Chamber and committees

The decision to delay Census delivery in light of the COVID-19 impact has been taken to ensure maximum value for money. That means securing the maximum benefits from the Census for the overall investment.

The concern surrounding the impact on National Record of Scotland’s ability to engage with communities locally to enhance response rates due to COVID-19 meant that the benefits and value for money would be significantly impacted without moving the census to 2022.

Moving the Census to 2022 allows NRS to benefit from the work that has already been progressed. While running the census programme for another year will increase costs marginally, NRS will continue to work closely with Scottish Government and others to more fully model costs and ensure value for money.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) considered a range of options that had the potential to preserve the 2021 census date. All of these options however involved significant change to the design of the census, reducing scope. A summary of the options appraisal work undertaken by NRS to inform their recommendation can be found here . While these would have preserved the census date each was judged as highly likely to result in significant reductions in response rates and the quality of the census data.

NRS consider that a response rate of at least 90% needs to be achieved to enable the delivery of high quality census outputs. For example, the response rate for Census 2011 was 94%. Achieving such uniquely high compliance is dependent on advanced publicity and marketing, the use of field based staff, extensive engagement with a range of community and specialist interest groups and considerable preparatory work with a range of bodies including Local Government and the NHS. A number of these activities have been delayed or impacted due to covid, not only within NRS but also across a range of partners.

NRS’s conclusion was that the only option around which there is confidence of securing the high level of response rate required was moving the date of the census to March 2022. Other options, that preserved the March 2021 date, had an estimated response rate that fell between 60% - 80%.

Based on this work NRS recommended to Scottish Ministers to move Scotland’s Census to 2022. The priority for NRS and the Scottish Government is to deliver Scottish Census outputs to the quality required by users. The Scottish Government agreed with NRS’s recommendation that a delay of one year provides the best opportunity to do this.

The date of the next Census will be decided in due course by Ministers and the Scottish Parliament. National Records of Scotland’s evaluation of Scotland’s Census 2022 will make recommendations for future censuses.

The Census is typically held in March and it is important for statistical reasons to capture data at the same time of the year for comparison purposes with previous results. Delaying the Census by six months (for example, to September 2021) would mean two factors had changed for Scotland’s Census – a different time of year as well as a delay of six months.

Throughout consideration of the options for Scotland’s Census, National Records of Scotland (NRS) engaged with colleagues in the Office of National Statistics (ONS) who are responsible for conducting the England and Wales Census, and with the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) who are responsible for conducting the census in Northern Ireland. Each of the census authorities have had to consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their plans for their respective censuses.

Scottish Government have made the decision to move Scotland’s Census to 2022 as this is the only option in which there is confidence of producing high quality outputs and deliver the benefits required by the people of Scotland.

The Fund aims to remove the threat of insolvency prior to the end of March 2021; allow for specialist/core staff to return from furlough or avoid redundancy to work on future sustainability plans; and increase the opportunities for commissioning and employment of freelance artists and creative practitioners. Details of how the fund will operate will be published by Creative Scotland and funding made available as soon as practicable.

We welcome the announcement by the UK Government, as the Scottish Government had been calling on the UK Government to provide further support to these hard hit sectors.

As part of this £97 million, on 10 July, t he Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture announced the Grassroots Live Performance Fund, a £2.2m fund to help grassroots music venues with immediate costs while venues remain closed. This Fund has been agreed with the Music Venues Trust.

The Scottish Government is reviewing urgently the use of this funding and discussing with the sector. We will make further announcements on how the remainder of the £97 million will be used to support the arts, culture and heritage industries in due course.

Updated physical distancing guidance, published on 29 June, states that work carried out in people’s homes, for example by tradespeople carrying out repairs and maintenance, can continue, provided that the tradesperson is well and is not showing coronavirus symptoms and neither they nor any of their household are self-isolating. This permits tradespeople undertaking non-essential work.

The Scottish Government public information spend in relation to covid-19 is detailed in the following table.

The total advertising spend for the period across all media types is £8.6m. Of that television accounted for 22% of the spend, radio 17%, press 11%, digital media 32% and other media including cinema and outdoor 18%.

Advertising expenditure across all media has increased in response to the covid-19 pandemic since March 2020.