Around 8000 homes in census rehearsal

About 8000 households have been part of Statistics New Zealand's census dress rehearsal, with pleasing results.

The census is the official count of how many people and households there are in New Zealand. The dress rehearsal was designed to fine-tune processes and identify any potential problems with distributing census forms and collecting and processing information.

Statistics New Zealand 2011 census manager Carol Slappendel said everything from field staff recruitment and training to the processing of forms went smoothly.

"Now it's a case of fine-tuning our processes and applying what we have learnt to the 2011 census."

Households in west and central Auckland, Gisborne, Wellington and Canterbury were included in the dress rehearsal and about a third chose to fill the forms out online.

The full census will be on Tuesday, March 8, 2011.

- NZPA