Census

Today is deadline day for Scotland’s census. When threats of £1,000 fines were delayed at the start of this month just 74 per cent had returned their form. It’s now 86 per cent. Better, but far short of the 94 per cent national target. Some 370,000 households are yet to complete it. The target of 85 per cent in all local areas hasn’t been met either. Nicola Sturgeon has admitted the outputs could be unreliable. Academics have also warned the data could be ‘useless’ because of low uptake and extensions to the collection period. The minister responsible – Angus Robertson – jetted off to Brussels this morning. Why the low

The debacle over Scotland’s census will not, it seems, have a happy ending. Nearly a quarter of households (some 604,000) are yet to complete their return, and had been facing £1,000 fines from today. It could have been a prosecution of unprecedented scale, but the deadline has been extended to the end of May. Sir Tom Devine, perhaps Scotland’s best-known historian, has said he thinks all is lost. ‘Such is the scale of the disaster the authorities have had little choice but to offer a new deadline,’ he said. ‘Will the extension work? It is very doubtful.’ The SNP has not admitted to any fault, but instead blamed (you guessed it) the

Around 700,000 Scottish households – a quarter of the country – are facing £1,000 fines for failing to complete the census. Eleven years ago, the last time the census was run, it took 10 days to reach the current response rate of 74 per cent. This time it’s taken over a month. There’s not much hope in getting the rate up either. Studies from the US show census return rates don’t improve after the first few weeks.  If 700,000 households are to be fined this would be the largest prosecution in Scottish legal history, probably British too. In 2011 – where the final response rate was 94 per cent and over 90

What is your sex? It is a simple question and one that we can all surely answer. When it comes to filling out a census, ascertaining a person’s sex is particularly important. Working out the number of men and women living in an area allows for the appropriate provision of public services. But in its approach to conducting Scotland’s census next year, the Scottish government risks undermining this. Astonishingly, according to guidance published this week, the 2022 Scottish census will allow some respondents to essentially answer what they think best. It says: ‘If you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what is on your birth certificate. You do not need

David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, has been doing his LBC radio phone-in show. If you believe LBC, he has ‘schooled’ a ‘caller’ who told him he is not English. If you listen to the exchanges in question, you’ll realise he did something much more impressive, and important than that. The clip, which is all over social media, is here: The short summary is that ‘Jean’ tells Lammy he cannot be English because of his Afro-Caribbean heritage. Lammy, who was born in London, politely examines her arguments and disagrees. There is no shouting and no fighting – that suggestion has been added by LBC to stir up anger and get some

The end of the Brexit wars have left some Remainers feeling redundant. A few are now turning their attention to a new target: the census. The small group of voters who are reluctant to accept the result of the referendum are responding to the question asking ‘How would you describe your national identity?’, not with ‘British’, or ‘English’ but, with the answer, ‘European’. As a Remainer, this strikes me as somewhat embarrassing. For a start, of course, ‘European’ is not a nationality. But that small point aside, how is this going to convince Brexit voters that their votes were a mistake? The idea seems to be that if you state your nationality on

Since 1801 the decennial census has asked us to state our sex. But never before has such a simple question generated such controversy. Yesterday, it ended up before a high court judge. With the 2021 census less than two weeks away, Mr Justice Swift ruled that the guidance accompanying the question should be changed. The legal action, brought by the campaigning group Fair Play for Women (FPFW), arose after the Office of National Statistics (ONS) backtracked on a promise made by Sir Ian Diamond – the UK’s National Statistician. In January, Diamond was very clear on the Today programme, when he said, ‘The question on sex is very simply your

What sex are you? It’s a simple question and one that most of those filling out this year’s census will answer quickly before moving on. But for others, the decision to ask this – rather than allow people to state what gender they think they are – is one laced with controversy. This shouldn’t be the case. After all, we have known that there are two sexes since the dawn of time, and we are quite capable of distinguishing them. These two sexes have different needs; and men and women also face different risks.  Only one will need cervical cancer screening, for instance. And while men are more likely to get a high-flying