Islington will miss out on £7,500 of funding for every resident who fails to fill in their census, the council has warned.
The census has been carried out every ten years since 1801 as a way of gathering information about the British population. However it is also used to plan local services in the borough and to set the level of money allocated to them.
In Islington it is estimated that every resident brings in £750 of funding for local services a year, adding up to a total of £7,500 between now and 2021.
This means that for every 133 people who fail to fill in the 31 page form, the council could miss out on £1,000,000.
Catherine West, leader of the council, said: “Taking part in the census on 27 March is your chance to make your mark in history.
“But more than that census statistics are used to allocate government funding locally to provide hospitals, schools and housing.
“This means we need people to accurately record who is under their roof – even temporarily – so that we can get all the public money Islington needs.”
I can’t say really care how much free money bureaucrats will lose from their gravy train budgets if I don’t fill in my Census form (which I intend not to). You only need to look at the way Parliamentary expenses were abused to see what elected officials do with the public money they are entrusted to spend wisely. Until and unless politicians can prove themselves to be more honest and financially competent, talk of losing funding from their budgets is a pretty weak argument to get the public to comply with the Census.