UK Census

The UK Government has now cut the Civil Service by so much it can't actually carry out its own National Census and there's a shortlist of private companies to collect and analyse the data.

One of these private companies is an American Arms Dealer...

There appears to be a petition ongoing regarding this at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/census-alert/

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With more sensitive information being collected in the next Census in 2011, do we really want data about everyone in the UK being collected by a foreign arms company?

Lockheed Martin is one of the shortlisted contractors to provide data capture and storage services for the 2011 Census, but the majority of its business is with the American Department of Defense and other US government agencies. They produce missiles, naval systems and land mines, as well as providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnnaissance services. Most worrying is their claim to deliver 'integrated threat information' to the US military by combining and analysing a widde range of intelligence information from around the world.

With Lockheed Martin involved, people in the UK will not believe that their Census submissions will be safe from being incorporated into these systems, and this is likely to harm the reliability of the 2011 Census.

We at Census Alert urge you to sign the petition because we believe that this kind of company should not be gathering sensitive data on every member of our population

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With all the recent problems in the UK Civil Service, mainly due to arbitrary cuts in staff for polical points..at what point is a systemic collapse going to happen, and will it be too late to prevent when the point is recognised?

I can't, offhand, think of one Government Department that isn't having to take huge shortcuts to get the work done.. and I could point at the huge tax gap, at the same time as they are making huge staff cuts in HMRC (Customs, VAT and Direct Taxes) or the 600 Job Centres and Benefits offices that have closed at the same time as they are trying to get people in work...

Is it right for any Government to delegate to any private contractor collection of all this data from its own citizens?

Did many people actually take part in the census. I never have nor anyone I know, ever.

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Originally Posted by Rat Faced

The UK Government has now cut the Civil Service by so much it can't actually carry out its own National Census and there's a shortlist of private companies to collect and analyse the data.

One of these private companies is an American Arms Dealer...

There appears to be a petition ongoing regarding this at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/census-alert/

Quote:

---

With more sensitive information being collected in the next Census in 2011, do we really want data about everyone in the UK being collected by a foreign arms company?

Lockheed Martin is one of the shortlisted contractors to provide data capture and storage services for the 2011 Census, but the majority of its business is with the American Department of Defense and other US government agencies. They produce missiles, naval systems and land mines, as well as providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnnaissance services. Most worrying is their claim to deliver 'integrated threat information' to the US military by combining and analysing a widde range of intelligence information from around the world.

With Lockheed Martin involved, people in the UK will not believe that their Census submissions will be safe from being incorporated into these systems, and this is likely to harm the reliability of the 2011 Census.

We at Census Alert urge you to sign the petition because we believe that this kind of company should not be gathering sensitive data on every member of our population

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With all the recent problems in the UK Civil Service, mainly due to arbitrary cuts in staff for polical points..at what point is a systemic collapse going to happen, and will it be too late to prevent when the point is recognised?

I can't, offhand, think of one Government Department that isn't having to take huge shortcuts to get the work done.. and I could point at the huge tax gap, at the same time as they are making huge staff cuts in HMRC (Customs, VAT and Direct Taxes) or the 600 Job Centres and Benefits offices that have closed at the same time as they are trying to get people in work...

Is it right for any Government to delegate to any private contractor collection of all this data from its own citizens?

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A quick question:

Would the sentiment and rhetoric be as desperate if the contractor in question was Chinese?

Russian?

Iranian?

Just curious...:whistling

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Is it right for any Government to delegate to any private contractor collection of all this data from its own citizens?

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The fact that any company involved in the "Intelligence" field is shortlisted is worse than "just" a private company. (I believe " a private company" just shows how inept and tied to political dogma the UK Government is, in that it can no longer handle such a job.)

When it's not even our own Intelligence services, but that of a foreign power (ANY foreign power) makes it unbelievably stupid.

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Originally Posted by j2k4

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Originally Posted by Rat Faced

The UK Government has now cut the Civil Service by so much it can't actually carry out its own National Census and there's a shortlist of private companies to collect and analyse the data.

One of these private companies is an American Arms Dealer...

There appears to be a petition ongoing regarding this at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/census-alert/



With all the recent problems in the UK Civil Service, mainly due to arbitrary cuts in staff for polical points..at what point is a systemic collapse going to happen, and will it be too late to prevent when the point is recognised?

I can't, offhand, think of one Government Department that isn't having to take huge shortcuts to get the work done.. and I could point at the huge tax gap, at the same time as they are making huge staff cuts in HMRC (Customs, VAT and Direct Taxes) or the 600 Job Centres and Benefits offices that have closed at the same time as they are trying to get people in work...

Is it right for any Government to delegate to any private contractor collection of all this data from its own citizens?

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A quick question:

Would the sentiment and rhetoric be as desperate if the contractor in question was Chinese?

Russian?

