The official reasons for having a census are complete bollocks. Findings will not be acted on. Take the guff about housing, for example. Round here, planning for new housing has nothing to do with local need indicated by any census (massive new estates with no regard for the increased burden on local infrastructure - don't get me started...). The planning round here is far more likely to be predicated on baksheesh and on making a few landowners, especially those chummy with the local councillors, as rich as Croesus. "Planning services" has meant ruthlessly running them down for at least the last ten years. Council funding slashed, numbers of doctors and nurses slashed, schools crumbling to the ground, GP services shite... We seem to be having a census for no better reason than that we always have a census. So I'm with Dick on this. Bloody waste of money. I suppose we'll be spending a few more tens of millions chasing up people who haven't done it or who have done it wrong, and even after all that you won't find any better information than is already available at a hundredth of the cost, as if we were going to use it anyway, which we won't be. Still, it keeps an army of people temporarily busy, I suppose...