Thread by @oldscotbooks

Paul Lowe, head of @NatRecordsScot, is giving evidence to Parliament this morning on the census fiasco. Meeting starts at 8.45, you can watch it live here:
scottishparliament.tv/meeting/consti…

#Genealogy #Scotland

https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1572833105123082240

@NatRecordsScot On the day NRS is criticised for its lack of transparency, it's not a good look for the Committee to decide to consider NRS' evidence on the census in private.

Paul Avery of Prospect is talking about budget constraints (read: cuts) affecting government bodies responsible for national collections, with restrictions on how they can raise funds/charge for services. Suggests this means inevitable focus on core statutory services.

(In the context of NRS, this would explain the dismal efforts to provide access to the archive, as it's not a core statutory service and definitely not a priority for current management.)

David Avery says short-term funding cycles lead to short-term contracts, with the result that new entrants to the culture sector are less likely to stay in the sector long enough to develop expertise and skills. That precarity will be familiar to folk in higher education.

Interesting session about budget preparations for culture. Next up, Angus Robertson, culture secretary, Paul Lowe, head of NRS, Peter Whitehouse, Director of Statistical Services, NRS and Penelope Cooper, Director of Culture and Major Events, ScoGov, on the census.

Paul Lowe joining remotely.

Angus Robertson asserts that the return rate is not the main determinant of the success of the census. A bold claim.

89% completed returns online - "showing strong preference" of the public for this format. Except many people weren't aware they had a choice.

Final return rate of 89.2%. NRS seeking access to "key administrative datasets" to enable them to produce "estimates". Here was me thinking the whole point of the census was to produce facts, not estimates.

The NRS can't be compared to the ONS, because reasons.

71% of countries postponed field data collection for census.

Robertson says change in public attitude partly accounts for lower return rate than historical norms. Oh yes, it's the public's fault of course. Another great look.

1200 people who hadn't returned census asked why. 35% said they were too busy. 17% said they were not aware of the census. 14% said they didn't realise they had to complete it. <5% privacy, distrust of government.
Robertson compares this to political canvassing

Peter Whitehouse NRS: areas of Scotland have lower response rates than areas in England/NI. NRS "skew efforts" to those areas. Need to look at how that's worked.

Gaps in census date filled by "administrative data" to produce "good statistical estimation" descriptive of those areas.

Paul Lowe: 2001 96% response rate, 2011 94%. Target over 90%, turnout 89.2% "a good and robust response".

Sarah Boyack MSP: clearly lower-income areas more affected by low response rate. What lessons learn about communications? [Something NRS are poor at more broadly]

Angus Robertson gives numbers for various types of communication. "Difficult to understand how people would be unaware of the census".

Robertson: Lower-income areas most affected by low response, but also received most focus of efforts. Low-return-rate areas also received focus of NRS efforts.
Again blames the public. Idea census not communicated effectively does not stand up. [This despite some people unaware]

Robertson: in extension period we focused efforts on areas with lowest return rates, and those areas saw biggest increase in return rates.
[Mind blown]

Robertson: Extension of census period additional expenditure £6m, 4.3% increase in lifetime cost of census. £144.6m final total cost.

Donald Cameron MSP: return rates in Scotland about 8 percentage points lower than in England.
[Good point]

Robertson: reasonable to ask why lower rate in Scotland compared to rUK. But we should also be comparing with the rest of the world.
Fact that folk were "in their houses" in 2021 [when England census conducted] was a significant factor in higher rate there compared to Scotland.

Cameron: will you commit to publishing lessons learnt
Robertson: that's up to NRS.
[Great]

Cameron asks about "sensitive questions"
Robertson: <5% of 1200 (see above) mentioned "sensitive questions" as a reason not to respond.

Cameron asking about Mark Pont's letter reported this morning "would be in NRS' interest to be more transparent now"

Whitehouse: Transparency is fundamental to what we do, we have been transparent.

Whitehouse: Glasgow's response was 83.something%

Mark Ruskell MSP: is "marketing" targeted at hard-to-reach groups (transients, students, English as second language, etc)
Robertson: Yes. Bangs on again about "extremely" high digital return rate showing "people were content to do that".

Whitehouse: "I don't think we left any stone unturned" in trying to reach/persuade people to complete the census yet "in certain areas it obviously hasn't resonated as we would have hoped".

Ruskell: Was their different messaging across different platforms (Youtube, Instagram, TikTok)?
Robertson: Yes, happy to provide committee with examples of different communications.

Robertson: non-engagement not unique to the census, but reflective of wider trends in society.

Robertson: post-census survey of 30,000 among harder-to-reach groups 25-30 times more than a representative sample in a poll.
[Misses the point that consequences of poll inaccuracies much less than census]

Alasdair Allan MSP: Was delay in part because of historical abnormality of census in pandemic.
Lowe: Yes, in part. Census is about snapshot in time, but also about representative snapshot in time.

Lowe: Pandemic introduced numerous short-term changes (commuting, students at home not on campus etc) not representative of "normal" circumstances.

Jenni Minto: mentions Dundee Uni archives opened up to schoolchildren, couldn't NRS do more about this to tell positive story of census?
[YES!]

Robertson: "story telling" has to be part of the solution, but that was actually happening - in TV adverts etc - to explain importance of census.

Robertson: There is something in Minto's point about schools - imagine kids learning about census in school, then going home and asking/explaining parents about census.

Robertson: we're doing all of this, we've not missed anything, we just need to do more and better.

Robertson: I'm all for transparency, it's all there, go to the NRS website and have a look.
[NRS consultation in lockdown suggested culling large parts of the website as there's too much]

Robertson: "countries elsewhere in the world are looking to Scotland to understand this phenomenon".
Again with the New Zealand comparisons.*
*Other countries are available.

Questions now over, committee moves to private session to consider the evidence.
[Transparency in action!]

Well that was both unenlightening and depressing in equal measure.
"We're great, we did everything. We missed our targets, but targets schmargets, we'll just do some surveys and patch something together."

Paul Lowe of NRS might as well not have been there (which he literally wasn't, as he was giving evidence by video).

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