We recently posted a page about the Census in which a well-known public figure recommended signing the form and sending it in otherwise blank.
That would be illegal, of course, because one of the hallmarks of this census is that it is compulsory and, like so many other things spawned by the Nu-Labour-created bureaucratic state, it is hedged around with dire threats of prosecution for non-compliance, with fines, imprisonment, seizure of assets, excommunication from Twitter and Facebook, death, torture of pets and small children etc. Those who fail to complete it and are fined £1,000 will achieve very little except to swell the coffers of the government. Not that that would be a bad thing, of course – George Osborne needs all the coffers he can get. You can never have enough coffers.
No, you should certainly complete the form and send it in. We at Grumpy Old Sod are responsible, level-headed adults. We have no intention of doing anything illegal ourselves, and we wouldn't dream of advising anyone else to do so. So here is our ...
1.First and most important, your census form will be scanned by a machine. Of course, the machine will only be able to handle your form if it is in good physical condition. If the sheets (which will be automatically cut apart from their binding) are sullied in any way which might gum up the machine, the job will have to be done by an actual person, which will cost more and be very slow although it will have the benefit of providing temporary employment for someone. So be very careful with your form, and do not, repeat NOT, spill coffee over it or smear some of the sheets with marmalade.
2.The machine will know which page it's on, and whose form it is reading, by scanning the little barcodes in the bottom right hand corner of each page. So don't, whatever you do, sit idly there filling in the spaces in the barcode with a black pen. You know how it is when your attention wanders and you start doodling. Don't do it.
3.Likewise, the machine will only look for information in the little boxes provided for you to write in. If you make a mistake, and have to cross it out and then put the correct answer outside the box, the machine will be stumped. Nevertheless, we all make mistakes, and if this is what you have to do in order to comply with your legal responsibility, you have little choice. Remember, anything written outside the box will have to be read by a human.
4.Something else that will confuse the scanner is if you absent-mindedly turn the page and write in the boxes upside down, or if you use any peculiar symbols of your own that it can't recognise. So don't do it – unless, of course, your religion requires you to. In this case you probably ought to answer the voluntary question about religion, and add a detailed account of the responsibilities attaching to that particular belief. The census is all about collecting information, after all, so we're sure they'll be pleased if you give them plenty of it!
5.No doubt when all your personal information is entered into the computer, it will be cross-matched against other information already held by the
6.As we wrote in our previous post on this subject, there are one or two questions that cannot be answered honestly and accurately. None of us know with certainty what our ethnic group is, unless we are fanatical family historians and have researched our genealogy for generations past. Even then, if we went far enough back most Europeans would probably have to conclude that their original ethnic group was Aryan, and we believe the Aryans originally came from Northern India, so can they accurately be described as “white” on the form? Really the only honest answer to this question has to be “Don't know”.
7.The form has a big barcode on the front page, and is arranged so that when you put it in the pre-paid envelope, the barcode can be read through the transparent window. If for any reason the barcode can't be read, the package will have to be sorted by hand which will take more time and cost more money, so do make sure the barcode is visible and that you haven't doodled on it. One disastrous scenario which you must avoid is that if the front page of the form became detached (say, by the dog getting it, or your infant child) and you put that in the envelope provided and posted it, the system would log you as having completed the whole questionnaire. But then you would realise your mistake, collect together the remaining sheets, put them in another envelope and send them off. Do make sure you put the right address, and that you don't send a lot of envelopes each with one sheet in, and that you remember to put a stamp on each one. You can imagine the mess it would cause if you made any of these silly mistakes!
We hope you have found these notes helpful, and that we can all play our part in making a
That would be ridiculous, of course.
If you'd like to read a far longer explanation of how the form works, have a look here, but be warned - the authors are not as responsible and level-headed as we are. In places you almost get the impression that they don't want the census to succeed, so they must be very silly people indeed.
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