Developing a modern statistical system - a review of Scotland's Census 2022

Foreword from the Chief Statistician

Why I have asked for this review

Being able to present statistics on societal matters requires an accurate count of the population. This is why the Census has been traditionally referred to as the backbone of our statistical system. It provides the basis for other social statistics, such as how crime rates compare between areas across Scotland and the UK.

During Scotland’s Census collection in 2022, there was a lot of media interest in the lower-than-expected response rate. However, once the collect phase completed, this was mitigated by the immense effort, skill and expertise of Census statisticians to adjust their approaches to successfully provide statistically robust population data.

As we develop other cross-cutting statistical work, it is important that we reflect on what happened and take on board the lessons that can be learnt and use that learning to modernise the statistical system.

That is why I commissioned my team to undertake a review to look at the statistical management of the census and the broader infrastructure to support it.

How will we use this review?

My office is leading a programme of modernising our statistics. While we do this, we need to fundamentally assure ourselves that we can learn from the past and incorporate that into other strategically important statistical work. Important statistical decisions need to be transparent and I and the public we serve can have confidence in the approaches that we take. That is the purpose of this review.

Other major cross-cutting work may include support for the production of other statistics by socio-economic conditions, provision of regional and small area breakdowns and collections of other information from citizens for the production of statistics and analysis.

I welcome the recommendations in this report which relate to how we manage projects across the wider the statistical system. We will consider them and publish an assessment of how we will meet them as we modernise. I will also invite our ScotStat board to scrutinise progress towards meeting these recommendations.

Other contributors

I would like to thank the Office for Statistics Regulation for helping guide our review at the outset, and to National Records of Scotland and the Registrar General for co-operating and sharing information with my Review Team.