Full census report still not public

| 29/12/2011

PA100025_0.JPG(CNS): Although officials working on the National Census which was conducted in October 2010 had aimed to have the full details of their work circulated before the end of 2011, the document is now not expected to be in the public domain until next year. The work is finished and the Economic and Statistics Office Director Maria Zingapan said the detailed census report will be published on the office website it has not yet been released by the Legislative Assembly. Although it was scheduled to be produced during the last sitting of the parliament on 14 December the premier did not table the report.

So far only a limited amount of information from the national count, which cost the taxpayer over $1.1million, has been released and there has been no official explanation why the report has not yet been released to the public.

The national project was undertaken by the ESO staring on the 10 October 2010 lasted around two months and enumerators visited approximately 30,000 homes. They counted a total population of 54,878 residents with 481 living in institutions such as prisons, dorms or retirement homes. George Town was revealed to still be the country’s most populated district, accounting for the majority of the entire population with 27,704 people. 11,269 people now live in West Bay, followed by 10,341 people living in Bodden Town, the fast growing district. The count also found 1,437 people in North Side, 1,369 in East End and the Sister Islands are home to 2,277 residents.

Earlier this month at a reception for those who were involved in the national count, the governor revealed that there were 135 different nationalities living in Cayman at the time of the census, and the full report would be critical to developing good policy. “The data collected by the exemplary census, which was carried out very professionally, will be viewed in detail soon,” Duncan Taylor stated. 

Zingapan added that she hoped the details, once released, would be used to inform decision-making in the public and private sectors, making the data relevant to everyday life in the Cayman Islands.

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Tried to go on the ESO website to see what I could see but the website is down.  Coincidence?

  2. Anonymous says:

    A suggestion –

    email bellinghamh@parliament.uk

    He's waiting for your messages on this.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Given the number of illegal people on the island and that almost 10% refused to comply with the enumerators how much faith should we put into the census?

  4. anonymous says:

    The ESO does good work. But the key to data of this sort is prompt publication so it is current and useful. Cayman has a growing plethora of data that is expensively collected by various agencies, sat on and then released when it is stale and of academic use only. This attitude of manana inertia has to change. Tim Ridley

  5. ALL SEEING says:

    No one can be this incompetent. No one.

  6. Naya Boy on Pinoy says:

    Some people are ill prepared to deal with the truth of the matter, that we are infact out numbered by 4-1 does not need to be annouced in a census, Caymanians already can see and understand that to be a fact. The government's butterfly effect theory of increase population is both alarming and is a myth instead of the economic miracle they have been touting, which now makes a number of their KEY Appointees into BIg Liars constantly now telling lies, something the Caymanian people also knew already. The siphoning off of Cayman's prosperity and economic stability continues. The problem with our Census it represents the obivious and shameful Truth?

    • I See Narrow Minded People says:

      "We are in fact outnumbered" – so what?  Caymanian is just a term for a Jamaican who has been in Cayman long enough to be abusive about Jamaicans who haven't been. 

      • Anonymous says:

        You must be looking at yourself because it is disrespectful persons just like you why we have so many narrow minded people and why they are afford so much credibilty.,Thus the so what comment. A Person says alot about himself/herself when they have no regards for others!

  7. Anonymous says:

    I could have done the census by myself quicker and for less money

  8. so anonymous says:

    Caymankind.  You can pay a person to hold a job but you can't make him/her work.

  9. Anonymous says:

    This is the second consecutive census that the final numbers were not released. Can anyone say when the results of our 2000 census were publicized.

    If I'm around for 2020 census I will not be accommodating any census-takers because it's pointless. Count me OUT!

    • Anonymous says:

      Dont know where you have been living or where you have been looking but maybe it has something to do with the wrong year.  The previous Census was actually conducted in October 1999 and the report completed and released the following year, and has been on ESO's website.

  10. Anonymous says:

    soon come…. the incompetence never ends….zzzzzzzzzzzzz

  11. Anonymous says:

    What does it show that this gowerment doesn't like?  Still, just whiteout a few numbers and put it what looks good — right, Mr. Premier?

  12. Anonymous says:

    I'm sorry but the very intruding and compulsory census was done on machine readable forms.

    30,000 homes filed them out under threat of fines.

    It is now 14 (nearly 15)months later.

    so thats 320 work days. Take out the public holidays . lets just say 300 work days.

    Thats one hundred forms fed in the machine a day.

    Thats means each form takes 4.5 minutes to read.

    So how many employees work for the ESO???

    A trained monkey can feed stuff into scanner.

    Take a bunch of random samples to concur the accurcy.

    feed it all into SPSS and produce a report.

    Anyway as the  19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said  "There are three

    kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics"

    This was off course latter stated by Mark Twain.

    I guess they are just putting the UDP spin on to say everything is better under a UDP government.

     

    How much did this whole waste of money for what is now stale data cost? 1.1 million

    It should beeen out in 4-5 months max. NO EXCUSE!

    • Anonymous says:

      From what I hear, the ESO has completed their portion.  Now it's up to the Premier to table in the LA, which he seems reluctant to do.  I wonder why?

    • Crayon Break says:

      I understand the forms  had to be edited and coded(one by one).This means each 20 page form (60 plus questions) had to be checked for consistency and accuracy,  occupation and industry had to be coded in for each person on each form(30,000+edit checks and 30,000+codes based on our  labour faorce market)….I believe the 4.5 minutes can now be stretched to a realistic 10-12minutes per form(since we just pulling numbers our of our arse!).As for scanning, each form had to be re-checked during and after the scanning process for quality scans.

      E.S.O has 11 persons employed in the Statistics section.Did you think to investigate how many other reports are produced by this Department annually(yes! the team had to multi-task across reports).While Im sure we are all quite eager to see the figures,I for one am not eager to down play the efforts of thIs small department.The Govt and E.S.O handled this project very well considering the tools and man power available.

      BTW: I was not threatned with the law or felt the Census was an intrusion. Untill Govt SPENDS MORE(which we are all against) and introduces the means to hasten these projects we will have to be patient.

       

    • Anonymous says:

      I am not sure how accurate this will be.  We are leaving the island shortly and quite a few expats that I know have left the island since the census was taken. Would it not have made sense to take a census of Caymanians only as immigration should have an accurate count of expats on work permits.

    • Anonymous says:

      Holy misinformation, Batman. The census has been finished for months. It's sitting on McKeeva's desk waiting for him to table it in the LA so that it can be a public document.

  13. Anonymous says:

    Maybe they are trying to keep bad news in the dark as long as possible.  Typical.

  14. Anonymous says:

    No doubt a coincidence.

    " Although it was scheduled to be produced during the last sitting of the parliament on 14 December the premier did not table the report".

    On the same day CNS reported his decision as to where the new parliament seats would be

    http://centos6-httpd22-php56-mysql55.installer.magneticone.com/o_belozerov/31115drupal622/politics/2011/12/14/bush-confirms-new-seats

    If there is one single piece of information that would support (or not) that decision it would have to be the  census which unfortunately was not made available for anybody to test Big Mac's decision against.

    As I say – purely coincidence I am sure!

  15. B.B.L. Brown says:

    You know, I hate to be picky, but what's the holdup on making the census results public?  What's the big secret?  Other countries with millions of people get their reports out…. why can't we?  I didn't see any valid reason for not releasing the results in this article.

  16. Anonymous says:

    Is the Premier trying once again to keep informtion from the people?

    • Anonymous says:

      Are you idiots new to this Island or what? This is how things work here, we wait forever to get results on everything! Nothing new, this is the norm.

  17. Anonymous says:

    We had a census?