Introduction

The data reported relates to unpaid carers who had a support plan, or were supported by local services, during the financial year 2023-24. Unpaid carers provide unpaid care and support to family members, friends and neighbours. Any person can become a carer at any point in their life. The precise number of unpaid carers is not known, however the latest Scotland's Carers Update Release estimated that there are around 696,000 unpaid carers living in Scotland. Many of these carers, however, will never come into contact with carer support services.

The Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 was implemented on 1 April 2018 – putting in place a system of carers’ rights. This was designed to improve consistency to better support unpaid carers to continue caring, helping to sustain relationships with cared for people whilst also protecting carers’ health and well-being. The Carers Census collects a variety of information on unpaid carers and the support they are provided with, in order to monitor the implementation of the Act. Data is collected directly from Local Authorities and Carer Centres, which are independent charities that offer practical support, advice and information to unpaid carers.

The quantity and quality of the data presented here continues to improve, however results in this report will likely represent an undercount of the true number of unpaid carers being supported by local services in Scotland. For further information, please see the Data and Methodology section.

The decision has been taken to move to a biennial reporting cycle for the Carers Census going forward, therefore the next collection period will be 2025-26. This is to enable extensive user engagement and improvement work to be undertaken, to improve the overall quality and utility of the census.

An Official Statistics in Development Publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics in development. Official statistics in development may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

The implementation of the Carers Act was a significant change to practice, which required changes to the data collected by Local Authorities and Carer Centres, as well as the implementation of new systems to collect and record that data. This process is still ongoing, so the quality of the data is improving over time. We offer information sessions with data providers during each collection period to allow providers to ask questions and clarify the data to be included.

Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

More information about Scottish Government statistics is available on the Scottish Government website.