Census campaign 2022: evaluation report - phase 1 (February to March 2022)

11. Overview of results

General population

As shown within the SMART objectives, there was a considerable increase in knowledge measures pre to post. This was also true of the following:

• Awareness that there was a census in Scotland in 2022: 55% pre to 93% post
• Every household receives a letter about the census telling them how to fill it in: 73% pre to 88% post
• Census Day is/was Sunday 20 March 2022: 11% pre to 80% post
• If you do not want to fill in the census online, you can request a questionnaire on paper: 33% pre to 77% post.

All of these post wave measures were higher among those who had seen or heard the campaign (campaign recognisers). The largest differences were for awareness of Census Day as 20 March (86% among campaign recognisers vs 62% among non-recognisers) and legal responsibility (87% and 64% respectively).

Spontaneous recall of any advertising or publicity about the census increased from 6% before to 57% after the marketing campaign. A further breakdown of the prompted recognition level of 75% is shown in the table on the next page.

Almost three fifths of those who had seen/heard any advertising said that they had taken action as a result, increasing to 74% among those who had seen/heard all three stages. A third completed or decided to complete the census, 16% watched out for their letter, 19% talked to someone about it or encouraged someone to complete it and 9% accessed support.

There was some evidence of negative attitudes in relation to the census within the general population. Agreement that the information collected by the census impacts decisions about services available to me and my community fell from 65% to 52% pre to post and a decline was seen in agreement that the census can influence the things that matter to me.

This decline was not seen among campaign recognisers, however, where levels for naming the benefits of census and agreement that census can influence the things that matter to me remained as seen at the pre wave.

Less likely to complete audiences

At least 65% of each group recognised the campaign, when prompted with campaign assets, rising to 82% for those aged 75+.

Engagement with the campaign was at least as high or higher than for the general population sample (65%), highest for the Minority Ethnic sample and the Young Independent sample (at 73% and 72% respectively) and slightly lower for DE/Low Income (at 65%)^[2].

Only around one in ten of the DE/Low Income, Minority Ethnic and Young Independent groups said they were not aware of what a census is.

Further details of campaign recognition amongst the less likely to complete groups are shown on the next page.

Overall, action taken in response to the campaign was broadly in line with the general population sample (57% of recognisers), albeit higher for the Gaelic group at 75% and lower for 75+ (at 53%) and DE/Low Income (at 55%). Actions included completing/deciding to complete the census, encouraging others to do so/talking to others about the census, and accessing support.

In terms of general attitudes towards the census;

• The Disability and Rural sub-groups were slightly more positive in some respects at the post wave
• But a number of sub-groups saw an increase in disagreement pre to post that they generally feel very positive about the census, including those aged 75+ (from 8% to 16%), DE/Low Income (from 14% to 21%), Parents of 0-5s (from 7% to 15%), Gaelic (from 7% to 18%) and Rural (from 11% to 17%) – although only in the case of parents of 0-5s did agreement also fall (from 64% to 51%).
• The DE/Low Income group were least likely to agree with a number of statements about the census including that they feel very positive about the census (41%), they trust those who carry out the census (at 39%) and they agree that the data provided as part of the census is stored securely and treated confidentially (45%).