Iranian?

Just curious...:whistling

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Even worserer!

RF is right though, my mob are in a similar boat and we currently have a spend moratorium in place - we have no pens at the moment :pinch:

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Originally Posted by benchez

Did many people actually take part in the census. I never have nor anyone I know, ever.

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I thought you were required to, by law :blink:

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Originally Posted by Biggles

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Originally Posted by j2k4

A quick question:

Would the sentiment and rhetoric be as desperate if the contractor in question was Chinese?

Russian?

Iranian?

Just curious...:whistling

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Even worserer!

RF is right though, my mob are in a similar boat and we currently have a spend moratorium in place - we have no pens at the moment :pinch:

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A pen in the paw of a civil servant is an instrument of the Devil, and I know, 'cuz I were one. :whistling

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Originally Posted by Biggles

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Originally Posted by j2k4

A quick question:

Would the sentiment and rhetoric be as desperate if the contractor in question was Chinese?

Russian?

Iranian?

Just curious...:whistling

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Even worserer!

RF is right though, my mob are in a similar boat and we currently have a spend moratorium in place - we have no pens at the moment :pinch:

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Actually, things are worse than might at first appear.

When the current government took power in 1997 there were 5.17m people in public employment, few of them particularly overworked, or complaining of understaffing.

There are now 5.78m (down from a peak of 5.85m), yet most of them seem to be complaining that they are understaffed and overworked.

One has to wonder what the heck this government has them doing that an increase in staffing levels of over 10% can't manage to get the job done. Perhaps if they stopped having so many useless meetings and producing so many meaningless reports they would manage to perform the jobs we actually need them to do.

I'd be appalled by this situation if I wasn't so horrified.

And also, from the Census Act of 1920.

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8 Penalties
(1) If any person—
(a) refuses or neglects to comply with or acts in contravention of any of the
provisions of this Act or any Order in Council or regulations made under this
Act; or
(b) being a person required under this Act to make a statutory declaration with
respect to the performance of his duties, makes a false declaration; or
(c) being a person required by an Order in Council or regulations made under this
Act to make, sign, or deliver any document, makes, signs, or delivers, or causes
to be made, signed, or delivered a false document; or
(d) being a person required in pursuance of any such Order in Council or
regulations to answer any question, refuses to answer or gives a false answer to
that question;
he shall for each offence be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding [level 3
on the standard scale].
[(1A) But no person shall be liable to a penalty under subsection (1) for refusing or
neglecting to state any particulars in respect of religion.]
[(2) If the Registrar-General for England and Wales or the Registrar-General for
Scotland (“the Registrars”) or any person who is—
(a) under the control of either of the Registrars; or
(b) a supplier of any services to either of them, discloses any personal census
information to another person, without lawful authority, he shall be guilty of an
offence.
(3) If any person discloses to another person any personal census information which he
knows has been disclosed in contravention of this Act, he shall be guilty of an
offence.
(4) It shall be a defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (2) or (3)
to prove—
(a) that at the time of the alleged offence he believed—
(i) that he was acting with lawful authority; or
(ii) that the information in question was not personal census information; and
(b) that he had no reasonable cause to believe otherwise.
(5) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (2) or (3) shall be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months
or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two
years or to a fine or to both.
(6) For the purposes of this section—
(a) references to a Registrar include, where he is also the holder of a designated
office, references to him in his capacity as the holder of that office;
(b) a person is to be treated as under the control of one of the Registrars if he is, or
has been—
(i) employed by that Registrar (whether or not on a full-time basis); or
(ii) otherwise employed, or acting, (whether or not on a full-time basis) as part
of that Registrar’s staff for purposes of this Act;
(c) a person is to be treated as a supplier of services to a Registrar if he—.
(i) supplies, or has supplied, any services to that Registrar in connection with the
discharge by that Registrar of any of his functions; or
(ii) is, or has been, employed by such a supplier.
(7) In this section—
“census information” means any information which is—
(i) acquired by any person mentioned in subsection (2) above in the course of
any work done by him in connection with the discharge of functions under
section 2 or 4 of this Act;
(ii) acquired by any such person in the course of working, for purposes of
section 5 of this Act, with any information acquired as mentioned in subparagraph
(i) above; or
(iii) derived from any information so acquired;
“designated office”, in relation to a Registrar, means any office for the time being
designated by him in writing for the purposes of this section; and
“personal census information” means any census information which relates to an
identifiable person or household.]

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Originally Posted by lynx

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Originally Posted by Biggles

Even worserer!

RF is right though, my mob are in a similar boat and we currently have a spend moratorium in place - we have no pens at the moment :pinch:

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Actually, things are worse than might at first appear.

When the current government took power in 1997 there were 5.17m people in public employment, few of them particularly overworked, or complaining of understaffing.

