Scotland has pushed back the deadline to respond to the SNP’s calamitous census by another two weeks, giving people until 12 June to avoid a £1,000 fine.
The initial deadline was 1 May, which was pushed back to 31 May due to a lack of respondents.
Uptake stands at 86 per cent, far below the 94 per cent target of National Records Scotland, which runs the census.
Despite the mismanagement of the survey, and the second delay to its deadline, no extra resources will be assigned to help gain more responses from the public.
The census has already cost £150m.
The shambles comes as Kate Forbes, the Scottish finance secretary, set aside £20m for its mythical second independence referendum, despite heavy cuts on public services, and a mounting cost-of-living crisis.
Predictably, the SNP decided to conduct the census independently of the rest of the UK – breaking from the traditional ten-year cycle, something that Donald Cameron, the Conservative constitution spokesman, blamed for the low uptake.
“As usual, [the SNP] had to be different and do their own thing — squandering the benefits of the UK-wide publicity drive in the process,” he said.“This whole process has descended into chaos. It’s a shambles entirely of the SNP government’s making.”
Even Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has admitted that the census could be “worthless” if not enough people respond – something that could have a significant effect on public services.
Scotland has pushed back its census by another two weeks, giving people until June 12 to respond, and avoid a £1,000 fine.
The census initially had a deadline of May 1, which was pushed back to May 31 due to a lack of respondents. Despite the mismanagement of the survey, and the second delay to its deadline, no extra resources will be assigned to help gain more responses from the public.
This lack of funding comes as Kate Forbes, the Scottish finance secretary, set aside £20 million for a second independence referendum, despite heavy cuts on public services, and a mounting cost-of-living crisis.
The SNP decided to conduct the census independently of the rest of the UK – breaking from the traditional ten-year cycle, something that Donald Cameron, the Conservative constitution spokesman, blamed for the low uptake: “as usual, they had to be different and do their own thing — squandering the benefits of the UK-wide publicity drive in the process,” he said.
“This whole process has descended into chaos — and it’s a shambles entirely of the SNP government’s making.”
Even Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has admitted that the census could be “worthless” if not enough people respond – something that could have a significant effect on public services.
