Printed matter and related products

Tender description

The Contracting Authority is procuring an integrated service for the production and dispatch of up to 16 000 000 paper questionnaire packs to both households and communal establishments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, for both the 2019 Rehearsal and 2021 Census. The services will provide the data capture and coding on all returned paper questionnaires, as well as the coding required of residual data from the Contracting Authority’s online capture system. The services comprise: — print service, — data capture and coding service. Background: The Contracting Authority is the UK's largest independent producer of official statistics, and is responsible for collecting and publishing statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels. The Contracting Authority also conducts the census in England and Wales every 10 years. The Census There has a been a census in England and Wales every 10 years since 1801, with the exception of 1941 due to the Second World War. The census is the most important single source of information about the size and population of the country's most valuable resource — its people. The next census will be taken in 2021 (the “2021 Census”). Broadly the same questions are asked in the census each time and the information is recorded in the same way throughout England and Wales. This means the census allows the comparison of different groups of people and small areas across the entire nation. It also gives the opportunity for linking various characteristics of the population. And the high level of consistency between one census and another allows for change over time to be measured. The planning, execution and evaluation of the 10 yearly population census is a vast and complex undertaking and often described as the largest peacetime operation carried out. The Census Transformation Programme When it's completed, the Census Transformation Programme will have: — delivered a mainly online census (including support for those members of the public who can't respond online) of England and Wales, — delivered an administrative data census (with a recommendation on the future of the census after the 2021 Census), — maximised the benefit derived from the census spend for the public sector and the wider statistical system. In delivering a census, the Contracting Authority aims for the complete coverage of the population of England and Wales. Taking part in a census is compulsory. The Questionnaire Management Services comprise: 1) Print Service: to support the collection of census data and census coverage survey data, the Services will print, personalise, enclose and dispatch up to 16 000 000 paper questionnaire packs. The services will also provide the postal solutions for the dispatch of paper questionnaire packs to households and communal establishments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; 2) Data Capture and Coding Service: capture and code questionnaire data, provide secure destruction of all paper questionnaires and produce images of all captured paper questionnaires. The Services will also code residual data from the Contracting Authority’s online capture system.