 I welcome to the first meeting of the committee in 2020. I'd like to remind members and the public to turn off mobile phones, and anyone accessing committee papers through electronic devices should please ensure that they are turned to silent. Our first item on the agenda is taking evidence from National Records of Scotland on the draft census order, and I'd like to welcome to the meeting Pete Whitehouse, director of statistical services at National Records of Scotland, Scott Matheson, senior principal legal officer with the Scottish Government, Scott McEwen, head of policy and legislation, Scotland's Census 2021, and Jill Morton, senior business lead questions and collection instruments with the National Records of Scotland. I would like to invite Mr Whitehouse to make a brief opening statement. Thank you and good morning to everybody. Firstly, can I thank the committee for their invitation to National Records of Scotland to today's session, which continues our important discussions on the detail and substance of Scotland's census for 2021. As you've said, you've got a number of officials in front of you this morning, bringing together our legal advice, our senior policy lead on a census policy and legislation, and in Jill and myself, members of the Government Statistical Service, and as you've said myself, as recently appointed as NRS's director of statistical services. I'm very grateful to the committee for initiating and working through this informal scrutiny of the work that we are doing to deliver a census order and the associated regulations. As you will recall, there were significant challenges in laying the census order for 2011, resulting in Parliament considering the order on a number of occasions. This current process of informal scrutiny is therefore valuable in enabling NRS to work through issues with the aim of enabling Parliament to agree the census order for 2021 in a timely manner. NRS are working to present the draft order to Parliament towards the end of this month, with the aim that the order can be placed in statute by Parliament in April 2020. Working with this committee to help to present an acceptable census order to Parliament for their consideration within this timeframe is central to enabling NRS to land critical aspects of the census. These include recruitment of field force, finalisation of questions, which then allow paper and online forms to be finished, and the significant array of IT solutions built and tested, all tasks that involve procurement, contracts and significant and on-going testing. The consideration of issues such as how to support completion of the sex question or voluntary sexual orientation question confirm that there are areas where views diverge. NRS strongly welcomes the opportunity to have brought and discussed a number of issues with the committee through this informal scrutiny process so that progress can be informed and recommendations produced. Consideration of the census questions and associated support requires the deliberation of many factors, including learning from past census, the evolving needs of users, the need for consistency of outputs over time and across the UK, and innovation of technical and methodological solutions. These elements must be drawn together to deliver the timely, high quality outputs required by users as census outputs begin to be published in 2022 and through 2023, and thus meet our shared objectives of a high quality, timely census that meets the needs of respondents and data users. I am pleased to inform the committee that, since NRS's attendance in September, we have continued to engage in person and writing with stakeholders, many of whom are also directly engaging with the committee. We have undertaken a successful census rehearsal, which tested our processes in three areas of Scotland, and we have provided further written updates to the committee on a range of issues relevant to census design, including predictive text, ethnicity and details of discussions with stakeholders. My colleagues and I really welcome the opportunity to meet with the committee today as we work to deliver a proposed census order to the Parliament later this month. Thank you very much for that, and good morning to you all. NRS states that it believes that the binary sex question asked on a self-identification basis provides the best balance in meeting the diverse range of user needs across the full census data set. You have mentioned engagement with users. However, we know that a significant number of very senior academics, who are data users, is people who use population data, have written to you expressing concern and have also written to the committee expressing concern. The latest letter is from 80 academics led by Professor Alice Sullivan of University College London. If I can just quote from some of her letters, she says that we are writing to express her concern about the proposed online guidance to accompany the sex question in the 2021 census, which advises respondents that they may respond in terms of their self-identified gender. The guidance acts to conflate two distinct characteristics, sex and gender reassignment, both protected characteristics under the equality act, and will effectively transform the long-standing sex question into a question about gender identity. We are concerned that that will actively undermine data reliability on a key demographic variable and damage our ability to capture and remedy sex-based discrimination. She goes on to point out that, because the census in 2021 is a digital first sentence, any proposed guidance will be much more visible than it was in 2011, when that guidance was introduced without any scrutiny. She also pointed out that that will affect other data-gathering exercises. It is fair to point out that that letter from those 80 academics is leading lights of UK quantitative social science, including several fellows of the British academy and leaders of some of our major surveys. I am just interested to know why you are so confident in dismissing the views of those people and whose views you have taken in preference to those leading lights of the UK academy. As you will have heard previously and as has been in correspondence, the NRS works very hard to hear from a range of views and to engage in written form and in conversation and in discussion with a range of stakeholders. We fully recognise that there are different views about how the sex question should be presented and supported and the role of guidance in that. In coming to our recommendation that we have put forward, which is, as you say, for a binary sex question with self-identified guidance and then a voluntary separate history and status question, in reaching that recommendation we have to consider past censuses. Certain questions have been asked for a number of years and number of censuses. We also need to consider which guidance was in place in the past and in some cases there wouldn't have been guidance but in 2011 as you say there was online guidance around that was there to support express user need in how to respond to the binary sex question. We have gone through an evolution I would suggest on one of these issues so you would have known as a committee that some initial thinking around changing that binary sex question was brought and there was a discussion that I think was with the committee which changed that position. We have had advice and views from lots of different data providers and data users and you are absolutely right and I said in my opening contribution we really welcome people's views, we welcome the expressed views of all of our different types of stakeholders and the role of NRS is to put in place a census that understands that consistency over time, understands the need for harmonisation, understands the various needs of data users, recognises the guidance that has been in place, recognises the purpose of guidance. We know for example on the binary sex question which we took forward further testing that Scott's ended on our behalf following recommendation and discussion I think in September with this committee that the vast majority of people are not looking at guidance in order to answer that question. They fully recognise how they wish to answer it. They use whatever evidence they feel is appropriate in order to come to that conclusion and that is consistent with how people respond to what is essentially a self-completion census. This is about people understanding the nature of the census and responding in the way that they feel best represents in this case their sex. Can you just drill down on this? Can you clarify which data users have asked for a self-identification question because they wish for that as an output? All those very, very senior academics, Professor David Bann, Professor for Population Health at UCL, Professor Mel Bartley, Professor Emeritus of Medical Sociology, I could list many, many of them. You have dismissed all those very senior people who use population data. Can you tell us which data users wish for the sex question to be self-identified? I am keen not to get into individuals and saying that people have a particular view. You do say in your letter to me that you have had meetings with data users. Who are these data users that want that change? Representation, which was also a letter where there was a number of data users. There were other communications, but they were from academics in other fields. Many of them were safe, for example, in fields in computer science or literature, and I am sure that they are very sincere in their views and experts in their areas. Unlike those data users, they were not all users of population data, sociologists, social scientists, economists. They were a different group of academics. There is the consistency of how the question has always been asked. That question has been asked in that binary sense and a self-completion approach, which therefore our best understanding is that people will use whatever evidence they feel they need to in order to answer that question. Then there has been express need, which came through in 2011 to ONS, where there is a group in the population who felt that they needed further advice on how to answer that question. At that point, the guidance was provided, which we also put online in Scotland, that because it is a self-completion form, because this is about people understanding how they are going to answer that question, the guidance therefore becomes one of self-identification. That guidance has been tested. It is seen to be helpful to people who need guidance. It has no impact on people who, in the past, will have simply answered and will continue to answer without guidance. Therefore, it takes us to a position which I recognise is not the one that everybody holds, which is that the approach to completion is based on people's understanding of how they wish to answer that question about sex and therefore self-identification is essentially the place where we go. We are using guidance in order to help a particular group in the population who have asked for advice on how to do that. This is where we have heard from different academics who are saying that it is really important that we are clear about the guidance that is in place. One of the difficulties, perhaps if one went back to pre-2011, is that what we are saying is that if we ask a question in the census, it is really important to data users to understand the basis on which that question was asked. We are therefore saying that guidance in this particular position helps the completion of that question for those people who need guidance and provides clarity to data users for the basis of that question. You are absolutely right that there are some users from the past and potential users going forward who believe and state that the question has been answered in some other way. Our position and that of ONS at the moment and that sort of that harmonise approach is that because it is self-completion, because guidance was there in 2011 and because there is a stated need to enable an important part of the population to respond to that question and to seek guidance that will be important for our contact centres, for our field force people who are going to go out and support people to answer the question that we are clear the basis for it to be asked. That is where we have come from. This is a practical position that recognises that under a self-completion question people are answering that question in a particular way. I think that you are answering the concerns by that very senior group of data users and of course the statistics regulator did emphasise the importance of meeting the needs of data users. You have emphasised the needs of a small group of respondents in terms of their feelings and you have mentioned the independent research that you did, or that you commissioned Scott Sen to conduct. I would put on record that my confusion at the conclusions that you have drawn from that research, you tested the question and the guidance on around 2,000 members of the general population randomly selected and 75 trans individuals who were not randomly selected, who were recruited through various contacts. 