proposed adoption of the principles of this strategy in the delivery plans for the census?

ONS are engaged with GDS in the development of our delivery plans, and GDS are very interested in the proposals for the delivery of the 2021 Census. ONS will be paying close attention to the implications of the Digital by Default standard in developing our plans for the 2021 Census, and ONS will ensure that the census digital services meet the Digital by Default Service Standard.

7. SupplyChain Management

ONS has asked suppliers to engage with them now, yet the majority of the procurement activity won’t be undertaken until later in 2016, and 2017. Many of those organisations you will be engaging with are likely to be SME’s, and therefore may not know their capacity and appetite for 2017, at this stage. Does ONS want suppliers to respond to the Supplier Form on the basis of their present capacity and appetite; or for suppliers to try and anticipate their future capacity and appetite for the Programme later on?

ONS are presently in the first phase of market engagement, and are undertaking a general assessment of market appetite and supplier capability. ONS would therefore like all suppliers to complete the Supplier Form using the most accurate information that they are able to provide. This should, therefore, be based on present appetite and capacity, and (where appropriate) an assessment of short-term future needs. In due course, ONS will continue to engage with the market as the plans for delivery of CTP emerge.

1The suggested Section of the “Model Questions and Answers” document that the question may relate to.


2

2. Census Transformation Programme

Based on the evaluation that ONS has already undertaken, what went:

a) particularly well, and b) not so particularly well

in the delivery of the 2011 Census.

Chapter 10 of the 2011 Census General Report (published March 2015 and available from the ONS website) contains an evaluation of lessons learnt from the delivery of the 2011 Census.

What went well with the 2011 Census:

The overall response rate of 94% was good, with no local authority achieving a response rate of below 80%;

The communications and stakeholder engagement activities with local authority and community groups in particular were very good, and helped manage the delivery of the census operations at a local level far easier;

ONS made good use of the outsourcing of 2011 Census operations, resulting in a sound approach to managing the risks of delivering the 2011 Census with our suppliers;

The prioritisation of our available field staff resources alongside the development of our quality and success criteria was very well done, and resulted in good efficiencies in the use of census resources.

What didn’t go so well with the 2011 Census:

ONS experienced some issues with recruiting and assembling the numbers of the field force on day one of follow-up that ONS had identified as being needed to deliver the census;

In addition, there were some logistical challenges associated with getting laptops and other equipment to field force staff;

There were several small-scale logistical challenges with the operations;

The online response rate could


3

have been better than that achieved;

ONS could have had the systems for the census in place earlier (eg processing and dissemination systems) than was the case, in order to ensure their use during the rehearsal testing phase of census delivery.


4

6. Programme Procurement Strategy

How does ONS propose to ensure that it is able to source innovative solutions from the supply chain through the procurement procedures that will be adopted?

ONS are committed to sourcing the right solutions to the right challenge, and will focus on adopting the procurement procedure that will best allow this to take place. ONS will also ensure that the right suppliers are appointed to manage the right levels of risk associated with the delivery of their services. In practice, this will mean using a variety of different procedures that will allow suppliers to propose innovative solutions that help with our challenges.

3. Use of Administrative Data

ONS have identified that the use of administrative data will feature prominently in the delivery of the 2021 Census. Are there any government departments or agencies that have been through the process of migrating the delivery of their services online that may be of relevance to ONS and the 2021 Census.

Yes.

The ‘Digital by Default’ agenda has already been mentioned. Most of the government departments and agencies that have transactional relationships with their end-users (such as DVLA, or DWP with Universal Credit, for example) are moving the delivery of their services online and adopting Digital by Default standard, and some of their experiences are relevant to ONS. However, ONS are slightly different to these organisations, in that ONS are not providing a service, in the way that these organisations do. ONS want our respondents to the 2021 Census to respond in the best way that suits them. Therefore, whilst there may be some lessons to be learnt from the experiences of these organisations, the similarities are not entirely analogous to each other.

ONS are working with HMRC and DWP, to source the sets of administrative data that are held by these organisations, as this information will be useful to the census. However, the sourcing of this information will not be possible without the relevant parliamentary approvals.

5. Government Policy

What elements of the ‘Government as a Platform’ strategy are ONS focussing on when planning for the delivery of the 2021 Census?

ONS are presently developing their proposed approach to the delivery of the 2021 Census, and the detail on how this will support the Government with their agenda for reuse will form a part of this approach. Some of the areas that ONS are presently


5

considering include the use of online data collection, which may be of some assistance to other government departments in managing their interactions with their customers (through business surveys and household surveys, for example). However, these discussions need to involve all of the relevant stakeholders (including GDS) as they develop, so as to ensure ONS are fully aligned with the Government’s emerging plans for reuse.


6

(New Section: “Accessibility”)

How does ONS plan to ensure that the 2021 Census will be accessible to deaf people who perhaps don’t have English as their first language?

In delivering the 2011 Census, ONS:

made the questionnaire accessible in 56 translations (for download);

worked closely with various disability groups (and representative bodies), including the Royal National Institute for the Blind, to ensure a version of the questionnaire was published for blind people;

provided a DVD with sign language for deaf and hearing-impaired people to assist them with completing the census.

ONS recognises the need to enable respondents to complete the census independently; it is right for them and for us. ONS presently continues to develop our plans for the delivery of the 2021 Census, and will look forward to working with many specialist groups to ensure the maximum take-up and participation with the 2021 Census is realised.

1. General ONS has made mention of lessons learnt from previous censuses, and of learning of best practice used in other Government departments / agencies. Does ONS interact with other countries and benefit from any lessons learnt that they have on censuses taken in their countries?

The best way to learn about challenges and issues in delivering a census are from other national statistical institutes.

