Final Results from the User Consultations
The ABS has now concluded the final phase of the consultation process, which sought feedback on the strategies and directions proposed for the 2001 Census Output program.
Analysis of the questionnaire seeking feedback and titled User Views on 2001 Census Proposed Products and Services , has been finalised. Again the ABS would like to thank all clients who either participated in the focus groups or completed questionnaires, providing valuable input to the planning of products and services from the 2001 Census. In the vast majority of cases, there was strong support for the proposals put forward by ABS. Some of the highlights of the consultation process are that:
- clients indicated that they are intending to make extensive use of the free census products planned for inclusion on the ABS web site;
- there is strong support for the implementation of the proposed CDATA product suite;
- a large number of major clients strongly supported the proposed Table Specification Service;
- the vast majority of users agreed with the recommendations to produce the Community Profiles as outlined in the Information Paper (ABS Cat. no.2011.0);
- on the basis of user feedback, the 2001 Census Indigenous Profile is being developed as a standard product using both Australian Indigenous Geographic Classification (AIGC) and standard Australian Standard Geographic Classification (ASGC) bases. To preserve the confidentiality of information reported by individuals, while still providing meaningful and useful information, output for Indigenous Locations and Statistical Local Areas may be limited to a subset of available tables from the Indigenous Profile, as was the case in 1996; and
- electronic files using Excel, PDF and CSV formats were identified as the preferred standard output options by the majority of major clients. However, hardcopy profiles will continue to be available as this was still the preferred output option for a large number of census data users.