3 per cent of the general population said that they would not answer a question that would effectively boycott either the sex question or the census if it was asked on the basis of self-identification. A larger sample of the trans samples said that they would boycott for other reasons, but if you work out how the numbers would translate, if there were a number of people refusing to answer the general population, there would be a far higher number of the general population refusing to answer than this small trans group. Of course, we do not know how scientific that trans sample was. If respondent need is what is driving you to this conclusion, it seems a bit strange that you have gone for the need of one small group when a boycott would be far more damaging if it was the general population. 3 per cent of the general population did the boycott as your research indicates? There are a couple of points that I want to pull out there. One, the methodology used by Scotsen is well understood and is well regarded. They are a professional organisation that run many surveys on behalf of Scotland and across the UK. If their committee has issues with their methodology, I am not here to answer for them other than as a Government statistician of 30 years. It is reasonable when you are looking at very small population groups in the wider population to take what is essentially a sort of, it's a non probabilistic approach to getting information. This is different to the general population where you can take that probabilistic approach because you are looking at that broad population. When you have a very small group, if you just simply went out and asked 3,000, 4,000 people at random, you are probably likely to miss those specific groups that you are interested in. Therefore, inviting them in a different way in order to express their understanding of the question is a legitimate way that many research companies use, but I would recommend that if there are issues that the committee has. I am not questioning their methodology. They have been very frank about their methodology. They say that, since participants were not selected at random, the findings relate only to those who took part and inferences to the wider trans and non-binary population in Scotland can't be made. We all totally accept that. The point that I am making is based on their findings. Their findings said that, in terms of the general population, 2,000 of the general population that they surveyed, they said that 3 per cent of their sample, 3 per cent of the general population sample had said that they wouldn't answer a sex question based on self-id. I think that it was about 61 per cent of the trans sample said that they wouldn't answer. My calculation is that if that was rolled out across the whole adult population in Scotland who is answering the census, you would have 120,000 of the general population refusing to answer the census, whereas when it comes to the trans population, it would be about 4 per cent. You have made your decisions on the basis of the fact that a number of members of the trans population would refuse to answer the census according to certain guidance. My second point is that the evidence that we have over time is that people answer that question perfectly well and are fully able to answer it. It is one of the best answered questions. People know how to answer that question and previous censuses show that people do that. In terms of the general population, there is no concern that we have from NRS that people will not be able to answer that question in the general population. The guidance is there. I didn't say that they wouldn't be able to answer it. It's just that your own research says that because of their views on self-id, 3 per cent of people would refuse to answer it. You are aware of the wider debate. I wonder if you have taken into consideration that there has been some discussion that might have had correspondence in this committee about it, that some people may even be a campaign from people who oppose self-identified sex not to answer the question. Have you taken that into consideration at all as a risk? Is there anything, Jill, that you want to add to the previous questions? No, if it's okay? No, at this point. Risk occurs across all sorts of questions. The census is there to meet the needs of a whole range of data users. We will have a whole campaign that will run over the coming year and into the census and through the census, which will promote the benefits of the census, will promote engagement, will continue to clarify and support people's understanding of the benefit of the census. We hope through that and the nature of what it is, which is that people are requested and required to answer that census, that we will enable everybody across Scotland to engage in it. As I said at the beginning, there are different views. There are always different views on how you put a census into the field. What NRS is trying to do at this particular point is we have listened, we have continued to speak to and have had correspondence, whether it's come to us directly, whether it's come to the committee, whether it is in the media, on television, whether it is to the national statistician at a UK level, and we continue to have those conversations. What we are doing at this point is putting forward our recommendation on how we can best meet the needs of data providers and data users to produce the timely outputs that we require to give the benefits that we do, and this is part of this informal scrutiny process that allows us to do that. I'm absolutely not ignoring the views of different groups. What we are trying to do as an organisation and have done over the last few years is try to balance all of these views so that we can draw together the best census that we can. I don't think that we're going to agree that you have balanced views, but we are running out of time, so I'm moving on to Claire Baker. Thank you very much. I just have some questions about the testing of the guidance. The process that was done, there were two sets of guidance tested, one that suggested people have a self-identification response and one that was a legal sex definition. I want to ask if the self-identification guidance that was tested is the one that we've been provided with for the 2021 census and we don't have a copy of the other guidance that was given and did you test no guidance? No guidance is essentially in the assessment, in the sense that what we understood is that the vast majority of the general population just simply don't look at guidance. But there is a link, there is a guidance there. Did everybody, both sets, who were tested, get presented with a question with absolutely no guidance, which was presented with a question 2011? The details are in the report, but they were presented with a question and asked to respond there and then asked whether they had used guidance in coming to that conclusion. It was clear because of the way that how people respond can be looked at as they go around the online system that most, almost everybody on the general population just simply didn't look at guidance. So what we infer from that is that the vast majority of the general population does not feel it needs and does not look at guidance. So in a sense, the guidance that exists as it does for all other questions. That's what I'm trying to get at. Prior to 2011, the census that question was published with no guidance and NRS argued that the question has always been a self-identification question. They make that a number of times in the papers that we've received. Is it a self-completion form, which therefore leads us to a view that self-identification essentially is where we are best placed? Because people are answering that question in the way that they best feel represents their sex. I'm trying to get as why then was the... because I think what you do argue is that the question's always been, it's been a self-completion which means it's been self-identification. So why in 2011 the guidance was necessary and introduced? It was representation to ONS in the first instance, which then came across to my predecessors in NRS, that people in the trans community were seeking further advice on how to answer that question. So at that time guidance was provided online, so it was specifically to allow a group in the population who were saying, we need further advice on how to answer that question and therefore guidance was made in the context of what would have been ONSs and NRSs expectation at the time of how that question is answered, which is self-identification. Can I just ask some more technical questions about the comparison between the 2011 and the proposed guidance for the new order? In 2011 when it said help with answering it described it as no guidance provided and then it described it as more questions. That's what we've been provided with. In 2011 it said it's question, it says why is this question asked, help with answering no guidance provided and then more questions and that says I am transgender or transsexual, which option should I select? The new one has its proposed online guidance, so it looks like it changes the nature of the advice. In 2011 it wasn't categorised as guidance, it was there as information looks more like this time it will be guidance. The guidance has changed quite a bit and I was wondering why the change has been made. You do have guidance for people who are non-binary, but the 2021 guidance for transgender is much shorter and is phrased quite differently. In some of the information that you have sent us, you had a couple of meetings with a couple of academics. One of the issues raised there was concerns about inconsistency in the wording of the guidance and some ambiguity in the 2021 proposed guidance. I'm just wondering why the change has been made. In 2011 it wasn't categorised as guidance, it's categorised more as information and in the 2021 the guidance for transgender individuals is quite different than what it was in 2011. Guidance that we took into the testing, which is included in the Scotsend publication that was published on 20 December, we held a series of events with stakeholders to agree the two different versions of the guidance, one which would be for self-identified sex, one which would be for legal sex guidance. We had a range of stakeholders come along to those events and got to an agreed position with wording and terminology and an agreement that that was an appropriate set of guidance to help. We refer to this as guidance on the online system that went out in rehearsal. It just says, need more help and you click a link. That is very similar to the online system that was in place in 2011, which again says, do you need help and you can access it. I suspect the terminology between what we refer to as guidance and how that appears in the public sphere is possibly just us using our internal terminology. We would refer to it as guidance but as I say in the rehearsal it appears on the digital platform as a need more help button rather than guidance for a question. The guidance that we got to with the testing was agreed with a range of stakeholders that is all published and on our website who attended where we got to what the results of that were. That was fed directly into this testing here and as I say the guidance that is used is in the published report. A range of stakeholders, do you mean people with their range of different views on self-identification? Yes, so we had representatives of equality groups, of women's groups, of academic