Madam,

By now most households in Ceredigion should have received the census rehearsal questionnaire as this county is one of the four areas in England and Wales chosen by The Office For National Statistics to have a Census rehearsal on 13 October.

I have been informed by the ONS that, whilst completion and return of the 2021 census is mandatory and failure to comply is unlawful, the rehearsal questionnaire you have just received need only be completed on a voluntary basis and it is not compulsory to do so.

This fact does not appear to be shown or made clear in the information documentation which accompany the questionnaire pack.

So you can either complete the rehearsal questionnaire consisting of 32 pages on the 13th and return it to the ONS or you can just ignore it; the government gives you the choice.

Obviously whatever you decide to do, the census questionnaire will still have to be completed fully in the normal manner when it is received in 2021.

Yours etc, Alan Hansell, Trefenter.

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