Eric Pickles has been asked to think again about the cancellation of the Citizenship Survey.
 
Sir Michael Scholar, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, has written to the Communities Secretary asking him either to reprieve the survey, which has run since 2001, or talk to the National Statistician, Jil Matheson, about other more cost-effective ways of gathering the same information.
 
Mr Pickles is rare among current cabinet ministers in appearing to relish the painful business of cuts. Perhaps his long experience in local government in Bradford has immunised him against shroud-waving. Citizen is not a very British word – we’re all subjects of HM the Queen, but you couldn’t launch a subjectship survey – and the whole thing was started under Labour, in the era of targets. It’s also pretty pricey at £3.6 million a year, almost a third of the statistical budget of the CLG. Argument over for Mr Pickles, I suspect.
 
However, Sir Michael is not without ammo. The CLG launched a consultation, which concluded that the “vast majority” of current users expressed concerns about the survey’s discontinuation.  Naughtily, the decision to axe the survey came before the summary of the consultation had been published, a breach of the Government Code of Practice on Consultations.
 
The survey’s output can support the Big Society, sniff out extremism, help David Cameron gauge wellbeing, and measure the impact of immigration and  volunteering, says Sir Michael, adding in his dry way “and to helping the public to assess what the Big Society means”.
 
The letter, and a short report by UKSA on the Citizenship Survey, are available on the authority's website. UKSA is also planning a report on the demise of the Place Survey, which may attract fewer mourners.  
 
Will Mr Pickles relent? He’s not the relenting type, but maybe the other departments who said how much they valued the Citizenship Survey could help support it financially. There could be ways of doing it at a fraction of the cost (online, for example) but suggesting that to proper statisticians invites a raspberry, so I won’t.
 
Anyway, Sir Michael has raised the bloody banner high (to borrow from the Marseillaise a second time). "Great God, by chained hands/ our brows would yield under the yoke/ vile despots would have themselves/ the masters of our destinies!" it goes on, in a verse never actually reached and much better in French.