Improving urban and regional policy-making using microdata from UK population censuses.

The United Kingdom's population censuses have been a vital source of information for the formulation of policy. This application of census data has been for spatial classifications from national down to sub-local authority levels. Traditionally the information from the censuses has been primarily in the form of fixed, predetermined tabular output. This has restricted the usefulness of the censuses for policy-making processes. The 1991 and 2001 censuses have provided data in a new format (microdata) which potentially overcomes many of the constraints inherent in earlier censuses. The sets of microdata are large samples of anonymised records (SARs) which contain over one million records of individual persons. The research undertaken by the candidate examined whether, and how, these sets of microdata could be successfully utilised by urban and regional organisations to improve the quality of information available for the formulation of their policies. In principle the sample sizes and ranges of variables available in the SARs, used in conjunction with appropriate analytical techniques, could provide a powerful mechanism to improve policy formulation. In practice a set of developments would need to be undertaken to maximise the effective utilisation of microdata for policy applications. The candidate has published a series of refereed research papers which have explored and developed some of the main aspects of this field of study. The research work required the identification, development and application of techniques which would be both valid with the data available and which would be simultaneously operationally useful to the policy-making agencies. In this context it is argued that the research has made original contributions to knowledge.