FOI reference: FOI-2026-3498
You asked
I would like to request the following information:
Selection Criteria: The specific weighted criteria used by the ONS to determine which ethnic groups receive a dedicated tick-box versus those required to use a "write-in" option.
Impact Assessments: Any internal ONS assessments or reports regarding the "undercounting" or "misidentification" of Cornish individuals as "English" due to the lack of a dedicated tick-box in 2021.
Equality Impact: Any documentation or correspondence discussing how the lack of a Cornish tick-box aligns with the UK's obligations under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
2031 Planning: Minutes or briefing notes from the most recent 12 months discussing the potential for a Cornish tick-box in the 2031 Census following the June/July 2025 government commission.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The ONS is currently preparing for Census 2031 in England and Wales. The census in Scotland is run by National Records of Scotland and the census in Northern Ireland is run by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.
As part of our preparations for the England and Wales census, the ONS recently ran a topic consultation, which closed in February 2026. Question and questionnaire development for Census 2031 will build on the findings of the topic consultation, which are currently undergoing analysis. The topic consultation sought more information on the user need related to existing and potential census topics. No decisions have yet been made on the topics for Census 2031, and outcomes of the topic consultation will be published later in 2026.
In parallel with the census topic consultation, the Government Statistical Service (GSS) conducted a consultation on user needs for additional response options in a future ethnicity standard, as part of their ongoing review of the ethnicity harmonised standard. Harmonised standards provide guidance on how to collect and report statistics to ensure comparability across different data collections in the GSS. The current ethnicity harmonised standard is based on the 2011 Census questions, which were updated in preparation for the 2021/22 UK censuses; the questions used in those censuses are now the latest way of asking about ethnicity in each part of the UK.
The outcomes of the ongoing review of the ethnicity harmonised standard, including the new harmonised standard for online use, will be published later in 2026. We expect that the relevant census question will align to this standard in England and Wales.
We can share relevant existing published material in relation to decision-making for Census 2021 and the ethnicity harmonised standard review:
'The ethnic group prioritisation tool: 2021 Census in England and Wales', available for download on our website, sets out the weighted criteria for decisions on additional tick-box response options for Census 2021
Ethnic group tick-box prioritisation report for Census 2021 in England and Wales describes how those criteria were applied and the changes made to the response options for Census 2021.
Review of the ethnicity harmonised standard: evaluation criteria that will be used for additional response options in the new standard sets out the criteria that will be used for the analysis of submissions to the recent consultation and the remaining steps in finalising the list of tick-box response options for the new harmonised standard.
In addition, National identity, ethnic group, language and religion question development for Census 2021 includes a description of research carried out relating to the suggestion of a Cornish tick-box for the National identity census question, as well as the wider development of the Census 2021 ethnic group question.
We have no record of any assessments or reports relating to "undercounting" or "misidentification" of Cornish individuals as English in Census 2021. As part of our outputs from Census 2021, we published an article on the characteristics and outcomes for people who identified as Cornish in Census 2021, which includes how people identified across the ethnic group, national identity and main language questions.
As regards your request for correspondence or documentation on the UK's obligations under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the absence of a tick-box for Cornish, a comprehensive search of ONS systems to determine whether we hold materials within scope of your request would unfortunately exceed the cost limit for FOIA compliance. As the request has no timeframe, we would need to direct our searches to systems dating back to 2014. This would include the mailboxes of several staff members working at the time across different teams, many of whom will have moved roles, as well as current and archived electronic filings systems. The search terms we would need to use would also return a number of documents that would need to be sifted to determine whether they are in scope. Once located, this information would then need to be extracted and collated ready for review to determine what could be released.
The cost limit for FOIA compliance is 24 working hours to determine, locate, extract, and collate requested information, and in our view we would need to exceed this to action this request.
A search more focussed on the period after the UK's recognition of Cornish in the Framework Convention may provide documentation on this topic without breaching these limits. We can, however, summarise the ONS's understanding of the relationship between recognition under the Framework Convention and the provision of tick-box response options.
The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities does not contain a definition of "national minority" and there is flexibility, or a margin of appreciation, given to states to decide who falls under its protection. The UK applies the Framework Convention very widely: to any groups which meet the definition of "racial groups" in the Equality Act 2010, providing they are in a minority in the UK. In April 2014 the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced that the UK government would recognise the Cornish as a national minority. In extending the Framework Convention to the Cornish, the government made clear that this was without prejudice as to whether the Cornish meet the definition of "racial group" in the Equality Act 2010, as only the courts may decide this. There is no requirement within the Treaty to collect data about any particular group.
The ONS considered its obligations under the Framework Convention ahead of Census 2021, and provided dedicated tick box options where the need is strongest, with write-in options enabling individuals to record their preferred identity and language. Dedicated tick-boxes cannot be provided for all groups recognised as national minorities, so an evaluation process was used to assess user needs and other factors.
Additional tick-boxes for Cornish was considered for Census 2021 for both the ethnic group question and national identity. Using the ethnic group prioritisation tool, Step 1 of the process evaluated 55 requests for new tick-boxes against "strength of user need" criteria. Cornish was not among the 8 requests that scored sufficiently to progress to Step 2. (See Ethnic group tick-box prioritisation report for Census 2021 in England and Wales).
In respect of the national identity question, the ONS's position for Census 2021 is summarised in the white paper "Help Shape the Future", published in 2018:
"Having reviewed the evidence against the evaluation criteria, ONS has concluded that the need for a Cornish tick-box is very localised and not strong enough to justify its inclusion in the nationwide census, when ONS can gather the data by means of the online and paper write in options." (paragraph 3.120)
User needs evolve over time and the decisions on tick-box response options reached for Census 2021 are not binding for Census 2031 or for the development of the ethnicity harmonised standard. As set out above, analysis of responses for the recent consultations for each of these is still underway using published evaluation criteria.
In respect of your request for minutes or briefing notes from the last 12 months discussing the potential for a Cornish tick-box in the 2031 Census, our searches have not found any relevant materials. As set out above, the recent Census 2031 topic consultation and ethnicity harmonisation consultation each sought evidence of user need to support decisions for the census and for the new ethnicity harmonised standard respectively. Analysis of the responses received to both consultations is ongoing.