Representative
About
The ONS is keen to establish a long term, small area geography policy which will be used for Census 2011 and Neighbourhood Statistics. The aim is to support the production of coherent and useful data that can be used with confidence by all organisations.
The consultation paper is available online. This describes all policy proposals, the background to them, and a number of attendant issues. Please take the time to get involved by responding to the survey and joining in the debate around the blog posts.
Latest Posts
- The consultation has now closed .........
- Consultation period ends this Friday (16th Feb)
- Do you use Output Areas?
- Don't forget the surveys
- How important are postcodes?
- Should boundaries be tied to the real world?
- Festive messages
- Health data? Ethnicity data? Do we need bigger areas?
- Consultation document
- OAs and SOAs - Stick or Twist?
Physical boundaries
Posted by Greg Ball (not verified) on 13/02/2007 - 17:50
There may be a problem in 2011 with the abstract nature of the COA boundaries - abstract shapes containing collections of postcodes in 2001. At the moment boundaries across undeveloped areas often seem very arbitray. The effect on the 2001 results are not so great as these areas contain no records. However, I assume that in 2011 a new address will be allocated to a COA on the basis of its precise geographical location: a precise address being allocated by reference to an arbitrary line.This may lead to new housing being joined to an inappropriate COA.There may be a case for tidying some boundaries before 2011, particularly where it is known that development has or will occur.