Beyond 2011, also known as The Beyond 2011 Programme, was a project initiated by the UK Statistics Authority to look at the alternatives to running a UK census in 2021. In 2008, the Treasury Select Committee had expressed concerns about the increasing cost of running the census and inaccuracies in data gathered only every ten years. In 2010 the newly elected coalition government reiterated such concerns responding to a report by the UK Statistics Authority.
The Beyond 2011 Programme was established in 2011 to look at alternatives to the traditional census approach. The UK Statistics Authority will coordinate activity with its counterparts in the devolved administrations of Scotland and Northern Ireland which have also set up reviews of the future approach to population data provision. In 2012 six options were identified by the Beyond 2011 Programme for further consideration, ranging from a full 10-year census to rolling or smaller scale annual surveys, some supplemented by administrative data capture.
In 2014 the UK Statistics Authority announced its recommendation for the 2021 census in England and Wales. It proposed that in 2021 there should be a decennial census for England and Wales which would be conducted predominantly through online returns, supplemented by the further use of administrative and survey data. A parallel announcement for Scotland's 2021 census was made by the National Records for Scotland.[1][2]
Following agreement to the recommendations in January 2015 the UK Statistics Authority formally closed the Beyond 2011 Programme. It has been replaced by the Census Transformation Programme which has the purpose of taking forward and implementing the vision and recommended approaches.[3]