Digimap Guernsey appointed to run electronic census

Guernsey's rolling electronic census will be created by Digimap Guernsey.

The company, which already provides IT systems for the island's States, was chosen after a tendering process for the work.

The aim of the move to a rolling database is to provide more accurate data more frequently than a traditional census would.

The system is due to be in place by 2014 with the information due to be made public from 2015 onwards.

Helen Walton, States project manager, said: "The whole project will be delivered for less than the cost of one census and the ongoing support costs will be approximately half the cost of running a census every five years."

Previously the States has put the set-up cost at £600,000, with a budget of £60,000 a year to maintain the system.

Colin Le Conte, managing director of Digimap Ltd, said: "[We] specialise in digital mapping... this will be particularly useful for analysing demographic data by parish, voting district or school catchment area for example."