Scotland’s Census 2022

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 28 April 2022.

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Photo of Sharon Dowey Sharon Dowey Conservative

England and Wales, which held their censuses as normal, have seen high levels of returns—in fact, they saw a 97 per cent return rate, which was above their expected target of 94 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government has more than 600,000 outstanding households—a staggering 23 per cent of the population—and has had to extend the deadline by a month. That is only the latest in a long line of SNP communication failures.

My colleague Maurice Golden warned the SNP of that impending disaster but was ignored. Clearly, the current approach is not working, so what further incentives and targeted support is the Scottish Government offering to respondents?