Today Sunday, March 20 is Scottish Census day, a once-a-decade count of the population across Scotland.
Today is the day people across Scotland must complete the census, or you could face a £1000 fine.
The census opened to people on February 28, and already more than a million households have completed it.
But what is the Scottish census, and why do we have to do it?
What is the Scottish census?
Scotland’s Census is the official count of every person and household across the county.
There has been a census in Scotland every 10 years since 1801, except 1941.
Today is Census Day #ScotlandsCensus2022
— Scottish Government (@scotgov) March 20, 2022
Filling in the census helps us find out what your community really needs whether that’s employment, healthcare or other essential services.
You can fill it in online at https://t.co/Nz9emsQA1k pic.twitter.com/wyTJRZbn0v
Due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021 census in Scotland was moved to 2022.
The government uses the answers given in the census to build a picture of the Scottish population to help inform decisions.
The census covers topics such as:
- type of accommodation
- household relationships
- age, sex and health
- employment, education and qualifications
- religion and ethnic group
- car and van ownership
For 2022, new questions have been added to the census. These include:
- trans status
- sexual orientation
- British Sign Language (BSL)
- passports held
- previous armed forces service
How to fill in the Scottish census?
Every household in Scotland will have received a letter instructing you how to fill out the census. Each letter contains a unique code that allows you to fill out the form.
If you have lost your letter, you can order a replacement here.
Filling out the census is a legal responsibility, and every householder is responsible for completing the household census questionnaire.
The householder is the person who lives, or is present, at an address who:
- owns/rents (or jointly owns/rents) the accommodation and/or
- is responsible (or jointly responsible) for paying the household bills and expenses
People who are over 16 and living in places like halls of residence, care homes or hostels are responsible for completing an individual census questionnaire.
You can be fined up to £1000 for not filling out the census, or for giving false information.
When is the Scottish census deadline?
The deadline for completing the Scottish census is May 1, 2022.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article