Scottish Daily Mail

Botched Census

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IT’S staggering, if wholly predictabl­e, that the SNP managed to make such a mess of the Census.

Almost 350,000 Scottish households still have not filled it out, and could face fines of up to £1,000.

Scotland has fallen far short of its completion target with only a week to go until the delayed deadline.

The SNP decided to postpone the Census because of the pandemic – despite the fact that it went ahead as planned in the rest of the UK.

It’s an invaluable exercise that forms the foundation of policy-making, providing a cache of crucial statistics about the population.

But the process has become a laughingst­ock north of the Border, thanks to the SNP’s ham-fisted mismanagem­ent.

The cost so far is nearly £150million – cash that will have been squandered unless the completion rate increases.

Many people were put off by politicall­y correct questions about gender identity and Scots language.

It was hard to escape the conclusion that the Nationalis­ts pursued their own bespoke Scottish Census for narrow political reasons.

Nor did it occur to them that it would be much more difficult to publicise and promote the mass survey without the benefit of being part of the UK-wide Census effort.

Make no mistake, this was an unforced error: there was no obligation for the SNP Government to plough its own furrow.

But this administra­tion seems to specialise in self-inflicted wounds.

Now it must urgently sort out this mess so that taxpayers aren’t left to pick up the bill for yet another avoidable SNP fiasco.

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