Scots told they have until May 1 to complete census

SCOTLAND’S botched census has descended into a deeper farce after an advertising drive to push up response rates informed people they had missed the deadline for submitting forms.

Census bosses had promised a “major multi-faceted promotional campaign” to persuade hundreds of thousands of households that have ignored the survey to complete it, after SNP ministers took the unprecedented decision to extend the cut-off point by four weeks.

However, posts published by official census social media channels on Sunday evening and still live yesterday morning informed Scots that “you only have until May 1 to fill it in”, reflecting the previous deadline.

Opponents claimed the blunder, only rectified after The Daily Telegraph brought it to the attention of the government agency that runs the census, illustrated the “lamentable” way in which the process had been handled.

The census is open for submissions until May 31, with the extension set to cost taxpayers an extra £9.7million on top of the £138million that it had previously been forecast to cost.

More than a fifth of households have refused to complete the survey, which ministers delayed for a year owing to Covid. In the rest of the UK, where it went ahead as planned last year, the response rate was 97 per cent.

Donald Cameron, constitution spokesman for the Scottish Tories, said the SNP government’s “lamentable handling” of the census “continues unabated”.

“Having had to take the humiliating decision to extend the deadline by a month because of the poor public response, you would like to think they’d finally get a grip of their poor communications strategy,” he said. “But they have just added to the confusion by failing to update their social media posts to reflect the revised deadline.

“This shambles stems from the SNP’S refusal to follow Scottish Conservative advice to keep Scotland’s census in sync with the other home nations to benefit from the Uk-wide publicity campaign.”

Experts have said that if the census cannot be saved, it could affect public policy-making for years to come, with accurate figures essential for allocating public funding and setting policies.

Those who do not fill out the census can be fined £1,000, although it is unlikely there would be a mass prosecution. As of Sunday, 575,000 households, out of 2.7 million, had not returned forms. An NRS spokesman said: “Our social media timeline makes it clear that the census is still open.”