Scotland's Census 2021 External Methodology Assurance Panels

National Records of Scotland (NRS) is seeking academic statisticians and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to help quality assure our proposed statistical methodology for Scotland’s Census 2021.

What are we doing? Scotland’s Census is the only national survey that asks the same questions of every person and household in Scotland, at the same time. Scotland's Census gives us a national snapshot of the make-up of our population. This information is vital to help shape Scotland's future public services by informing decisions on transport, housing, schools, hospitals and local services. The success of Scotland’s Census 2021 will be judged primarily on its ability to deliver high quality population and housing statistics in accordance within agreed timescales. Scotland’s Census is a huge undertaking, and we have only one chance to get it right.

We have developed statistical methodologies which will be used to classify, cleanse, process and quality assure the data once it is collected from the people of Scotland. We are looking for external statisticians and SMEs to review and advise on this proposed methodology.

Who do we need to help us? Specifically we would like to recruit anyone familiar with large population surveys and one or more of the following statistical methods: Capture-recapture Remove false persons/remove multiple response Applying filter rules Edit and imputation (incl. use of donor records for survey data) Estimation and adjustment of population estimates Dual system estimation Statistical techniques for comparing multiple data sources Data Linkage

What’s involved? If you are willing to join our External Methodology Assurance Panel, we will cover the costs of your time and travel. We would require you to commit to one full day (of six hours) per month between March 2020 and July 2020. Three hours of each day would be used to review the methodology papers for that month, and for the other three hours you would be required to serve on an Assurance Panel with NRS statisticians and fellow academics/SMEs to review the methodology and provide feedback.