Census & Data Collection Transformation Programme

Rating: Compared to financial year 22/23-Q4, the Infrastructure Project Authority's Delivery Confidence Assessment rating at 23/24-Q4 decreased from Amber to Green. This is primarily due to the following factors. The Programme officially closed on 31 March 2024 with all closure activity successfully completed and the IPA Gate 5 Review in January 2024 applying a Green RAG for the closure. The Programme has successful delivered the 2021 Census and produced its headline outputs, topic summaries, multivariate outputs and 'build your own' dataset functionality. Progress as planned was made on the further transformation of the population and migration systems: the National Statistician Recommendation is drafted and will be discussed by the United Kingdom Statistics Authority Board in April 2024; data collection processing for the Labour Market Survey; development of the new Statistical Business Register; and the move to online data collection for the majority of ONS business surveys.

Schedule: Compared to financial year 22/23-Q4, the project's end-date at 23/24-Q4 decreased from 2025-03-31 to 2024-03-31. This is primarily due to the following factors. The Programme end date of 31 March 2024 remains unchanged. There is no funding beyond this date. The Census benefits will be captured in 2025 and ownership and tracking of these has transferred to the Population Statistics Division (PSD) within the Office for National Statistics (ONS). All other closure activity has completed successfully.

Cost: Compared to financial year 22/23-Q4, the project's departmental-agree Whole Life Cost at 23/24-Q4 remained at 876m. This is primarily due to the following factors. The budgeted Whole Life Costs have remained at 876m within the 2023 / 2024 Financial Year and the close down of the Programme has gone to plan.

Source: IPA Annual Report 2023-24 (data)