Cecilia Macintyre: Scotland’s Census 2021 - Topic Consultation
28 October 2015

National Records of Scotland (NRS) is responsible for conducting a census in Scotland and has launched a consultation inviting views on the topics which should be covered by Scotland’s Census 2021; it runs until 15 January 2016.

Planning has begun for Scotland’s Census 2021 and will build on the success of the census in 2011. It will be designed and managed in Scotland, to best meet the needs of its users. NRS wants to hear from their users to learn and understand those needs and that is the main aim of this consultation.

At this stage, NRS is consulting only on the general topics that should be covered in the census and not on the specific questions or sets of responses that should be offered for each topic. NRS are not proposing to drop any topics but have asked for further information where there were quality considerations and/or to better understand user need for 2021. All topics raised in the consultation are listed below.

The topic consultation document provides the initial view from NRS on the topics currently under consideration for collection in 2021 in Scotland. This is only an initial view and the aim of the consultation is to encourage discussion and help us build strong cases and justify the inclusion of topics in the 2021 Census.

The topics and questions for the 2011 Census underwent comprehensive review, to ensure they were fit-for-purpose and relevant to user needs. Given these significant additions and revisions, we think that the overall length of about 35 questions per person is near the limit of acceptable burden to the public and it is important to recognise that constraints on the length of the questionnaire will remain. New topics may be considered for 2021 if the criteria for inclusion are met, although this may mean that trade-offs are required.

Changes to the content of the questionnaire will be considered to address:

· where questions didn’t work well in 2011, particularly where there were issues with data quality and/or they didn’t support users’ requirements for outputs.

· new or emerging policy requirements that cannot be addressed through the use of alternative sources.

· changes in international guidelines and in legislation.

In order to contribute to a transparent process for determining the content of the 2021 Census questionnaires and so that users have a clear view of the constraints and trade-offs involved, the criteria against which cases for topics will be assessed are included in the consultation document.

As in previous censuses, there will be separate censuses in England & Wales and Northern Ireland and the three census offices will work together to develop a set of questions that, wherever possible and necessary, deliver harmonised outputs across the UK.

The key channel for more information is the 2021 consultation page of Scotland’s Census website. It includes links to take part online.

NRS has also arranged a number of events to support the consultation, and information on them is available on the news and events page of the 2021 section of the website.

Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the MRS Census and Geodemographic Group unless otherwise specifically stated.