organisations. There were some representatives from local authority and possibly the health service came along. The 2021 proposed guidance could be seen as more vague than the 2011 guidance but the response rates in terms of positive responses look quite positive according to the work done by the Scottish Government. As I say, on a range of the different questions we work with interested groups to come up with a set of guidance that uses the right terminology, isn't going to be offensive, is going to gather the data that is intended to be gathered and actually is intended to help people who may not find it a straightforward question to answer. It was just again how the sex question and the voluntary transgender questions interact and can people compare the two? You give a chart where you say that if someone is presented with a proposed guidance it seems to be fairly consistent that a transgender male will answer male when they have the guidance rather than the legal sex. A transgender woman will answer woman and it seems to be fairly consistent that this is what we can expect people to answer. Is that cross-referenced with the transgender questions in some way so that it could be disaggregated? That would apply to a range of different questions in the census where people are using multivariate analysis to look at a number of questions together. Potentially yes if a data user wanted to do that. On page 30, on page 31, it says that when processing the data, NRS will not be aware of which members of the transpopulation have a GRC in order to analyse the combined data for the sex question and the trans status question. It is important that the transpopulation answer these questions in a consistent way. The self-identified guidance allows them to do that. That suggests that there would be analysis of combined data that the two questions are meant to interact with each other. It could be used that way, potentially, if a data user wanted to do that. I may have misunderstood something there, but we would not be at any point asking if somebody has a GRC. We ask sex and we ask a yes, no and write an option on for trans status or history in the similar way that questions around the health conditions, general health and disability are used together to produce it. I am trying to drive it. If you are approaching the census with someone who thinks that the binary sex question has to be answered, what they are looking for is a biological reading of male and female population. It would be possible for people who have concerns about that question to look at the volunteer transgender question and perhaps analyse that data in a different way. For people who feel that the data has not been consistent because it is a self-identification question. The academics are arguing that this data has not given us what we need because it is not telling us the male and female populations. By the question being self-identifying, people are arguing that that changes the nature of that data. Would the transgender volunteer question enable people to analyse that data and take it the information that they are arguing that they need that they think is more consistent? Potentially, yes. I think that there are two points that we are making. One is that the question has always been essentially a self-identification response. The view that it was always based on something other than that is not necessarily the case or I would suggest isn't the case. What we then have is the opportunity for data users and this is one of the benefits of the census is that people answer these multiple range of questions at the same time. There is the opportunity absolutely for data analysts and users to look at the interdependencies or the links between certain questions. It is not something that we are particularly focused on ourselves but it is potential. That is one of the earlier discussions that we have had. We will have data users and analysts who will be looking to understand the relationships between all types of questions across the full census. That is one of the great benefits of the census as it allows that to happen. Thank you for making your time available again. Mr Whitehouse referred repeatedly to the fact that the mandatory sex question is self-completion. Is it not the case that all questions are self-completion? Yes, absolutely. It is not any different in that regard. Is the way that the census is completed? It is all self-completion. To stress that, use that phraseology with regard to the mandatory sex question, it is not meant to give it any particular significance because every single question is to be answered in a self-completion. The reason I raised it is that there is a suggestion from some of our stakeholders that the question was answered in a very specific way. What we are saying is that, as with all questions across the census, people come at it with their own understanding of what it is, alongside the availability or not of guidance, and they make their honest and truthful in the environment if they consider response to that census. This is a statistical tool where we are not individually focused on individual response. We are drawing together that evidence to provide geographic and population groups and other analyses at a statistical level. That is the point that I am making. To have that clarified, perhaps people listening might have thought that there was some particular thing going on with question 3 that was different to every other question of the census. Talking about the 2011 sex question guidance, that was the statistical bloke, because from the beginning of the census in 1801 to 2011, there wasn't any guidance at all with respect to the mandatory sex question. Is that correct? That is absolutely the case. In that regard, it could be viewed as— Can I say that it is not a statistical blip? Maybe that is the wrong physiology. I bow to your greater knowledge as the stati. What it is is a clarification for a group in society who are saying that we need additional support in order to answer that question. What is clear is that the vast majority of the general population do not need guidance and will not use it. There is a group in population who identified their needs in 2011 to ONS and then laterally into NRS that they needed additional guidance. That guidance was then presented in the manner of the understanding of the census that was delivered in 2011. That is the only time that guidance has been part of the process. That was the first time that guidance was specifically put in line. I am going back to Clare Baker's point. I had asked your predecessor Amy Wilson on 12 September. Does the NRS testing involve a no-guidance scenario? Amy Wilson replied that it is not specifically for a no-guidance scenario. I hear your answer this morning. I am just a wee bit confused. Why did the NRS not give that specifically as an option? The option of having no guidance? In the testing that you commissioned, why was that not a different head of testing? I just do not understand the answer that you gave to me. Testing no guidance, what we were given, what we were trying to answer that, in a sense we have got a response that shows that the vast majority of people just did not look at guidance. That does tell us about how people access that question. Therefore, they do not use guidance in the general population and they answer the question well. They understand what the question is and we know that people have used that in the past. Do you not feel in reflection that it might have given you a more comprehensive outcome in terms of considering all reasonable options in your testing? Is that not really the point to not prejudge but to test across the board within reasonable parameters? That seems to me a very reasonable option to have thought about, but you rejected that as well. We are building our knowledge iteratively so that we know that the census has been well answered on that question going back over time. We are then trying to address a specific set of questions for us about how we enable all of Scottish population to respond to that question. The testing that Scott Senn did that we discussed with the committee and provided allows us to show that the vast majority of the population does not need guidance, will not look at it and is happy to answer that question. There is another group that needs that. Scott Senn's work then went on to look at some specific types of guidance which was part of that conversation. I think that what we have when we look at the outcomes and the testings of questions going back in previous censuses, the work that we have done over the last four or five years together with Scott Senn, together with representation, gives us that full range of information. I think that in answer to the question I am comfortable that we have drawn out sufficient information to allow us to say that the vast majority of the population does not need guidance, answers the question well. Guidance is there to help a particular group in society who have over a decade ago expressed a need for that guidance. Obviously, I cannot really understand as to why you would not have thought that it would be worth just testing out that assumption. Turning to the guidance at the moment and the recommendation that NRS has made, if that were to be exceeded to, what status would that guidance have? In the mandatory sex question, what would be the status of that guidance as a matter of what would be the status of the guidance? What do you mean by status? Would it have a legal status? Would any rights flow from that guidance? That would be the status of it. If we are dealing with legislation and there are bits of other text around that, we need to know what it would mean. As with all the questions in the census, it is guidance that allows people to answer that question. It does not go further than that. Does it have no legal status at all? It is not legal status, it is advised to people. Maybe Mr Matheson is his area of expertise with respect. He might want to offer an opinion on that. The guidance does not have the force of law. The census act, the census order and the census regulations will be the legislation and to the extent that there are rights and obligations which arise, they will be the ones that are set out there. The guidance will assist people who are being asked to engage with the census through completing the returns. It is an admynical of evidence that is there in the background. It gives context to the legislation. The fact that the committee is scrutinising it here, while it is informally scrutinising the order, is all part of the context and background. It is not a document from which rights and obligations flow. It does not have the force of legislation. Given that it gives context to the legislation, I presume that the committee will be provided to make its decision with the latest up-to-date version of the guidance. The guidance is developments in the on-going process. My question is, as Mr Matheson says, that it gives context to the legislation. Presumably, we cannot decide on the legislation until we have seen the final draft of the guidance. I just thought I talked about that. I necessarily followed that in the sense that, in previous years or previous decades, the order has been made. If the committee wished to proceed on that basis, presumably there would not be a problem with that. Are you refusing to give us the final text of the guidance before we make our decision? I do not know what I am asking the question. The guidance is... I am slightly unclear about the order in which we are doing it, so I need both Scots to come in here. The order that goes to Parliament and when is the guidance finally finalised? Later this year, but towards the end of summer. That is all finalised and signed off, because a lot of it just has small tweaks. We need to proof it. We need to check some of it. Is that taken to the summer to do? If it is just needing final tweaks? One of the problems here is that Government routinely will issue guidance about legislation. In doing so, it is trying to help the population who would need to engage with that legislation, understand that legislation. For there to be a requirement, the Government must always publish that guidance and make it available to the legislature before that legislation is enacted. It seems to have a slightly circular