700,000 households in Scotland have yet to fill in the census

[ResisterRex]

This is in the Telegraph and the Mail. Telegraph includes commentary on the "what's is your sex" question:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/04/26/botched-scottish-census-could-produce-useless-data-one-four/

"SNP ministers and National Records of Scotland (NRS), who run the census, are facing growing scrutiny over their decision to delay it for a year, blaming Covid, meaning it was out of sync with the rest of the UK.

There have been claims that IT glitches, a perceived political bias to questions and a controversial decision to allow people to self-declare their own sex have also contributed to the poor return rates.

Elsewhere in the UK, 97 per cent of households responded to the census last year."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10758461/Nicola-Sturgeon-facing-census-shambles-700-000-households-warned-1-000-fines.html

"a former head of health analysis at the Office for National Statistics, has warned a significant number of unreturned census forms could render the process 'useless'.

'A census with such a significant proportion missing is useless as its main purpose is to get an accurate assessment of how many live within the country which is used to allocate money for local services,' he told the Telegraph."

That’s a third of households in Scotland.

No, a quarter, sorry.

In some circumstances, that lack of non-response would be taken as a strong indication of public discontent.

I wonder if various authorities might care to consider what is contributing to this.

I filled it out albeit reluctantly.

They've really shot themselves in the foot

Not in Scotland but I wouldn't have filled that out

They do seem to specialise in only the most expensive utter fuck ups
I'm sure they'll just declare it identifies as a great success

I'm interested to find out what percentage of those of us who did fill it out ignored the optional trans and sexual orientation questions.

They're abandoning the deadline now:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/27/snp-abandons-census-deadline-quarter-scots-fail-respond/

"The Telegraph understands that Angus Robertson, the constitution secretary with ultimate responsibility for the census, will tell MSPs at Holyrood on Thursday that there will be a four-week extension to Sunday’s deadline for forms to be completed."

And:

"“Extending the window for responding raises worrying questions about data quality,” Lindsay Paterson, professor of education policy at the University of Edinburgh, said. “In normal social surveys, there are strict quality controls on the time given to respond.
“This is because people vary in how they respond, especially for opinion questions such as the several identity questions in the census. For example, how people answer the question about gender identity might vary according to whether some controversy about gender identity is in the news. The same is true of national identity and ethnic identity.”
He added: “As a social statistician, I would not use census data on identity that had such an arbitrarily varying window of replying.”"

Also:

"Some respondents to the survey, branded Scotland’s Census, have complained that questions have a political bias. For example, respondents are able to record themselves as Scottish, Polish or Irish, but not English.
There has also been controversy over guidance informing people they can choose whether they are male or female based on their gender identityy_, rather than biological sex.""

It's not just the case that 1/4 of the Scottish public didn't respond many of us did but they lost our responses (both paper and online) apparently there's it problems

It's also in the Spectator
www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-scottish-census-mistakes-matter

So they see not filling it out as rendering it useless because if needing the accurate data but being able to lie about your sex doesn't cause it to be inaccurate and useless 🤔

Delaying it over covid was probably a good idea though. In in England ajd I remember the confusion over what to put under the job bits because we were on furlough and it asked fir what you were doing now.

The choice to have Scottish or "Other British" is an interesting one. I'd imagine that, were Scotland to achieve independence, there could be a difference in repatriation rates amongst the English, Welsh and Northern Irish so it would be useful to have a breakdown. Is there a reason this is no longer useful data?

Interesting section in there about how unlikely it is to fine all those households. Also an important point:

"...the first census in a 150-year history not to cover all parts of Britain. A decision that was described at the time as 'an act of scientific vandalism'."

Here is The Times link that it cites ("described"):

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1461cb3c-c922-11ea-a4b9-03f8110e32cc?shareToken=a12504d684cb617e4544665534e38aa0

Mid-year estimates are used to supplement census data, so not doing it "due to Covid" never sounded right to me. This seems to be very serious, with wide-ranging, negative implications.