Survey To Measure Sexual Swing

The first survey to find out how many lesbian, gay and bisexual people are living in Britain is to be conducted by the Government.
Sexual orientation will not be in the next Census in 2011, which may include controversial new questions on income, language and national identity. But it will be included in one of the Government’s major nationwide surveys covering tens of thousands of households, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said yesterday.
The decision is the result of pressure from gay rights groups, health authorities and government agencies, which say that it is impossible to provide public services fairly for all sections of the population without this information.
The Government’s hand has also been forced by the creation next year of the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights, which will recognise sexual orientation as being of equal importance as race, sex, age, disability and religion.
Present estimates of the lesbian, gay and bisexual population put it at 6 per cent of all adults, but without more accurate information it will be difficult for the new commission to ensure equality in this area. The ONS said that the information on sexuality would be confidential and would be used to ensure fair access to services for the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) community.
“LGB individuals and the community as a whole have historically suffered discrimination and there are concerns that this group is currently ignored in terms of policy and service provision,” it said. Fearful of provoking the kind of controversy that greeted its decision to include a question on ethnicity in the 1991 Census and on religion in the 2001 Census, the ONS said that it did not feel it was ready to include sexuality in the Census.
“In the statistical world we are at a very early stage with this and we are still not sure what it is we are trying to measure — is it behaviour, inclination, identity, lifestyle?” Joy Dobbs, the Census’s co-ordinator, said. Instead, the question will be included in one of the ONS’s existing surveys, possibly the General Household Survey of 20,000 households.
There will, however, be a question on civil partnerships or gay marriage in the 2011 Census section on marital status.
from Times Online