or chronological problem. We cannot issue guidance explaining legislation that has not yet been made. I ask for the final draft. When I say that the guidance provides context because it is being considered by the committee, the papers that are being considered by the committee to date through September through to now and indeed through the formal stages when the instrument is laid and drafted and considered formally by the Parliament, there will be background there. There is nothing special about the census. It is just a general statement that, to the extent that proceedings of the Parliament can legitimately take into account in interpreting legislation. That does not mean that absolutely everything, every paper that is available to the Parliament will have a varying on the proper interpretation to put on legislation. It is part of the context. Thank you for all your answers. I will reflect on the answers that you have given because it is quite an important point. Just two final questions if I may, convener. In the 12th of September evidence session, I think that it was the convener herself who put to Amy Wilson that the proposition that NRS, on referencing self-ID, was actually seeking to jump the gun and, in fact, usurp the role of this Parliament. Of course, we are going to have as a Parliament that very important debate in due course. It was not really clear what the particular specific response of NRS was to that proposition so perhaps I could put that again today. Is it the case that NRS is seeking to jump the gun on the self-ID debate and thereby usurping the role of this Parliament? From my perspective, what we are doing is presenting a question that is well understood with guidance that helps a group in the population to answer that question. We are not jumping any gun. We are not trying to change or get in front of all the other conversations and discussions and work that Parliament and others are doing in this space. What we are doing is saying that from 2011 and previous years this question has been answered in a particular way. We are providing guidance to support that, and that is essentially where that census starts and finishes. On that basis, given the importance of this debate and people have very strong views across the spectrum about all the issues and endless debate, would it not be appropriate to include that language to isolate this particular approach as being specific to the 2021 census and having no wider import? Would it not therefore be appropriate to include in the guidance itself or perhaps the order or whatever that language to that effect so that it is made clear that a public agency of Scotland is not seeking to usurp the legislative processes of this Parliament? I am not entirely clear how that would look in guidance. You can give it a wee go and see what it looks like. The point that I would like to make is that the census is a census, it is asking questions, it is gathering data, no rights and obligations flow. It is not as if somebody is completing a census form and ticking the box to indicate their sex and just wants to do the sex question. It means that, for legal purposes, that is what they are. It does not give them any rights to be treated any differently than they would otherwise be. It is an entirely separate legal question from the debate to which the Parliament, as you say, will and due course have about whether or not the law on gender recognition should be changed. To my mind, they are so separate that I am not currently understanding what it is. It might therefore not be a problem from the legal perspective just to make that point very clear because obviously that debate is still to come. Again, perhaps the committee would wish to reflect on that issue further and we can always write to you further to that last brief question. Interplay of the 1990 census act and the equality act 2010, we discussed that in the 12 September evidence session at some length. A number of members raised the issue. On the basis that, for example, the two new voluntary questions on sexual orientation and on transgender status, both of which everybody in the committee was absolutely 100 per cent signed up to and supportive of their inclusion, they were included further to the policy memorandum on the basis that they needed to be included in the census of 2021 to discharge the public sector equality duty and then the 2010 act. Therefore, surely there would have to be consistency as between what we are doing further to census legislation and the 2010 act across the board because otherwise it seems to beg the question as to the stated basis for the inclusion of the voluntary questions which everybody actually supports. Any thoughts again, Mr Matheson? He's our resident legal expert on these matters. I'm grateful for you directing the question at me, but ultimately this comes down to a question of the statistical matters because it's about generating the data which are required. As far as the legal position, I don't understand that what's being got at here is that the census order would be ultraviaries in some way, beyond the powers available to the Queen and Council in making the ordering council by being in the terms that it is. If I'm understanding correctly what's being got at is whether or not it is appropriate to be gathering the data in the way that it's being proposed. Other members, I'm very conscious that I've used up a bit of time and maybe other members wish to come back to that. If part of the census is absolutely expressly stated to be informed by the 2010 act, it begs the question about the other parts of the census where there are relevant issues on protected characteristics and it would be maybe more difficult to make the argument that those other areas are not also expressly related and linked to the 2010 act. I am conscious, convener, that I've had a good innings. Thank you very much, Donald Cameron. Can I just return to the question of no guidance, because it strikes me that given the guidance that is controversial on the sex question, one way through this would be to not have any guidance. When you were answering questions to Annabelle Ewing, you made a statement that said that the majority of people don't look at the guidance. That seems to me that's not an answer to the question of what, if you tested it, what would people do if presented with no guidance? The evidence and the testing that has been put in place and has been carried out over a fairly long period is that the vast majority of people on this question will not require a guidance. What happened in the run-up to 2011 and what has happened in discussion after that with certain groups within the population is that guidance has been sought. Therefore, to enable people to respond to that census and the importance that it has for data users and its use in all sorts of facets of public work, guidance has been provided. It is clear from conversations that we've had that having no guidance at all is not helpful either to those groups who feel they need guidance in order to answer that question or data users who may have a different view on how the question has been asked or the guidance or lack of guidance that is in place. It is both helping to get a full and complete contribution to the census but it also clarifies for data users that this is the basis on which the question has been asked. It can therefore go and do the analysis that is appropriate to using what is essentially an aggregated statistical tool on that basis. To be clear, you haven't tested a scenario where there is no guidance provided. You haven't got Scotsend to test that. What Scotsend did was ask people to respond to that question and then asked whether they used guidance or not and the vast majority of people did not feel they needed, in the general publication, to access guidance. Previous censuses where guidance wasn't made available, people will have answered that question and the general population do happily to a high level of quality and consistency. There is a group that has been keen to get further support and therefore guidance has been developed to enable that to happen. That guidance is therefore important for people who are phoning into our support centres to help people who are out on the streets and helping people to fill in the question. The guidance is there to enable people who need it to respond to it. I will add something to that. Early on in the development of the question, one of the first pieces of testing we did was to ask a sex question and see how people responded. It was cognitive testing. It was not your large-scale post-out test. We presented them with the sex question with no guidance and asked them what they thought the question meant. As we have found similarly across other bits of development work, different people had a different understanding of what that question would mean and a small group said, you would have to give me guidance because I don't know what you are asking me. It is not true that we have done no guidance testing. It wasn't included in part of the latest testing work because of the aims of that piece of work. Presum all the other questions have guidance. It would look anomalous if there was no guidance to one particular question. Is that right? Guidance will have evolved over many decades in order to meet the needs of data providers and to provide information to data users that this is the basis of the question and that enable people to do it. I don't know, but I can well imagine if we went back a few censuses the guidance was not there for everything but we have iteratively built on that so that we are now comfortable and confident that this is enabling a full completion for this important product. Can I just make the point in our last evidence session with you which I'm sure you have reviewed but we discussed this in some detail and it came out that in 2011 those new guidance that was introduced was accessed by very few people and there's a big difference between 2011 and 2021 when you've got a digital first census where the guidance becomes much more prominent. In fact, one of the things that came out in our last evidence session is that there were even LGBT advocacy groups who were clearly unaware of that guidance in 2011, that's how difficult it was to access and that's the reason why some of those LGBT groups actually argued for a transgender question because at that point during your consultation, I believe it was Stonewall had argued that we need a transgender question because gender and sex are different things and people don't know can't answer the sex question honestly so we therefore need a transgender question and that's another point for you to bear in mind is that that's the big difference between 2011 and 2021 we do now have a transgender question where people who feel strongly about their gender identity can answer that question and so that means that the confusion about the sex question no longer exists. The testing and representation that we have is that the trans status and history question is well understood and is valuable and provided important information that guidance is required and valued by particular groups in society to answer the sex question that is the information that we have and that is what we are trying to respond to. You keep going back to say that data users have asked you for clarity and they want guidance but going back to my initial question I talked about Alice Sullivan's letter the 80 academics including Professor Susan McVey who you have engaged with concerned about prominent digital first guidance which erases biological sex as a characteristic you have dismissed them but you are not telling me which data users have requested this clarity they have requested self-identified gender identity to be conflated with sex. In the papers that you have got there has been representation from groups of academics some of which we listen to those academics and they have different views The academics who use population data are very clear that they want a biological sex question Are you saying that you have dismissed them to listen to another group of academics most of whom are not social scientists who use population data who might include professors of literature of queer legal studies that sort of thing I am sure that there are experts in their field but they are not social