CACI Wins First Online Scottish Census Contract

UK consumer and market analyst CACI has won the first contract to process the Scottish Census using a mix of both traditional paper and online questionnaires.

The £18.5m contract has been awarded by the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS). The next Census will be the first survey to be available online - the last paper-only survey was conducted in 2001.

CACI will support GROS in creating the census web site, printing paper questionnaires, and developing the IT systems for automated handwritten data capture and coding. The firm will also carry out the data capture and coding processes on the questionnaire responses at a processing facility in Scotland. GROS statisticians will then analyse the results and prepare the census data for publication.

Greg Bradford, CACI CEO, commented: 'For the first time, the Scottish Census will allow respondents to fill in their questionnaires online should they wish. Householders have a legal duty to complete the census so it must be as easy to participate as possible.'

New technology to deliver the census will be tested in March 2009, when residents in west Edinburgh, Lewis and Harris take part in the Census Rehearsal.

CACI previously delivered services for the Republic of Ireland's Censuses in 2002 and 2006, and Scotland's Registrar General Duncan Macniven said that this experience had contributed to the firm being awarded the contract.

As part of the agreement, CACI will abide by confidentiality guarantees, mandated by census legislation and the Data Protection Act.

Headquartered in London, CACI was established in 1975 and operates from eight offices across the country. The firm is a subsidiary of CACI International which has annual revenue of more than $2bn and employs 11,500 staff worldwide. Web site: www.caci.co.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.