Census IT system to track forms ‘not fit for purpose’

CENSUS chiefs were warned the IT system used for tracking incomplete surveys was descending into chaos weeks ago, whistle-blowers have revealed.

The system used by census field officers to track people who are yet to fill in the survey has been branded “completely inefficient” causing them to repeatedly visit the same properties.

Yesterday, The Daily Telegraph revealed members of the public are receiving multiple letters and in person visits despite having already filled it in on, or before, census day on March 21.

Now field officers have disclosed they raised concerns the system is not fit for purpose weeks ago, but “nothing” has changed.

The Telegraph can also reveal the Office for National Statistics (ONS) admitted it was “investigating” the issue in an internal staff email, despite previously telling this newspaper they were unaware of such cases.

The email sent to field workers in London on April 1, from a regional manager, asked them to record “evidence” of households who say they have completed the survey but keep appearing on the contact lists.

Workers were given a link to a Google form to fill out, “due to the amount of reports we’re getting about (households) reporting they have filled in the Census,” the email read.

“We’ve been asked to gather the evidence so the address frame team can investigate where and why this might be happening,” it added.

Another field worker from Wales said they were asked to add the details to an excel spreadsheet to keep track of the cases. The issue appears to stem from the mobile app, Team Mobile, where census officers receive their daily list of addresses to knock. A household can tell a field worker they have completed the survey and show them the confirmation email, the worker can then update the app to that effect, the ONS said.

However, the app only allows them to select the option “Will or have completed”, meaning the address is not being removed from the system and returned to other field workers to call on again, sometimes within the following day, whistle-blowers told The Telegraph.

One field worker in Plymouth said their team has resorted to using the box intended for adding security information about an address, for example if they have an aggressive dog, to record the household as complete.

“We’ve agreed as a team that it’s not the greatest solution to the problem,” they said. The ONS claims a person filling in the survey online will be marked as complete on the system the following day, but whistle-blowers have said this is “nonsense” and it is taking up to a week for the system to update.

For people submitting their survey by post it is reportedly taking between two and four weeks for the system to catch up, they added. Area managers have repeatedly flagged these issues to the ONS during weekly meetings but “nothing happens”, another field officer from Sheffield said. Managers are doing their best to help the field workers find solutions, she said, “but they’re up against it as well with the central system being so poor”.

She added: “It’s like something that’s been written in Basic, it’s so old-fashioned. I can’t understand how something that is online is not registering for a week.”

She is regularly speaking to people who submitted the survey two weeks ago, but the IT system keeps returning the same addresses, she added. “Every single day there must be half of the addresses we get sent to we know that someone’s been there before and we know they’ve completed it,” she said.

Following The Telegraph’s investigation, some workers have been told by their area manager our story “highlights the technical issues faced by the ONS” regarding repeated household visits. The email sent to staff, seen by this newspaper, asked them to mark households which provide evidence their survey has been completed as “extraordinary refusals”.

This category is normally used when the person is incapable of completing the census due to mental or physical reasons, one census worker in Chester told The Telegraph.

An ONS spokesman said this is not the official guidance and marking people as such does not affect census data.

The spokesman confirmed they did investigate complaints from workers about the app but added “there are no issues with our IT systems”.

He added: “Our census field officers are knocking on doors where records show we have had no response. We are aware of some people who have started their census but not yet clicked submit. We encourage anyone who has not yet responded to do so as soon as possible,” they added.

‘It’s so old-fashioned, I can’t understand how something that is online is not registering for a week’