scientists who use population data I am not dismissing anybody's views and I was clear right at the beginning that we welcome the contributions that people have made on this issue for a number of years What we are trying to do is build a census that delivers on that The reason I talk about data users is that it has been noted in conversation and is how people understand when they do their academic or other work to understand what was the basis of the question The information that we have had is that if there is no guidance that is not helpful because even if people don't necessarily agree on the basis of how the question was asked or the guidance in there they need to know how it was asked and the guidance that was supporting it because otherwise people therefore infer something that isn't necessarily the case That's what we are trying to do We are not getting any further forward on that Kenneth Gibson Thanks very much I was looking up what queer studies were being innocent in this particular area The question that I was going to ask initially was Can the NRS explain why on page 30 of your submission the table outlining expected a response to the sixth question by population which refers to cisgender men and women Is NRS aware that this is a contested and politicised term that many people object to and many people are completely unfamiliar with? Which paper are we looking at? Page 30 It's the table at the bottom where he says The heading just above the table says How NRS expect people to answer based on alternative versions of the guidance and you've got cisgender men, it's cisgender women Okay, I'm going to get on this Right, I'm just trying to work out what we're responding to in here This is your sixth questions recommendation report This is our recommendation Sorry, can you ask your question again? Sorry, I just want to know why you've used the expression cisgender men and cisgender women because this is a contested and politicised term that many people object to and many people are completely unfamiliar with I have to be honest with you until six months ago I hadn't heard the term, I didn't realise that there was apparently a cisgender so I'm just wondering why you would use a term that I don't believe is widely used in normal discourse among the general population The approach that we can come back in more detail on this about how we've presented that table The way that we use language and as Fingus Gil said at the beginning is that we are trying to use language that is understood that is not seen to be in any way pejorative or demeaning or insulting that we try to take an approach that reflects our needs to be fully appropriate in all of that area Personally I'm not entirely clear why we've used certain languages but we will come back to you but our intention as always is to fully respectful and to ensure that the language we do use is understood and accepted and recognised by the groups that we are talking about when we use certain terms If we have not done that I can only apologise and say that we will do better but I'm not aware that we have I understand that those terms are ones that are understood and are not seen as demeaning or insulting but if they are, we will come back to you They certainly are contested by some people and I think that they are misunderstood by many I don't understand why you wouldn't just use the words of man and woman there to be perfectly honest with you I think that there's an element of frustration which has seeped out this morning from members of the committee because it seems to us that certainly to me I shouldn't speak for others but certainly from more perspective it has seemed it from a start NRS has had its own agenda other people think for example the convener has talked about the 80 academics and it is the fact that NRS didn't want a binary question originally it was only after the evidence that was presented that this committee was very overwhelming in favour of a binary question that's actually been changed and you've kind of since evolved to say well a binary question has been used in the rest of the UK so that's probably a good thing I think that a lot of the arguments that we've been having this morning with regard to guidance etc and self identification it almost seems from my perspective and I would imagine from possibly colleagues that this is almost like a rearguard action being fought by NRS because you've been kind of dragged as an organisation kicking and screaming into having to ask a binary question on sex I'm sorry if that is the way that is perceived that is not the way that NRS is working or has worked what my colleagues have been doing over the last few years is trying to develop questions that respond to user need part of the benefit and as I said right at the beginning and it is a huge benefit to NRS is to be able to engage with you in the committee to engage with the organisations talking to you either individually or as a committee to hear voices and to hear advice and get advice in areas that can help us therefore evolve what we're doing the dialogue around the non-binary question that has happened there has been consideration of that and we are moving forward I don't believe that I don't see my organisation myself operating in the way that you have characterised what I see us as doing as I said at the beginning is working with you working with the organisations that are coming to you working with the organisations that come to us working with our colleagues in Northern Ireland and ONS to build a census that when the order goes through to Parliament and then the regulations follows that those are broadly recognised we are having those discussions because it's really valuable to have them we had them in the past you made your contribution others did and we have responded and I think that that is a legitimate and appropriate way given this is the way that the process has been formulated Fully accepting what you've actually said in terms of that I believe you've explained yourself quite frankly and openly on that to accept though that this application has caused considerable concern among the people who actually use this data and there is frustration that NRS does seem reluctant to take on board the views specifically of those who most need to access and use the census data as opposed to other people who understand and may have given evidence to you of whom we are not fully aware at this point sorry we are hearing from a whole range of users of data providers and we are trying to respond to that variety of views, that range of views not variety, that range of views sorry to interrupt you, you've actually explained that to the convener but there doesn't seem to be we don't seem to know who these other people are on the other side of the argument we know there are your 80 academics who've suggested that the approach has been taken because not appropriate one but we're not really getting any hard information as to who these the people are who have a different perspective on that, you know we're hearing views but not who has put these views forward specifically there's been representation in the press you've seen representation from other academics now there are different views on who, not different views there are views as to who should most speak about these issues we hear from all different stakeholders data providers, data users our job is to put in place a census that people can respond to and the purpose of guidance allows people to respond to that question and data users to understand the basis of it that is what the census is there I absolutely recognise and fully appreciate there are different views these discussions will continue beyond the census they will continue into social surveys they will continue into other work going forward there are different views we have to put a census in the field in March 21 and this is our recommendation on how best to do that okay, thank you and Mike Rumbles I want to focus specifically on what I think the intention is to get more people the census I've been a bit confused as to what the line of questioning has so far because I thought that's what we're here to do to make sure that the census is completed accurately by as many people as possible and it's interesting in your answer to Annabelle Ewing that you said all the questions of self identification because at the end of the day it's the individual that is completing the census that has to fill it in that's the right thing to do so your objective if I'm not mistaken is to get as many people to fill this in as accurately as possible so in your report to us you said on the same page 30 that Kenneth Gibson referred to in the second paragraph it said there was a 0.8% non-response rate for the sex question in 2011 so am I right in assuming that the guidance that you're providing now for the census is to try to bring that down from 0.8% even less and you feel that that's the appropriate way to proceed is that correct? That's correct the way to get the best quality data from a census across all the questions is to have all the people answer all of the questions so a primary aim is to maximise the response by households and individuals to the census I understand why Donald I think because it's the guidance that seems to be causing the controversy if you remove the guidance would you get a better response rate but what you're trying to say to us as I'm listening to your responses to other members of the committee is that you want the guidance to be there because you feel that it will promote more accurate and a higher response rate is that right? Thank you very much Ross Greer To stick with the points around testing I'm interested in the general population test and the test with the specific group or subgroup of trans identifying people Can I ask if those who identified as trans in the general population test answered the questions in any significantly different way from the self-selecting trans group I accept obviously in a general population group of 2,000 the trans sub-sample from that is going to be very small and there are questions around statistical significance but I'd be interested if there were any differences or if the trans sub-sample of the general population group were essentially answering and responding in the same way as the trans people in the trans-specific group I'm not aware that there was any difference but what I can do is to come back with a specific answer to that but I think that you are right that the initial point is that the number of people who are going to be in the general population survey who are saying that have a trans is going to be very, very small but what we can do is we can check that I'm not sorry that I'm not I think that that would be useful and it might address some of the concerns that have been raised and obviously one of those groups being a random sample and the other group being a self-selecting group it seems that they were responding in the same way I think that would be useful in addressing that concern Just to move on to the guidance I apologise if I missed this in the papers that have already been sent Could you explain in the guidance when you were testing a question based on legal sex guidance how it was explained what legal sex was Obviously you can be in a situation where your birth certificate and your passport can give different sex but you don't want to change your passport and they're both legal documents there's not a single legal definition of sex so be interested in how in terms of the testing you were explaining to people how do you answer on the basis of legal sex So on the final page 101 of the Scott's End report the guidance is set out there so that is all of the information that the respondents got so I don't know if it's useful for me to read it out I suspect not If you've mentioned it I suppose Just for the sake of putting on the record given your reference So it does say how do I answer this question The answer you provide should be the same as your birth certificate If you have a gender recognition certificate you may record your recognised legal sex and then there's some other stuff about the trans status question So that is again that is a bit of guidance that came out of the same conversations with stakeholders that we developed the self identified guidance as well we developed all of this guidance at the