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?
There is something
Posted by Simon Dickson (not verified) on 07/02/2007 - 12:31
There is something fundamentally and absolutely good about using a geographic identification system which mere human beings can buy into. Inherent in the concept of government statistics, which are paid for out of my and your taxes, is the fact that ordinary people should be able to get access to them. Websites are falling over themselves to offer local information, because there's a demand for it. ONS must face up not only to the demand, but the obligation to offer it. A better informed population will be a better population.
ONS can't operate in a vacuum here. Postcode-based searching is the number-one established way to find locally relevant information via the number-one information channel, namely the web. Please guys - accept the reality, accept that it's beyond your control, and work with it. It may not be a perfect standard, but it's a standard.
Is there room for an 'out of the box' solution? Can ONS take ownership of postcodes away from Royal Mail, in the national interest?