ONS instigated the International Census Forum in 2003, which has met every year since. The Forum is a useful body for sharing knowledge on best practice and new technology. Some of the benefits of ONS being a part of this Forum have included:

the US Census Bureau are planning to deliver their census in 2020, and they held a two-day workshop last year that involved other countries discussing current trends, which was of great benefit to the US Census Bureau. By being a part of this workshop, ONS were able to hear from countries recent experiences of online responses. For example, Estonia has recorded the highest online rate of any census , whilst Canada achieved an online response rate of 58% in 2011


7

Canada, Australia and New Zealand typically complete five-yearly censuses. ONS has been able to share the experiences of these countries mid-decade.

The next meeting of the Forum is in Canada in the autumn, and Shaun Garvey will be attending


8

6. Programme procurement strategy

Does ONS see any value in using the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Framework Agreements? Will ONS be sourcing the census using these Framework Agreements?

The CCS Framework Agreements (the “CCS Frameworks”) are a great source of assistance to public sector organisations like ONS, and we have used them to great effect to assist with delivery of some of our scope already. We also anticipate using CCS Frameworks again, in sourcing for the Programme.

However, like all framework agreements, there are constraints associated with their use, particularly in respect of the census. For example:

the CCS Frameworks are established for a general, widespread public sector requirements; whereas delivering the census will involve some specific procurement challenges that may not be suitable to a framework agreement;

some of the appointments we will require, on a programme with the scale / complexity of the Programme, may be required to be longer in duration than the ‘rules’ of the CCS Framework may permit;

some of the opportunities associated with the Programme will be larger than is typically permissible to be sourced via one of the CCS Frameworks.

ONS will therefore use whichever route to market is appropriate for the package of scope that we are required to source. The decision on which route to market will involve consideration of all relevant factors (which may or may not include – but not be limited to – the scope, duration, and specific terms and conditions relevant to the opportunity; assessment of procurement risks; CCS and government policy; our mandatory and statutory obligations; and finally the availability or otherwise of an appropriate existing contract).

ONS is liaising closely with CCS (and their Complex Transactions Team in particular) to ensure that our planned future procurement strategy (and the delivery model and packaging strategy


9

in particular) meets CCS expectations for an appropriate route to market.


10

1. General

How does the ONS plan to turn the response rates ‘on their head’ (from 15% online / 85% paper – to 15% paper / 85% online)? Why did only 15% respond online last time? What do ONS see as the biggest challenges to raising this rate?

The experiences of other countries have shown that the biggest barrier to getting somebody to respond online is actually sending them a paper questionnaire. Therefore, those countries that have achieved a high percentage of online responses (e.g. Canada with 58% in 2011) have done so by not issuing paper questionnaires, and instead issuing a letter or a card with a unique access code that respondents simply log-on and enter to gain access to their questionnaire. The issue of paper questionnaires is then only given as an option which respondents must request (thus online is the ‘default’ means of responding to the census). That model has been adopted by other countries (e.g. Australia, New Zealand) with similar degrees of success.

Furthermore, in delivering the 2011 Census, ONS adopted a cautious approach to promoting online responses, and we didn’t push online response until nearer to census day itself. Therefore, the communications were more focussed around paper questionnaires, and receiving / returning questionnaires by paper.

These are some of the issues that ONS and the Programme need to test further, during the testing phase of the Programme; in order to understand what messages work (for instance, ONS will likely prototype, during testing and rehearsal, various types of invitation letter; as this could have a positive or negative influence on achieving a successful online response rate).


11

7. Programme procurement strategy.

One of the diagrams presented suggested the design / development would be undertaken during 2017; whilst in the procurement diagrams, it talked about awarding the main contracts for delivery in late 2017. Therefore, is it the intention of ONS to do most of the design and build in-house, or will you be using more off-line / outsourced processes to assist with delivery?

In order to deliver the 2017 tests, ONS will be looking at what we need to enhance our present internal capability, and sourcing this appropriately, given the timescales available. ONS will then look at the outcomes of these activities, and what ‘lessons learnt’ can be taken from the 2017 tests. ONS will then build on these lessons with those suppliers that are appointed during 2017 (i.e. in advance of the 2019 rehearsals and 2021 Census delivery phases), to ensure that ONS has the optimal solution of in-house and outsourced capability to deliver the 2019 and 2021 activities.

It is also worth noting that, at its peak in delivering the 2011 Census, the Programme comprised almost 40,000 people; whilst ONS normal staff count is approximately 3,500 staff. Notwithstanding that one of the strands in the Programme is looking at re-use capability, it doesn’t make any common sense to permanently recruit these sorts of numbers of staff for what may only be a short-term need every so often. Therefore, it is presently anticipated that there will be a high utilisation of supply-chain partners, who can assist with the progressive assembling of a temporary workforce.

9. Digital Technology

Has ONS developed its plans for the proposed location of its data, web servers, or collection servers, at this stage; or is this still to be developed? Also, do you propose to use in-house data storage hardware, or will you use cloud technology?

These decisions have not yet been made, and will be considered further during the course of Phase 2 of the Programme. There are several considerations that will influence our decision-making process, including (but not limited to):

the use of cloud-based technology and systems, and the ability to alleviate the need for large-scale semi-permanent storage facilities under the control of ONS;

the overriding needs of ONS to be able to guarantee the highest levels of security of people’s data (in order to protect the confidentiality of respondent’s personal information);

the need for ONS to be able to access and disseminate the data, in


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order to produce the outputs of the census, which must be free and unencumbered from any jurisdictional (regulatory) issues;

the ability of the Programme to source the right levels of support (in terms of local and remote-based assistance) to enable ONS to manage its outputs.

These issues (and others) will be explored further over the course of the forthcoming period of Programme activity.

END OF DOCUMENT

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