same time with all of those stakeholders this was an agreed set of guidance that we went forward with Thank you Are you aware of any testing on the same questions by the ONS and NISRA and how that compares with your testing So to my knowledge they haven't done this they haven't done the testing that we've recently completed they do a range of testing across a range of questions but as far as I'm aware this is a fairly unique piece of testing in the UK but also internationally Sorry It would probably be useful given that they've come to the same conclusions as yourself around how to go about asking these questions it would be interesting to look at the research they've done perhaps something we can ask the SPICE here in Parliament Moving to the sexual orientation question I'm interested in my presumption for why there is this autocomplete feature for the other response is around data consistency and I'm wondering if this has been brought in on the basis of inconsistency when questions have previously been asked that have had an open text box so I'm going a little bit more around why that's the case am I even correct in presuming that this is about consistency and responses or is it about something else? Your consistency is definitely part of it so it's a piece of functionality we have on the digital platform across nearly all of the questions that have a right in there's a range of reasons why we have it one is because we live in a digital world now and we're used to completing forms digitally whether that be insurance, passport applications, shopping, booking your holiday it's a reasonably standard feature so from the respondent side it makes it easier for them to answer very importantly from the NRS side it means that we have consistent data that we can code at the point that we collect it that introduces enormous efficiencies into all of the processes of how we deal, gather and process the census data in order to allow us to hit the output key output timelines that we've put out publicly so it speeds out the entire process so in terms of consistency it's not what response people might put in because most of the writings also have the option to have free text you can type in anything you want it is simply about cleaning up data at the point that it's being entered so that we don't have to go back and check some of that stuff later it removes spelling areas abbreviations all of that type of stuff which is from our perspective it's those efficiencies in the system which have the biggest impact but there is obviously the bit about improving the experience for the respondents answer rather than understand just in a way that they're familiar with doing that's useful thanks and finally sorry just to jump back to the sex question but I'd noted something and then forgot to ask about it we've mentioned before the pre-2011 way the sex question was asked without guidance and the assumption that people were essentially answering on the basis of self-id has any research been done around that either by yourselves or by comparative agencies or by working under the same circumstances have they or anyone else done research to understand how people in the previous system where there was no guidance were understanding that question not explicit research what will have happened during the discussions into the 2011 is that guidance was requested and ONS and ourselves took the position that this is how the question is being answered and is being asked and made that guidance on that basis but no we haven't gone back to ask people in say in 1991 how did you answer that question that that wasn't done at that time because they're saying that before the vast majority of people across the country understand the question how they wish to respond to it I've got questions on related issues but I'm presuming for pressures of time I'll just write to you with them Does anyone else have questions about this particular area Alexander? I just want to thank you we've talked about today the whole purpose behind this is to get good quality outputs and you've identified through some of the testing that you've done that when it comes to the whole idea of testing that as it says the few people in the general public read the guidance before answering questions and that included the sex question so the guidance that you have is there to support individuals to try and get the best accurate answer from them at that time so that's a lesson that you've learned and that's continually being learned from dealing with this process can I ask what other lessons you've learned in going through the testing and you're about to do rehearsals so that there's going to be a public awareness campaign in amongst all of this because this becomes quite crucial to ensure that if you want people to engage and it's a different way of testing it's a different way of census because it's going to be more electronic than it's been in the past so that gives you some barriers as to what might take place or not so as I say can I ask what lessons you're learning and how they will impact in the campaign that follows on from this thank you very much I'll ask others to come in so we've done the rehearsal as you noted and what that has allowed us to do by drawing on I think we went to 70 odd thousand households and got a fairly good response actually to what is a sort of testing voluntary scenario that has told us about how the systems work can we put a question online can people get a paper question can they phone up the control centre and get advice all of that learning is being drawn together and we will be producing reports I think it's in March and beyond that learning that is feeding into the discussions that we have within NRS with our programme board and our executive management board and we've got all of that learning that also tells us about individual bits of questions was our coding right did it work functionally so we have all of that and that is essentially the purpose of rehearsal what we also are doing and this is one of the great benefits of us being able to talk to our colleagues internationally and also in the rest of the UK we learn from what they're doing and the best approaches that were taken in Northern Ireland to send out a paper form to certain groups in the population initially how did that help with response rates how does sending a postcard in advance to say you're going to get a form how did that help how did certain field force use that we didn't do in Scotland in our rehearsal how did that make a difference to how people engage with the sensors so we will pick all of that up as well so we have our engagement approach where we have consultants coming in helping us to think about that thinking about how how should we position television campaigns media campaigns influencers in society to engage people at a local level community groups and others who are already engaged in communities groups that help people who may need additional support in order to respond to the sensors all of this has to all come together over the next year so that when we go out in March that we have that looked essentially that we have made the best of our learning, we've made the best of our rehearsal, we've made the best of what others are doing so that we are doing better than we might have done and it's an iterative process because whatever we do in the future we'll learn from that as well that there are sections of the community that may require support, may require assistance it's important that once again that you engage with them because what we don't want to see is that individuals are turned off in some way and we've found through some of this process in the sex question and other things that have happened that some individuals and organisations have made some strong views and opinions about what's taking place and that has upset them in some way and they're not going to respond or they're as we've heard there could be some individuals who boycott the whole process because they're not happy about how that's happening but at the end of the day you need to manage that you need to manage that successfully and you need to manage that so that we get the quality that you want from that and it's how you achieve that that's vitally important so there is still a lot of work to do in reality over the next few months to get to possibly that outcome Absolutely and we are really focused as NRS to having those engagements and helping people provide their time to enable their answers to these questions meet the needs of data users so there will be a big campaign around the benefits of the sensors which move beyond individual questions but to service provision allocation and resources everything from how we understand Barnett's allocation through to what might happen within a local authority so absolutely I take your guidance on that That's very helpful Okay, thanks very much Stuart McMillan Just a brief question First of all, has any sensors ever had a 100% response? Not that I'm aware of now I mean I would imagine so but I thought about that because certainly on page 29 the final paragraph of your report respond simply from some question from colleagues earlier and the sentence of the NRS are aware that some non-binary respondents do not feel they are able to respond to a binary female this female male question honestly and this may have an impact on the sensors response for this group of respondents So in terms of the work that you still have to undertake to encourage people to complete the census when it arrives but to also engage with more people Have you given any further thoughts in terms of what you plan to do to actually achieve that and obtain that or are you still in a process of actually trying to work out what you have to do to get to that point of getting more people to feel comfortable to actually fulfil and complete the census when it arrives In specifics we are still working through what we need to do but it is part of the work that we now need to do over the coming year to engage with all groups across society to help them understand the purpose of the census and the benefit of it In a sense as we talked about earlier what we have done for 2021 is quite different to 2011 We have had this open discussion this informal scrutiny of our approach in a way that has never happened before and that has been hugely helpful in helping to draw out different views different understandings and helps us to put a census in the field that we think best enables that data to be gathered once we get to a situation where Parliament is able to agree the order and the regulations we are then very much into a process of saying this is the considered view of Parliament about how we do the census then we must work with everybody across the whole of Scotland to feel that it is something valid and relevant to them so we will be working hard to ensure that and where there will be views where people are still concerned we will do our absolute level best to help them feel that this is an important thing for them to contribute to I can certainly come back to a question that Mike Rumbles posed earlier regarding the 0.8 per cent that is on page 30 of your paper obviously the 0.8 per cent who didn't respond in 2011 it might not sound like a huge figure but when it comes to planning of research but also planning for the version of finance and resources going forward it cannot have an effect upon those outcomes so the work that you do have to undertake going forward in a fairly short space of time now is very immense and if you do want to get that 0.8 per cent figure down and I'm quite sure that all of us in the committee want that figure to decrease then there's a huge amount of work that people are undertaking it is and just one final question goes back to the question that Ross Greer posed regarding the versions of the online survey there appears to have been multiple versions of the trans and non-binary survey that Joel Morton commented on and I'm keen to get further information on this, particularly the wording and the guidance is different depending on the version there was one sex question with two versions of guidance so everybody, no matter how they came into the survey, was asked that same set of questions about the sex and the guidance and the acceptability because we had to recruit in a different way to ensure that we