Chamber and committees

That is very helpful.

Pippa Milne, what are your thoughts on the process and how it compares with how Argyll and Bute Council allocates its funding to islands?

Thank you, panel, for coming to give evidence.

Lady Paton, I was very struck by your point about the bill modernising the law of assignation. I am interested to hear how the bill’s provisions on assignation will, on a practical level, change how businesses might access finance. Perhaps you can give some examples of that and, specifically, talk about the gender pay gap action plan. As you said, women have difficulties in starting up businesses and accessing finance.

Thank you.

That is very helpful. I am aware of the 28-day payment period, and sometimes it is much longer than that. As you said, that can really impact on the cash flow of businesses.

Could you quickly let us know, for the record, what evidence you have received that finance firms would welcome these changes and that businesses would be keen to take advantage of them?

I was struck when you talked about the ways that you could get information about the census out to people. I studied statistics for one year at secondary school, but I have to admit that it was not my favourite subject. Last night, Sarah Boyack and I attended the cross-party group on culture and communities and saw an exceptionally interesting presentation by the leader of the University of Dundee’s archive about how it has opened out its archive to schoolchildren and people of different ages to share stories about the past. I do not have the exact quote, but in 2005 Nelson Mandela said that archives are also about making the future.

Following on from Mr Cameron’s questions, I am interested to hear about how you could emphasise to people such as me, for whom statistics is not their favourite subject, the importance of the census and the lessons that we can learn from it. We heard about the example of a woman who suffered from mental health issues and went back to the archives of one of the hospitals in Dundee. They have learned from that. They have done a play and taken it out to communities, and she has been on various different media. I wonder whether stories such as that might help to tell the positive story of the census, and as a result get better results through one of the three pillars.

I will follow that up, because what Kirsty Cumming has just said is connected with my area of questioning.

There are organisations of different sizes with different needs in different locations; indeed, Janet Archer talked about the fact that you are not only in big cities but also in more rural areas. Will you expand on your thoughts about the flexibility that is required across Scotland? How is it needed in different areas? What do you think about the fact that what fits urban culture does not simply slot into rural culture?

I thank the witnesses for joining us. I will ask a similar question to the one that I asked Mr Lowe of the National Records of Scotland. The international steering group’s letter noted that the census results provided a strong foundation. Will you explain to me, a layperson, what that means?

Professor Diamond, do you have anything to add?

You made a point, Professor Diamond, that, in 1921, the flu pandemic delayed the census for a while. Do you have any thoughts on what happened ? Were there delays in other countries as a result of the pandemic?

I suppose that some of your considerations would have involved the availability of the resources that you have as an organisation and the other work that you were carrying out at that time. I believe that the structure is slightly different in Scotland, with the NRS office being much more involved in recording Covid deaths.