Speaking to London's Daily Telegraph, Maude said that, in a decision likely to be ratified this week, the U.K. is getting rid of the 200-year-old head count because it's expensive, incomplete and out of date before it's even published. During its 10-year cycle, the U.K.'s 2011 census will have cost the taxpayer $730 million — twice as much as it did in 2001. In a country struggling with a $235 billion deficit, the census might be seen as a luxury. But, some say, it's an essential one.
In the U.K., census numbers direct public funding to local authorities: the population of a district directly impacts on how much money it gets to spend on the minutiae of life — trash collection, libraries, road repairs and so on. Census population numbers and densities influence immigration policy. They also determine where schools, hospitals and houses are built. Details about ethnicity and age allow the National Health Service to target specific types of health care to at-risk areas. And census figures are reported to Eurostat, the European statistics agency, which feeds numbers into Europe-wide funding and policy. In other words, the census rules how societies are shaped.
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