had response, a sample size from the trans community that was large enough to allow analysis there was slightly different questions at the start for that group but all the analysis that's been presented all of the same all of the participants, no matter how they were recruited were faced with those same questions and the same sets of guidance and that bit of the survey was presented in the same way is that what you're asking me I'm not sure if I've answered your question it was to just try and understand why there were the various versions and also why the text in each version was obviously slightly different except obviously we're going to have different versions so the text is going to be different but just to try and understand why the wording was chosen what about the guidance the wording and the guidance there was two we were specifically trying to test if you have sort of replicating census conditions where you faced with a question and if you choose you could go and get some question help on that there was the version of the help for the sex question that was based on self-identified sex which says you can answer this how you feel there was a separate version which was very much around legal sex and you must answer with what's on your birth certificate everybody got those two pieces of guidance now that was randomised how they got it so because we were to make sure the order didn't influence anything so that was randomised but everybody saw all of those sets of guidance and that same set of guidance and that same wording the wording that we used was derived out of the engagement with the stakeholders a wide range of stakeholders and we sat round in a room and agreed the guidance that everybody who was present and not present had a view on and contributed to that was a consensus agreement that would be appropriate guidance to use but just to stress and maybe this is my misunderstanding and I apologise if it is everybody saw the same question and the same versions of the guidance there was no difference on who you were or how you were recruited ok that's helpful thank you ok thank you very much if I could just have a quick supplementary to the line of questioning by Ross Greer on the predictive texting around the sexual orientation question now you do address this in your submission to the committee and you point out the predictive the predictive answers to some questions are based on very well established surveys for example occupations and so on which is totally non-controversial but with the sexual orientation question again you used stakeholders and some of the terms are not familiar at all to most people including most people many people in that community and you'll be aware of the response to that you do indicate in your submission to the committee that you have still not made final decision on that will you consider the submission made to the committee by the LGBT Alliance where they say that they are concerned well two main concerns is that sexual orientation as defined in the equality act seeks to be undermined and trivialised is their view and they also make the point that in answering say for example some of the predictive texting if you answered demisexual you wouldn't discover whether the person was gay or straight or bisexual they could be any of those things so you wouldn't actually get that particular information is that something that you are you going to consider their views because they were obviously submitted to the committee after this row broke out if you like I mean the guidance is not sorry all the guidance and all the predictor lists are all not all fixed absolutely the case where we are on the sexual orientation question at this moment is that those four categories of straight heterosexual gay lesbian and bisexual are well regarded questions that are asked up and down this country and elsewhere in our social surveys and work well so the four categories because I think LGBT Alliance if I'm right they were pushing one of their arguments is the other category basically there's no controversy about the categories you know they are defined in the equality act and we wrote to you as a committee about that is the suggestion that there are other sexual orientations which obviously that's a disputed issue absolutely their voice has been heard those categories are what has been well tested when we are into the predictive lists what just for if you can just indulge me for a minute on this how people engage with those predictive lists is if you are getting the form on paper so this comes to you you write in what you want if you decide that the first three categories are not the ones that you want to tick you go to other and you write in what you write that's the way it is and that will be fine and for anyone who goes to the paper form that's what they will write if you go online and we expect vast majority of people to go online and you decide that the first three boxes is not where you want to put your tick and you go to other you will start typing in the term that you wish to use what we have heard from from stakeholders and people who have expressed a view on this is that there are certain terms that people are likely to use therefore for practical terms and terms of processing to enable us to as Gillard spoke about before to quickly analyse and process that data to enable us to publish the first results in March 22 predictive tests help us to do that these are not the NRS's terms these are not things that we have come up to on our own these are terms that groups who represent and advocate for people who are likely to be in that category which is going to be it's a small it's a fraction I don't want to put a percentage in there that does really answer the question that I'm putting we are considering predictive tests we are still considering what should go in there but as I say the basis of it is not for us to put in terms that we have decided but to help us process those returns that people who wish to go into that other box and tick that box are likely to use so this is a processing and functioning approach nothing else and that's the same for all the other predictive lists people object the terms and the census is obviously our most important data gathering exercise it has status absolutely does by having those terms in the system there are clearly some people that feel that they are unhelpful and damaging so if you could just take that okay I think we shall now move on to other areas of the census that have concerns amongst committee members and I'll go to Mike Rumbles first thank you very much convener and what concerns me is not more than what we have been discussing is the ethnicity questions and I raised this in the last session that came along and I pointed out that in question 17 and 18 of the order on the ethnic group question in question 18 you mix up geography and colour now understand why you do that because what you're trying to do is get the best result you want to get as accurate a result from as many people as possible and people will answer it in different ways so I understand why it would appear inconsistent I understand that on the previous question 17 about national identity I'm perfectly happy with that national identity question it's really good as regards national identity are you Scottish, English, Northern Irish, Welsh, British or another please say so that's perfect because you'll get an accurate response from that I only tested this how I would fill this in and I go to question 18 on ethnicity and I'm confused I don't know how to answer question 18 because it says as regards ethnic group whether white and if so whether British or are you other British well I'm Scottish and British so I'm not going to answer Scottish because I consider them British the reason I ask is that on your other questions in the same paragraph you say if you're Asian you can answer Asian, Scottish Asian or British Asian if you're African you can have African or British African if you're Arab you can have Arab or Scottish Arab or British Arab you can't do it in my ethnicity so I don't know how I don't know how to answer that question and I'm only raising this issue because is the information that you're going to get back from people who fill this in like me going to be inaccurate the whole question of ethnicity and national identity and how those interrelate as you say as complicated and is a sensitive issue and it's something that has been evolving from our perspective for a number of decades and continues to evolve so there are different views about how one ought to ask questions when the complexity of how we understand our ethnicity and our national identity and all of the interrelated aspects of this those continue to evolve so absolutely we recognise that what we have with this question is something that has been broadly developed is part of our week in week out social surveys that are asked in our population surveys up and down the country and the response from those is that there is a large understanding and acceptance that people know how to answer that question I'm not saying that every person knows but what we have there is something that is well tested there has been some discussions and these will continue over the next few months and years and beyond that about how certain wording and phrases might change so for example I think in the past you mentioned the section that says Scottish Asian has been seen to be enabling people to respond to that question as I say in the social surveys that run week in week out people can respond to this there is another writing box so if the tick boxes that are there are not something that people feel fully represents what they want to put they can write in into the other and that will also be in the predictive one I'm very sympathetic to what you're saying I'm just trying to make sure that that's right and what I find disappointing I can say I think you did a good job I may say overall but what I slightly feel isn't as good as it could be as I said on paragraph 17 you've got it absolutely right because you're giving all the options and may I make a suggestion people like me would be happy if you were able to replicate that in the next question on ethnicity when he says are you Scottish or other British that implies either English or Welsh and so that's of course the confusion and I think myself I'm not particularly unusual and I think you might get a lot of people in the same position who then say well do I write that in at the bottom as British it would be much better to say as you have in the previous question if you're white are you Scottish English, Welsh, British and then continue the list that would solve the problem it's to get you to get the best and most accurate information possible and after all that's what we're trying to do isn't it absolutely so, thanks for your advice on that we as I say the question as we have tested and as used week in week out does work what we need we can think about is how we can put guidance perhaps around this to help point people to that and we know that in the predictive text for that bit that British is is in there I don't think I'm unusual I'm very happy that you've raised that and we will look at that but what I would say is that the question as we understand it at this point in time does function absolutely it is so thank you very much okay thanks very much Donald Cameron just a very quick follow up to that because it's on the same subject on 17 I appreciate this is the order not the actual census but on 17 national identity is a respondent able to answer to two of those can you select the order to reply okay thank you thanks very much Ross Greer so I've raised two issues previously so the questions around essentially echoing what the association of seeks in Scotland to raise and their concerns are covered and your response to their concerns are covered in the written submission that you've made to the committee I was just wondering about further clarification around the concern I raised with regard to how Muslims are asked to answer so that was for the first time Muslims were being asked to identify their denomination if that's the right phrase but I had some concerns around how clear it was that that's what was being asked and how much further work you've done on that yes following the last session we have engaged