Call for England and Wales census to be postponed amid Covid concerns

Exclusive: civil service union urges ONS to follow Scotland's lead and delay census by a year

The biggest civil service union has called for the 2021 census to be postponed because of pandemic safety concerns and problems over a 45m outsourced contract to recruit tens of thousands of field staff.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has insisted that the once-in-a-decade survey of every household in England and Wales will take place on 21 March as planned. But the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents hundreds of ONS employees, says the pandemic makes it unsafe to conduct the survey.