2007 Test questionnaire development

Following user consultation in 2005, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) launched a programme of question development and testing, to ensure that the 2011 Census meets as many user requirements as possible. New questions have been developed for topics where there is a new demand for information, and existing questions have been redeveloped to account for increasing or changing user requirements.

A series of four open meetings in England and Wales took place in March 2007 to share current thinking on the likely content of the 2011 Census questionnaire with a focus on ethnicity and identity questions in particular. Slide presentations given at the meetings are available to download as a single PowerPoint file.

The first major milestone in this development programme was the 2007 Census Test, where the newly developed questions were used on a large scale for the first time.

The Census Test in England and Wales was held on 13 May 2007, and the questionnaires used were published in October 2006.

To meet all user requirements for information, the 2011 Census would have to ask significantly more questions than is possible. As ONS is not yet in a position to decide the final census content, the 2007 Census Test included a wide range of possible new questions to help inform the final selection process. To achieve this, the questionnaire included an extra page of questions per respondent than was asked in the 2001 Census, or is likely for the 2011 Census. In addition to this, a number of existing questions being considered for the 2011 Census, but unlikely to change significantly before then, have been excluded to maximise the space available to test the new questions.

New questions to be tested include:

• national identity - to allow respondents to record their English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, Irish or other identity

• income - to collect level and sources of income

• language - to collect information on proficiency in English, Welsh, British Sign Language and other languages. In Wales, people will be asked about the frequency of their use of the Welsh language

• second address - to identify the number of people with a regular second address and the purpose and frequency of its use

• month and year of entry into the UK - to collect extra information about international migration

Redeveloped questions to be tested include:

• illness and disability - expanded to collect information on the nature of illness and disability

• marital or civil partnership status - expanded to include civil partnership equivalent for each marital status

Each question included in the 2007 Census Test has been evaluated to assess the quality of information that can be collected and the public acceptability of the topic and the report '2007 Census Test: Evaluation of the Census Test questionnaire in England and Wales' is now available to download.

The final questionnaire for the 2011 Census will include a selection of questions from the questionnaires used in the 2007 Census Test, some from the 2001 Census excluded from the Test and others developed through a programme of small-scale testing. The analysis of the 2007 Census Test will be used to inform this selection.

Following the Test there will be a census Rehearsal in 2009, before the proposed questions are put forward to Parliament in 2009.

The questionnaires are supported by a paper summarising the development work completed, definitions used in the 2007 Test, the timetable for finalising questionnaires for the 2011 Census, and ONS's view on possible census content.