Census 2011

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Bid to prosecute 400 for failing to return forms

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16299280

Attempts are being made to prosecute about 400 people in England and Wales for failing to return their 2011 census forms, the BBC has learned.

The questionnaires were sent out to all households in the UK in March and are used to help governments and local authorities plan public services.

It is a legal requirement to complete the census every 10 years.

In Scotland one person has already been fined and four other cases are ongoing. There are no cases in Northern Ireland.

Final figures and calculations from the 2011 census on 27 March will not be announced until next summer.

But the Office for National Statistics in England and Wales (ONS) believes it has achieved a response rate of more than its target of 94%.

The remaining 6% does include empty properties but the ONS believes tens of thousands of households failed to respond.

Following a freedom of information request by the World at One on BBC Radio 4, the ONS said 22.9 million forms were returned out of the 25.4 million sent out.

'Quite complex'

It says attempts are being made to prosecute 400 people.

By comparison, there were only 43 successful prosecutions in the whole of the UK at the last census 10 years ago.

The ONS sends files on potential cases to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Census director for England and Wales, Glen Watson, said where homes were vacant because they were used as second homes, it was "quite complex" working out where forms should come back from.

He said only those who had answered their door to enforcement officers could be prosecuted.

"We have to collate the evidence and pass across to the CPS the ones where we think there's a good case and good evidence," he told the BBC.

"Then, ultimately it's for the CPS to decide whether or not a prosecution would be in the public interest."

"If we haven't contacted people, we've got no basis on which to take any kind of legal action."

Information given on the 2011 census will not be publicly released for 100 years.

But Brian Collier, from Coventry, refused to complete his census because he considered it "intrusive".

He was prosecuted and ordered to pay £150 - which included a fine, costs and victim surcharge. The maximum fine for not completing the census is £1,000.

"It was supposed to have been about what the government were going to do with money - you know the funding and things like that, that's what I believed," he said.

"But when I read through the census, it just seemed like 'who's in your household', 'do you know anyone who's abroad'.

"It was just, I felt, very intrusive and very personal and I feel I shouldn't have to answer questions like that."

He said he accepted there were consequences to his actions, and he was not going to whinge or cry about it.

But he added: "I'd like to know why I was singled out - if I was - that'd be nice to know. But that's never going to happen."

The Scottish government said around 2.3 million of the 2.5 million questionnaires they distributed have been returned.

It said after allowing for vacant properties and other properties unoccupied by households, the estimated response rate was 96%.

But it stressed the information was still being processed.

In Northern Ireland, the Department of Finance and Personnel said approaching 700,000 forms were returned.

It has not sent any files to the Public Prosecution Service in cases of unreturned questionnaires.

A statement said: "There is a lot of work to be completed before a final response rate can be given.

"However, early indications are that the 2011 person response rate will be broadly in line with the 95% achieved in 2001."

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the red text says it all

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It does seem that if we had NO CONTACT then we didn't get a court summons!


120 people convicted for not filling in census form

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/2 ... forms-2011

Among those who did no participate in 2011 census were 'conscientious objectors' to Lockheed Martin UK's involvement

At least 120 people have been convicted for failing to complete their 2011 census forms, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

While some may have simply forgotten, others see themselves as conscientious objectors who are being prosecuted for refusing to fill out the forms because of the involvement of the defence contractor Lockheed Martin UK, which won the £150m contract to run the census.

By this week the ONS had referred 369 cases to the Crown Prosecution Service; of those, 157 prosecutions have been brought to court, with 120 resulting in convictions. Those found guilty face a maximum fine of £1,000 and a criminal record. The remaining 37 cases are classified as "conversions", where the defendant completed the census form at court.

The number of forms deliberately not filled in is unknown, but the ONS expected 24.5 million forms to be returned and received 22.9 million, a shortfall of 1.6 million. Once anomalies, such as vacant properties, have been taken into account, that number will fall.

John Marjoram, a local councillor and Green party mayor of the Cotswolds town of Stroud, refused to complete the census because of the involvement of Lockheed Martin UK. "When I was 18 I refused to fire a rifle on military service," he told the Guardian. "I couldn't live with myself if I collaborated with a military company."

Marjoram received his summons in early January. "Just after Christmas two people knocked on the door. I was busy cooking lunch. They were very nice and pleasant and understanding of where I was coming from, and the next thing was I got a summons."

Some of those being prosecuted have complained that they have been given court dates far from their homes. Marjoram's trial is set not for the magistrates court in Stroud, but 32 miles away in Bristol. John Voysey, who like Marjoram is a Quaker, has been summoned to appear in court in Wrexham on 1 February, 65 miles from his home in Ludlow.

"I've been extradited to a foreign country," said Voysey, 82, who first registered as a conscientious objector in 1947. "As soon as we heard that Lockheed Martin were involved we said we're not going to fill it in."

Lockheed Martin UK is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US defence contractor Lockheed Martin, which makes Trident nuclear missiles, cluster bombs and F-16 fighter jets. The UK subsidiary also provides the Royal Mail with address recognition technology. It was awarded the census contract in 2008 by the Labour government; overall the census was budgeted to have a total cost of £482m.

Groups opposed to Lockheed Martin's involvement in the census like to point to a quote from Lorraine Martin, a company vice-president, who said: "We want to know what's going on any time, any place on the planet." However a company spokesman said: "No Lockheed Martin employee has access to the [census] data."

Voysey expressed surprise that prosecutions were being pursued. "Before the election the Conservatives said this was going to be the last census. How can you punish people for something that is not going to happen again?"

Many of those accused under section eight of the 1920 Census Act say that they are being targeted because of their political beliefs. They wonder how the decision to prosecute almost 400 people was taken when so many forms were not returned.

A spokesman for the ONS, which runs the census in England and Wales, said: "Where there is evidence that householders have wilfully refused to complete a census form, the evidence has been presented to the Crown Prosecution Service, which then decides if a prosecution will go ahead."

The rate of prosecutions represents a sharp increase on the last census, in 2001. Then there were only 43 prosecutions, resulting in 38 convictions. Previous censuses have seen varying levels of prosecution. The highest number of successful prosecutions was 692 in 1981. In 1991 there were 342, while 1951 saw just 57.

Anti-census campaign group Count Me Out said the number of prosecutions showed it had been a mistake to give the contract to Lockheed Martin UK, adding that this had made the census less accurate.