The ward geography in the National Data Service has been updated to 2022 wards and we have started progressively rolling this change out to customers’ data catalogs. We expect this process to be completed by the end of this month.
For InstantAtlas Data Observatory customers, this means that it will be possible to view Census 2021 data in ward-level standard outputs within the observatory website, wherever data was published at ward level (not all of the phase 1 datasets were published by ONS at this level).
The process of updating the designs of ward-level reports to replace Census 2011 data with Census 2021 data has begun, and will be ongoing until the end of the month.
This includes the ward-level reports used in the Custom Area Reporter app to show aggregated data for a custom selection of wards.
The data from the UK armed forces veterans topic was published on 14th of January. Please read this post for more information.
Economy & Employment
People in Universal Credit (September 2022) was updated on 13th of January.
Claimant Count (September 2022) was updated on 30th of January.
Annual Population Survey, ASHE, Business Counts, Job Density were updated on 30th of January.
Note that NOMIS has since issued a warning that there were errors in the published APS data, which have now been rectified. As a consequence, we will have to re-run the update in order to correct the figures.
The speed of non-census updates has been impacted by the ongoing processing and loading of new Census 2021 data. However, we expect these updates to return to normal as the census data processing reduces from February onwards.
Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion
Labour market and travel to work
Housing
Sexual orientation and gender identity
Education
Health, disability and unpaid care
To give an idea of the scale of the undertaking, for Census 2021 we have now added about 3,800 indicators, 70 census tables and over 100,000 instances to the National Data Service.
These new indictors are located under different themes depending on the topic summary. The table below shows the top level theme in the National Data Service in each case.
Census 2021 topic summary
NDS top level theme
Sub-themes
Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion
Population
Ethnicity, Identity, Language and Religion
Labour market and travel to work
Economy
Economic Activity Status; Travel to Work; Industry and Occupation
Housing
Housing
Households; People with second address; Communal establishments
Sexual orientation and gender identity
Population
Sexual orientation; Gender identity
Education
Children and Young People
Qualifications; Population and Pupil Characteristics
Health, disability and unpaid care
Health
Disability; General Health; Unpaid Care
As with the previous updates, we have retained the structure the data were published in, and have also retained the name of the census table in the theme names and indicator names. This is helpful for users that are familiar with the way the census data is organised and/or the names of the tables.
Under each top level theme in the National Data Service, the old data from Census 2011 have been moved into a subtheme labeled Census 2011, to avoid confusion with the 2021 data.
Note that it is not the case that all data is available at all geographic levels. For example, the ‘detailed’ tables for Ethnicity, Identity and Religion do not contain data at LSOA 2021, nor do the tables for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
Data is generally not currently available for the Ward geography. We are in the process of updating the ward definition in the National Data Service to the latest (2022) wards and as part of that process, Census 2021 indicator will gain data that level wherever it has been published by ONS.
We will also be adding descriptive metadata for the Census 2021 indicators held in the service.
For customers with a managed Data Observatory website, the data are displayed in the following places:
1) Map Explorers (updated 3rd Feb 2023)
2) Data Explorer (updated 3rd Feb 2023)
3) Reports (updated 3rd– 14th Feb 2023)
The reports for upper and lower tier local authorities have been updated to replace 2011 census data with 2021 data. New reports for the LSOA 2021 geography have been added for the Population, Health and Environment themes (the other themes retain reports at the old LSOA geography for now as there is more relevant data available at this level for the time being).
Reports for custom geographies will show Census 2021 data wherever we have been able to aggregate data to these geographies from 2021 OA or LSOA levels. If any of your reports are still showing data for 2011, it may be that you need to send us an updated lookup for your custom geography in order for us to apply the aggregations.
Note that LSOA 2021 reports have also been made available in the Custom Area Reporter app (for relevant themes), if your observatory website is using this app.
This adds nearly 1,500 new indicators to the service, with data available at the geographies it has been published for by ONS:
Country
Region
Upper Tier Local Authority
Lower Tier Local Authority
Middle Layer Super Output Area
Lower Layer Super Output Area
To display the LSOA level data we have added a new core geography to the National Data Service called LSOA 2021.
Although ONS did not publish data at ward level, where possible we have generated values at this level by aggregating values from OA area using a population weighted centroids best fit method.
These new indictors are all located under the Population theme, and organised into subthemes that reflect the census table that they were sourced from. We have retained the structure the data were published in, and have also retained the name of the census table in the theme names and indicator names. This is helpful for users that are familiar with the way the census data is organised and/or the names of the tables.
Under each top level theme in the National Data Service, the old data from Census 2011 have been moved into a subtheme labeled Census 2011, to avoid confusion with the 2021 data.
For customers with a managed Data Observatory website, the data are displayed in the following places:
1) Population Map Explorer (updated 6th Dec 2022)
2) Data Explorer (updated 6th Dec 2022)
3) Upper and lower tier local authority Population reports (updated 7th and 9th Dec 2022)
In January we will be adding data for the further topic summaries that have been released by ONS and updating our ward level reports in addition to the reports at local authority level.
June 2022 monthly and 12 monthly rolling average data were uploaded on 5th of August.
Economy & Employment
The Apprenticeships dataset was updated on 5th of August.
Claimant Count (July 2022) was updated on 16th of August.
People in Universal Credit (July 2022) was updated on 17th of August.
Environment
The Emissions dataset was updated on the 10th of August. The figures for carbon dioxide were updated and new figures included for methane and nitrous oxide.
Annual Population Survey
The data for Apr 2021- Mar 2022 was added on 16th of August (out of cycle).
This brand new set of around 140 indicators can be found in the the Population theme, under a Census 2021 subtheme. This dataset combines the first release results for 2021 – available at local authority, region and country level for England and Wales – with the closest equivalent data selected from NOMIS for 2011, 2001 and 1991 to show change over time in the headline data. The population estimates are broken down by sex, broad age group and 5-year age groups.
Note that there may be some differences to the basis on how the values were generated. Note also that this first release data for 2021 gives figures rounded to the nearest 100 – later release will be unrounded and can be expected to show some differences to these figures.
For customers with a managed Data Observatory website, the data are displayed in the following places:
1) Population reports for top and lower tier local authorities (updated 7th July 2022)
2) Population Map Explorer (updated 4th July 2022)
3) Data Explorer (updated 4th July 2022)
We will add further data from Census 2021 to the National Data Service once these have been released. You can read the release plans from ONS for the data here.
