What it’s like to be a Census worker right now

IF YOU felt put out by last week’s Census fail, spare a thought for the workers who are getting hammered by a furious public.

IF YOU felt put out by last week’s Census fail, spare a thought for the workers who are getting hammered by a furious public.

Millions of Australians were unable to complete their civic duties last Tuesday night, adding fuel to the widespread discontent over privacy issues raised by the nation’s first online count.

Now, roughly 40,000 ABS workers are scambling to deal with a backlog of requests for paper forms, and a deluge of calls to the bureau’s customer service line — many of them less than polite.

The influx began well before the website crash that halted the Census in its tracks, Community and Public Sector Union deputy secretary Melissa Donnelly said.

“Because of the privacy concerns a number of people had around privacy there were a lot of people that contacted ABS in the lead-up to access paper forms rather than doing it online,” Ms Donnelly told news.com.au.

“Then there were issues with capacity as well at the ABS contact centre. Reports are that there are people who wanted a paper form who weren’t able to get through and get it in time.”

WORKERS UNDER PRESSURE

Unfortunately, staff members have borne the brunt of people’s frustration at a time when people already felt mistrusting of the process.

“It has been definitely a very difficult time for employees at ABS because of the fact that they do truly care about the Census,” Ms Donnelly said.

“What has happened has affected the reputation of ABS and may have implications for the quality of the data collected.”

She said workers were concerned about how funding and staff cuts would impact on their ability to handle the crisis.

“Employees at ABS are very disappointed and angry about what’s happened with the Census,” Ms Donnelly said.

“They really care about their jobs. They know that the Census is really important, not just for the ABS but for the whole community, so it’s very disheartening to witness what transpired last Tuesday night.
“We expect there to be increased workload, more than was anticipated, around the processing of paper forms, because a lot of people elected to try to use paper forms and so there’s a lag affect with people filling out the Census late.”

She said extra staffing resources might be needed to assess the quality of the data collected.

A COSTLY EXERCISE

ABS chief statistician David Kalisch told a senate economics legislation committee that the move to a digital Census would save taxpayers $100 million.

The 2011 Census cost $400 million to administer, or $19 a head, with 40,000 temporary workers hired for the task.

Ms Donnelly said cost cutting was inappropriate in the context of a national Census, and that the failings of this approach were now evident.

“They’re trying to do the Census online with the goal of saving money, which is not the way that we should be conducting such important public service activities,” she said.

“There were a lot of community concerns about privacy and if the ABS had time and resources to have a proper consultation process, maybe some of those concerns could have been dealt with more properly.”

She said the ABS had 700 fewer staff than in 2011, based on average staff numbers over the financial year — 3530 back then, and 2830 this year.

An ABS spokesman said in a statement that many casual staff were employed on contracts that provided for overtime.

“The Census is always a busy time for the ABS — as Australia’s largest peacetime logistical exercise — and our planning takes this into account,” the spokesman said.

“While we had a strong online focus this year, we also planned for an extensive period of reminders and follow ups that are currently taking place across the country.

“The ABS is about where it expected to be in total forms returned two weeks into a six week Census collection period.”

[e-mail]