Call to scrap national census

A report by the New Local Government Network (NLGN) says information collected by the 10-yearly survey is out of date by the time it is published and underestimates the number of people living in Britain.

This in turn has a knock-on effect for the funding of local services, the report argues, because census figures are used for allocating £100 billion of funding to councils and primary care trusts.

The report says the survey cannot accurately reflect the true state of Britain because of poor quality information on households, high rates of population mobility, illegal immigration and a growing reluctance to fill in official forms.

It instead advocates a "local head count" of an area's population, taken from information already contained on electoral registers, GP surgeries, school places and tax records. Such a system would deliver a more accurate picture of who lives where, the report says, and save at least £250 million.

NLGN director Chris Leslie said: "The census has been around for 200 years and it is no longer gathering the right sort of data for modern public services.

"We are left in a situation where not only does central government not know where it should distribute public money, but local councils do not have the information or flexibility to work out where best to spend money to tackle worklessness and crime, or to gauge where future demand will be for care homes and schools."

The next census is due to take place in 2011, with the 2001 version having been criticised for under-counting the UK's population by 900,000.

The Conservatives said people were worried about the nature of questions being planned for 2011. And though he stopped short of calling for the census to be scrapped, shadow communities and local government secretary Eric Pickles highlighted other shortcomings.

Mr Pickles said: "There is growing public concern over the increasingly intrusive questions that the Government is planning for the next census, and the sweeping inaccuracies in the last one. Many councils have been short-changed in government funding because the last census failed to record properly the real number of local residents. High levels of inward migration have compounded the problems, with Labour ministers having little clue on the real sizes of populations in many parts of the country."