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Article date

20 Nov 2025

Scotland's Census 2031 topic consultation: thank you and next steps

Thank you to everyone who participated in Scotland's Census 2031 topic consultation. The consultation has now closed and the responses will help to inform the content of the 2031 census and the topics it will cover.

Jon Wroth-Smith, Director of Census Statistics, said:

"We're grateful to everyone across Scotland who took the time to respond to our topic consultation. The high number of responses we've received demonstrates the vital role the census plays in providing the wide range of data that local and central government, the NHS and other service providers need.” 

 

Next steps:

 The Scotland’s Census programme is now beginning a thorough analysis of all the responses received. Over the coming months, we'll be:

  • reviewing consultation feedback - we're collating all responses and reviewing them against the criteria set out in the consultation, with a particular focus on user needs.
  • gathering additional information - where respondents indicated they were happy for us to contact them again, we may reach out to request further evidence if needed.
  • haring our draft conclusions with Scottish Government topic experts and the ScotStat Board for Official Statistics for review
  • publishing an analysis report of the consultation responses on Scotland’s Census website with the consultation responses published on Citizen Space

We expect to complete this work by spring 2026.

Looking further ahead, we’ll be building on the topic consultation findings alongside user research and stakeholder engagement, including question testing and questionnaire design, across 2026 and 2027 as we prepare for the census in 2031.

 

UK census consultations

Topic consultations for the 2031 censuses in England and Wales and Northern Ireland are now open. The consultations ask respondents how they currently use census data and what their future requirements for topic data may be. Users of UK harmonised census outputs may want to provide a response.

More information on the England and Wales topic consultations is available on the ONS website.

More information on the Northern Ireland topic consultation is available on the NISRA website.