There are now 5.78m (down from a peak of 5.85m), yet most of them seem to be complaining that they are understaffed and overworked.

One has to wonder what the heck this government has them doing that an increase in staffing levels of over 10% can't manage to get the job done. Perhaps if they stopped having so many useless meetings and producing so many meaningless reports they would manage to perform the jobs we actually need them to do.

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Well bugger me backwards (metaphorical) where are they all working?

The site I work on has dropped from 600 odd (in some cases downright peculiar) people 15 years ago to about 310 now. We have weeds growing in the gutters and it takes weeks to get a beeping light bulb changed. The actual workload is largely unchanged it is just that we now struggle to meet the time lines where once we provided a service second to none - in truth this is less of a problem than it might be as HM ships are thinner on the ground than they once were.

We have just been told that there is another strategic review in the offing and we have to lose another 20% over the next 4 years. :lol: We laughed until we stopped - no really, we did :blink:

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Originally Posted by Rat Faced

The fact that any company involved in the "Intelligence" field is shortlisted is worse than "just" a private company.

When it's not even our own Intelligence services, but that of a foreign power (ANY foreign power) makes it unbelievably stupid.

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Lockheed Martin is admittedly a defense contractor but hardly an "intelligence service".

I never said it was.

I said it was "Involved In" Intelligence work, as it is with other aspects of the Military.


Biggles:

My own experiance in HMRC is similar, except with us its more work with less staff and computer systems that are unfit for purpose.

It didnt surprise us in the least when those Discs went missing... that's what privatisations all about, especially when the contract is given to a company that is known for its sub-contracting. Just about any guy in a white van could have them.... :rolleyes:

I still remember Securicor losing all those prisoners too...


Lynx: If a Government creates regulations, then it needs staff to administrate them. This Government has created more regulation than most...and also keeps changing its mind, causing more work and inefficiency. It depends what you class as public service too... the number of teachers and medical staff have increased by a huge margin for example.

The number of "Civil Servants" in HMRC has decreased by 12,500 since 2004 as the Government has dictated, however that doesnt stop the department then hiring "Consultants" to do the same job at three times the wage (as the Department just cant cope with the work). I think last year they were celibrating a saving of £150,000,000... and it had cost £160,000,000 to achieve it.

The world has gone plain bonkers :(

Thanx for the nod Rat Faced, Have signed the petition.

Only the British goverment its self should census the British public, No forigen company be they American,Chinese or Martian should be involved.

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Originally Posted by STORMCAST

Thanx for the nod Rat Faced, Have signed the petition.

Only the British goverment its self should census the British public, No forigen company be they American,Chinese or Martian should be involved.

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Martians don't count. :whistling

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Originally Posted by j2k4

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Originally Posted by STORMCAST

Thanx for the nod Rat Faced, Have signed the petition.

Only the British goverment its self should census the British public, No forigen company be they American,Chinese or Martian should be involved.

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Martians don't count. :whistling

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Well, to be fair they do.
Base 8 though.

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Originally Posted by clocker

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Originally Posted by j2k4

Martians don't count. :whistling

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Well, to be fair they do.
Base 8 though.

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Ah. :whistling

Well Biggles, correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you been sitting around twiddling your thumbs for the last 6 plus months chatting to people on messageboards because of some sort of restructuring that has left you without a job to do? Maybe therein lies the problem.

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Originally Posted by Barbarossa

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Originally Posted by benchez

Did many people actually take part in the census. I never have nor anyone I know, ever.

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I thought you were required to, by law :blink:

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No idea mate. I only go with the laws I agree with. :mellow:

Although I am a UK citizen living in the UK,

I am not on the census.
I am not on the electorial register.
I do not pay council tax.

It is basically a need to know basis;
I do not believe that the government needs to know where I live.
And they can shove their ID cards. :-)

Same here smellycat and I agree.
I never take anything from the government or bother them. the least I expect is for them to show me the same courtesy. :smilie4:

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Originally Posted by smellycat

Although I am a UK citizen living in the UK,

I am not on the census.
I am not on the electorial register.
I do not pay council tax.

It is basically a need to know basis;
I do not believe that the government needs to know where I live.
And they can shove their ID cards. :-)

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Is there someone else paying Council Tax for your residence?

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Originally Posted by smellycat

Although I am a UK citizen living in the UK,

I am not on the census.
I am not on the electorial register.
I do not pay council tax.

It is basically a need to know basis;
I do not believe that the government needs to know where I live.
And they can shove their ID cards. :-)

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If they introduce ID cards I'm emmigrating.

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Originally Posted by Squeamous

Well Biggles, correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you been sitting around twiddling your thumbs for the last 6 plus months chatting to people on messageboards because of some sort of restructuring that has left you without a job to do? Maybe therein lies the problem.

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I may have made the odd post or two while waiting for someone to make a decision (any fecking decision :frusty:) :snooty: