Scotland’s census provides valuable data which helps with planning for future services. This year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic it was organised differently with an online platform being used. Although paper copies are available, many people had still not filled theirs in – a legal requirement.
Failure to fill in the census can result in a fine of up to £1000.
National Records of Scotland (NRS) which runs the census has offered an extension until the end of May to ensure everyone has the opportunity to complete their return and help shape important services in their community.
After its creation on 1 January 1855, the General Register Office for Scotland became responsible for the census in Scotland. Scotland has run its own census ever since.
History of Scotland’s Census
In England and Wales a census took place last year, 2021, and it too had to be extended.
Help and support to complete the census is available on the Scotland’s Census website or via a free helpline 0800 030 8308. Paper forms are also still available on request for those who need them.
Every household in Scotland must complete the census and the answers provide the information needed to make important decisions on funding for services such as education, housing and healthcare.
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This article appears to suggest the 2021 UK census is comparable to the one now taking place in Scotland. It is not.
A four-week extension to the botched Scottish census is unlikely to save the survey and poor response rates will impede policymaking for years to come, experts have warned.
Academics said it was “inconceivable” that original targets would be met by the end of May and warned thousands of Scots may have snubbed the census because of a perception it had become politicised on the SNP’s
Angus Robertson, the SNP constitution secretary, last week extended the deadline for completing forms, which had originally been set for Sunday, because hundreds of thousands of households had refused to participate.
The unprecedented extension will cost an extra £10 million, bringing the cost of running the census to almost £150 million.
As of last Thursday, more than a fifth of returns were outstanding, well below the 97 per cent completion rate recorded in the rest of the UK in 2021.
SNP ministers decided to delay the census for a year because of Covid, a decision opponents have claimed was motivated by a desire to break the link with the rest of the UK where the survey went ahead successfully last year.
Sir Tom Devine, who is seen as the country’s leading historian, also predicted that the four-week extension would not save the census.
He told The Sunday Times that it was “very doubtful” that it would be enough to rescue the survey and branded the census a “disaster”.
After its creation on 1 January 1855, the General Register Office for Scotland became responsible for the census in Scotland. Scotland has run its own census ever since.
I’ve been wondering – here in Orkney, and in other ‘holiday destinations’ – how many of the census envelopes were delivered to empty houses which are not ‘lived in’ – as in holiday homes for individuals, or which are let out to holidaymakers?
Could affect the statistics for the census uptake?
https://theorkneynews.scot/2020/06/18/when-is-a-home-not-a-home/
The Scottish botched census has descended into a deeper farce after an advertising drive designed to push up response rates told people they had missed the deadline.
Census bosses had promised a “major multi-faceted promotional campaign” to persuade hundreds of thousands of households to have so far snubbed the survey to complete it, after SNP ministers took the unprecedented decision of extending the cut-off point by four weeks.
However, posts published by official census social media channels on Sunday evening and still live on Monday morning informed Scots that “you only have until May 1 to fill it in”, reflecting the previous deadline.
You couldn’t make a bigger mess of things if you tried.