Sources of data: demographic/educational/social

I was asked to talk about demographic, social and educational data sources for the management of further and higher education from the perspective of the individual institution and the local authority. My emphasis will be on the production of statistics and the processes by which statistical information is made available, but it would be difficult to think about sources of statistics in this area in isolation from their use and the purpose for which they were collected, so I shall begin with a brief review of the kinds of uses I have in mind.