Scotland's records office has decided to have a more distinctly Scottish system for conducting the next census.
Duncan Macniven, the Registrar General, consulted Scottish Government ministers who are happy to allow Scotland to move away from the combined census system with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in England and Wales, and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA).
This would allow a census that is more flexible to Scotland's needs. A tender notice for a Scotland-only IT, printing, data collection and support system for the next census in 2011 has been issued through the EU procurement channels.
Calls for more questions tailored to record and reflect Scotland's demographic have been made, with some MSPs calling for the recording of additional information. Since 1881, the census has included a question for Scotland on Gaelic, asking people if they can understand, speak, read or write the language.
A separate printing contract could allow more scope for other questions deemed more specific to Scotland. A discussion about the size of the census form and how many pages of questions should be included is under way.
Separate questions could include how many people consider themselves Scots, rather than Gaelic, language speakers, and questions on race and ethnicity may be more tailored to suit the pattern of immigration in Scotland.
New laws on civil partnerships make the old marital status question out of date.
The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) will make a provisional decision in March next year on the topics to be included in the next census, which the Scottish Parliament will consider later in the year.
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: "The Registrar General has decided GROS should procure its own operating system for the next census rather than the joined-up arrangement with ONS and NISRA. The Registrar General made the decision that greater flexibility, control and value for money could be achieved by having our own system of Scottish services."
GROS is currently consulting on whether to have the normal three pages of questions or add a fourth to allow more questions, although costs could be prohibitive.
Calls have been made for questions on sexual orientation to be included but GROS has so far rejected the idea, stating it would be inapprop-riate as most often the form is filled in by one member of a household and accurate information might not be recorded.
Although there are no plans to introduce a section on sexual orientation, marital status will be altered to include same-sex civil partnerships and the term "single" will be replaced with "never married or never in a civil partnership".
In 2001, Scotland had two questions on religion, recording "current religion" and "religion brought up in" whereas in England only the "current religion" question was asked. There is a proposal for Scotland to return to the single question, backed by the Church of Scotland.
In a consultation document, the GROS said most questions would remain standard but there was room for new and separate questions if a need was identified.
The paper stated: "Many census users want comparable information for the whole of the UK, because they are interested in UK-wide statistics or to allow the benchmarking of the Scottish position.
"So the three departments aim to harmonise key features of the census such as the date and the questions unless there are compelling differences."
Seeking answers
THE SCOTS TONGUE
Billy Kay, Scots language expert, said: "I would like a question on whether people consider themselves speakers of Scots. Until we have accurate data we cannot formulate policy on protecting and developing the language."
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Patrick Harvie, Green MSP for Glasgow, said: "There are some complexities around a question on sexual orien-tation. It would be useful, however, to try and resolve those. I don't know if a straightforward what is your sexual orientation?' would suffice, but it is something we should address."
RELIGION
Morag Mylne, convener of the Church of Scotland's church and society council, said: "In general, if you ask two sets of people the same set of questions it is easier to draw comparisons between the two groups."
A spokesman for the Catholic Church said: "A person may have been brought up in a particular religion, but they may not want to include that if they feel they are no longer part of that religion."
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