Rob Dymond-Green, Technical Manager for the UK Data Service Census Support Service, describes the creation and processing of the 2011 UK Census dataset, available through InFuse.
As far as we know, the dataset we have created as part of processing the 2011 UK Census data is unique as it combines data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) which produces data for England and Wales, the National Records Scotland (NRS) which produce data for Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) which uk rcs data produces data for Northern Ireland. The three census agencies provide coverage across the UK, where these censuses were subject to their distinctive characteristics necessitated by the requirement to create outputs tailored to their own audiences. The work we have done consisted in unpicking these characteristics – creating a consistent dataset which enables the thousands of users of the data to perform novel analyses across all geographies in the UK – saving them hours of work; resulting in significant efficiencies.
The unified description describes the data as well as the geographies, as one interrelated whole, which enables users to query the data in ways that have not been possible in the past, or have been really difficult and time consuming. For example, you can find out how often ‘Age 0 to 4’ is used and if this code is used with other combinations of codelists and codes; you can also find out the geographic coverage of the variable in terms of the extent and the geographic granularity. Conversely you can pick a geographic level or area and find out what data is available for it.