After an application to the government, it was postponed to 2011 to improve strategies to reduce undercounting in gated communities, farmlands and rural areas.

[5] The pre-enumeration phase involved over 7000 temporary staff, who concurrently demarcated enumeration areas, evaluated questionnaires and developed satellite office logistics.

[6] The demarcation process involved dividing the country into "small pockets" of land, called enumeration areas based on administrative boundaries, size, and population density.

[2] The objective of the project was to identity, locate and describe approximately 50% of dwelling structures in South Africa that have no address, predominantly in the former bantustans.

During 2009, a series of "behind-the-glass" test interviews were conducted with various Living Standard Measurement and language groups in South Africa.

This research provided insight into the willingness of the respondent to answer "sensitive" questions, such as income, employment, mortality, fertility, disability and migration.

The final questionnaires were printed predominantly in the English, Afrikaans and Isizulu, with translation guides for the remaining official languages, and split into three forms:[2] The recruitment process for permanent and temporary staff was held between early-2007 and May 2011, it involved Capacity Building Training Projects, targeted recruitment, employment agencies and a nationwide advertising campaign through multiple channels.

A projected 181,426 staff members were required for the Census, the phase ended with 169,225 recruited out 350,000 potential candidates – leaving a 6.96% shortfall.

"[6] "The PES collected data from all households in each of the selected EAs, based on particular questions in the census questionnaire.

Reconciliation visits to the relevant households were undertaken when queries were raised that could not be resolved through matching of questionnaires.

[12] Section 16 of the Statistics Act of 1999 outlines the duties of every person in South Africa to participate in the collection of census data and section 18 of the same act provides for prosecution of any person refusing to provide information required for the census.

For the 2011 census Statistics South Africa specifically applied for permission from the court to enforce section 16 and 18 of the act.

[14] Stats SA put various measures in place to help the public identify legitimate enumerators as a result of security concerns.

[24] Approximately 3,000 frustrated census workers had still not been paid by the end of November 2011 due to bank payment problems.