This included whether collection methods were still fit for purpose in a rapidly changing society and whether census outputs, based on a survey conducted every ten years, would continue to meet the increasingly demanding needs of public and private sector users.
These concerns and opportunities led the UK Government to question if a supplementary or wholly alternative approach to the traditional 10-yearly census was required; more frequent, possibly annual, small-scale surveys could be employed instead.
The UK Statistics Authority coordinated the project which was also undertaken by its counterparts in the devolved administrations of Scotland and Northern Ireland.
[13] The ONS Director, Population and Demography Statistics was reported as saying that an estimated 60–65% of household returns would be completed online.
It had reservations over the lack of investigation into the options for using administrative data and encouraged the UK Government to reassure the public about privacy concerns.
[15] The Minister for the Cabinet Office welcomed the recommendations for a predominantly online 2021 census for England and Wales supplemented by the use of governmental and other administrative data in a letter to the National Statistician in July 2014.
[16] Under the Census Act 1920, it is for the United Kingdom Government and Parliament to determine the arrangements for census-taking in England and Wales.
Subject to this legislation being passed the census would be conducted on the same day in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to ensure coherence and consistency.
[17] The Census (Return Particulars and Removal of Penalties) Act 2019 makes the same provision for England and Wales.
This campaign encouraged non-religious people to tick 'no religion' in order to create a more accurate portrayal of religiousness in the UK.
[30] Other academics supported the design of the census questions,[31][32][33] for example, on the ground that the transgender population is very small.
[35] The Scottish Parliament also sought to amend the census Act in 2019 to clarify the meaning of sex in that legislation to include gender identity.
In August 2021, National Records of Scotland issued guidelines regarding the sex question in the 2022 Scottish census.
[36] In November 2021, the Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (MBM) policy collective claimed that documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act showed that the Equality and Human Rights Commission put "extreme external pressure" on Scottish civil servants including chief statistician Roger Halliday to amend their initial proposals.
Lord Sandison dismissed the case on 17 February 2022 stating that there was "no general rule or principle of law that a question as to a person's sex may only properly be answered by reference to the sex stated on that person's birth certificate or GRC".
Research commissioned by the Beyond 2011 programme identified that there were risks associated with over-reliance on administrative data drawn from governmental department sources due to process changes, such as benefits and welfare payments and the necessity to include full access to statistical data as part as proposed legislation affecting administrative programmes.
Issues identified also included the accuracy of administrative data sets for geographical areas below that of local authorities, problems associated with estimation and the use of address registers.
[50] Alongside this programme trials of statistics generation using administrative data were planned starting from the autumn of 2015 and running through to 2021 with the aim of ranging across the breadth, detail and accuracy of census outputs.
The contract for preparing, dispatching up to 16 million paper questionnaire packs (for anyone who did not want to, or could not access the census online), and then securely managing, capturing and digitising the responses was awarded to Leidos Innovations UK.
[54] The general style of the questionnaire was similar to that of the 2011 census, although there were some new questions for 2021: An advertising campaign (made under contract by M&C Saatchi) was launched under the slogan of "it's about us" at the start of 2021.
[65] The census was scheduled to take place on 21 March 2021, but was delayed in July 2020 by the Scottish Government because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
[68][67] However national statistician Ian Diamond has said that despite not meeting the target, the census could still provide "really good data".
'[81] Alice Sullivan, professor of sociology at University College London,[82] reported that in the 16 to 24 age group, 1% answered 'No' to the question.
"[82] In September 2023, reporting initial findings of the OSR investigation, its head Ed Humpherson wrote of the ONS team responsible for "quality assurance": "with more time to look at all combinations of variables, for example looking at gender identity and ethnicity, it may have identified areas for additional probing and analysis."
[91] The first results, on 21 May 2024, will be population estimates at output areas, as well as topical data about Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion.