Friday 04 January 2013
The Policy Council has issued an invitation to tender for the Rolling Electronic Census IT System on www.channelislandtenders.com. The closing date for tenders is 8 February 2013.
The States agreed to pursue the Rolling Electronic Census Project instead of running a 2011 Census, due to the comparable benefits.
The Chief Minister, Deputy Peter Harwood, said:
"This project will cost less than one traditional Census and will provide detailed, accurate and up to date population data on an ongoing basis. Information such as population demographic by parish and school catchment area will be available regularly to help inform decision making.
"The current method used to determine the basic population counts is very robust and we are in the fortunate position of already having this data available to us each year in the Population Bulletin. Most jurisdictions are reliant only on census data, which is published every five or ten years.
"It's a great example of States Departments working together and being innovative in order to achieve efficiency."
The IT system will provide an automated means by which data that is already collected by States Departments can be centrally collated. The Social Security Department has already developed a highly reliable method of determining the population size and basic demographic. This project involves extending and automating that method. The new automated processes will be based on the current tried and tested methods, but some additional cross checks will be built in to maximise confidence in the data. Six Departments are involved in the first phase of the project, which is being co-ordinated by staff in the Policy Council's research section (the team that previously co-ordinated the traditional censuses).
When completed in 2014, the project will enable the Policy Council to monitor and publish more detailed population statistics than those that are currently available (see www.gov.gg/population for current publications).
The annual population bulletin, which contains basic information on the population demographic, births, deaths immigration and emigration, will continue to be published in the interim. The next edition will be available in February 2013.
Ends