with stakeholders with an interest in the data that we gather on Muslim we have I think just about agreed a set of wording there which more reflects what I understand you were posing to us rather than just to please write in to specify that we're asking for a denomination or schools so yes that work is in hand and we're anticipating that that will come forward and again looking to your written submission where you're considering what the potential other responses are so Christian you've got 49 suggestions in terms of denominations in churches Muslim it's two suggestions that you might have to presume that at the moment that is Sunion Sheeacht that's correct it's a slightly more complicated section that one and there's a number of ways that we could have taken that which all lead to different complications so certainly for rehearsal that was the decision that was made was to keep it at that level and largely because that's the user need that's been identified to us however it is a free text people can type in anything that they choose to as long as it's clear that that's what's being asked I'm sure it'll be a very small number of people but the community of Muslims in Scotland who are not Sunion Sheeacht as long as it's clear what's being asked they should be able to respond on the same area it's in the order so it's section 18 just in terms of the other Asian Scottish Asian British Asian and also the African section D will there be a free text option for people to write in yes both of those are free text okay thank you okay thanks very much what are your plans with regards to the Sikh Federation because in your submission you said that there had been a judicial review which they had lost but understand from media coverage that they are still saying that they intend to appeal is that something that you're keeping a watching eye on it is we are talking with our colleagues in ONS who are closer to this because the appeal if there is an appeal will be to the English court so we are yes it's a short answer as we are keeping an eye on developments in that area right okay thank you very much okay just to finish up I just wanted to go back to this issue we asked a number of members asked with regards to who the data users were that had asked you for self ID guidance and you said you didn't want to name names it might help are you talking about the submission to the committee on the 20th of September from a number I think it was 50 academics that wrote in support of self ID guidance is that the academics that you're referring to if that was the one with I think if there was 50 signatories to that that is one of the groups of people who have expressed we know that there's lots of stakeholders and campaigners on behalf of the particular community respondents who have lobbied you but that's a different thing from data users so if we're talking about data users that you have responded to is it those academics on the 20th of September that is that the one you're referring to we can come back on I mean if you're asking for full details on all the academics who have been in touch with us we can come back to you on that there was it's not just academics though it's actual data users independent researchers and this is why we want either a biological sex question a legal sex question or a self ID sex question clearly you have been swayed you have said by data users who favour self identification so you weren't able to tell us who they were and I'm suggesting is it the 20th of September letter are some of the people who have expressed a need for that but in contrast to the letter by Professor Alex Sullivan which is very senior mainly professors who are social researchers, economic researchers that 20th of September letter is not so senior people and it doesn't say in most cases what their expertise is but I've looked up some of them and I'm not going to name them because that wouldn't be fair but they include professors of medieval literature or researchers into medieval literature materials, chemistry computer studies that sort of thing is it fair to give weight to that group who are not actually data users they're just academics who feel strongly about this as opposed to Professor Sullivan's group who are 80 very very senior researchers, economic researchers people interested in experts in medical sociology and people like Professor McVeigh who actually sits on the Government's advisory group on statistics I'm just confused as to why you're favouring this other group who don't have that expertise I don't the idea that we are judging and therefore finding certain voices I don't necessarily hold what we are doing is saying this is how the question has been asked, this is how guidance has been used and we are clarifying that and there is a need for guidance some of this discussion that is happening which is hugely helpful as part of this scrutiny process is pulling out where people have made an assumption about how questions may have been asked in the past so clarification of how that question is being asked and the need for guidance is helpful we know that other data users be that in the health system or elsewhere see the use of the information in their context and know that they will use other information as will many academics so a number of the people who were part of that group of 80 were using other sources of operational and management information in order to do the very important work that they do and what we are clear from the advice we have been given by some of the people that you have just mentioned is that it is critical that the guidance is clear where we are using guidance so that data users can understand the basis on which they then use data but there is the census is a certain tool of things there is a vast amount of administrative and other social data that others gather and they use that for all sorts of other purposes these are all part of adding to the wealth of knowledge I do not think that we are going to get any further on that finally and this really is you said earlier that the sex question has always been a self identified response you said that in the committee earlier would your view be that back in 1921 that the sex question was a self-idead response what I said is that if I am clear on this is that people respond to that question in the way that they feel best reflects the way they wish to answer that question therefore self identification becomes our sense of people are answering that when you look across the whole population it's just that back in 1921 a 25 year old woman answering that question didn't have the right to vote and it didn't matter if she identified as a man she still wouldn't have the right to vote so sex is important it's not something that you can erase simply by changing your gender identity would you agree with that? I'm not sure what you're asking me to debate now I'm trying to talk about the census and putting a credible product into the public domain so that people up and down this country can engage in it thank you very much for coming to give evidence to us today we're now suspend briefly we're now suspend briefly the next item on the agenda is written by annual updates from the Scottish Government in relation to a range of EU issues members have a copy of the updates in the meeting paper so do any members have any questions or issues that they wish to raise Annabelle Ewing? I had to look through the papers a few points one, obviously, there have been developments with Erasmus this week in the House of Commons and I think that we need to get further information about that because by all accounts it's very worrying indeed the upshot of that secondly is a view of post horizon I know that the Scottish Government is seeking clarity from the UK Government and I'm not quite sure what the role for the committee would be at this point but obviously that's huge implications and lastly I note that the Government actually had launched established a steering group on post structural funds and there's a consultation out at the moment with a view to there being a report in the spring but apparently spring is the civil service so it's just to have a watch out for that because I think that it would be useful then to get Ivan McKee in a bit later on in that process to hear what the steering group are suggesting to the consultation that's all I have to say Thank you Annabelle, Kenneth On the way to December 2018 in response to a question in the comments from Patricia Gibson at the MP the Prime Minister of the day Theresa May said that an announcement before Christmas that's 13 months later there's still not been any progress on that that I'm aware of and as we can see from the letter from Ivan McKee ESF programme is placed in full suspension on 15 November so I think that as a committee we would want to press the UK government to get some detail on that and what the implications are and whether or not the funds that are being lost they've been saying for over a year that they would but we don't have anything in hard evidence that has seemed to be a new financial commitment that we can see at this point in time to do that Thank you very much Stuart McMillan Thanks convener, just following on from Annabelle Ewing point regarding the Erasmus certainly the developments in the House of Commons yesterday are deeply worrying and also our committee has previously undertaken work regarding the Erasmus Plus and up on record again is someone who actually has benefited from studying through an Erasmus scheme and also European social fund I know how beneficial it actually is this is a public session I genuinely believe that it would be very useful for us to actually write to both the Scottish government and also to the UK government on the back of these developments and again any further information or any further guidance from them regarding what may or may not come in a post Brexit situation without as we currently have on Erasmus scheme Ross Greer I agree with everything that's been said so far particularly Stuart McMillan's point about writing to both Governments there's very little more that the Scottish Government can inform us than what they already have so little information I know if we ask a Scottish Government Minister to appear before us I'm sure they will but clearly we need far more information from the UK Government than they've been providing thus far either to ourselves or to the Scottish Government I think we should ask UK ministers to appear before the committee getting written information from them is one thing we should ask them to appear before the committee I say that accepting the very low response rate requests from the UK Government to appear before us but we should make that request and we should make it on the record because anything short of that we are simply not going to receive the information that we require Thank you Michael Rumbles I'm just looking at some of the statistics in the reports before us what struck me is a remarkable decline in French and German modern language teachers in our secondary schools has been compensated by an increase in Spanish and other European languages but French and German are major trading partners and major nations in the EU and I wondered if we could get an explanation as to what the is the Scottish Government concerned about this and if it is what it's doing about it I know that there were other modern languages as well as Spanish which were not named and had increased as well That was an interesting point Any other points? Michael Rumbles point in the letter from John Swinney he also talks about the survey that was done he says that the survey indicates that it's 70 per cent of secondary schools who are given the full one plus two languages delivery it's just to confirm that we will as a committee receive a copy of the said that the results have been analysed where we receive a full copy of I think that I'll give us more detail on what languages have been offered and the extent and where the geographical focus is Okay, thanks I follow in from what Ross has said and I completely agree with him we're all well aware that the UK Government are less enthusiastic about sending UK ministers but more about the Scotland office if the UK ministers themselves are not willing to come and surely send a proxy from the Scotland office to this committee Thank you for that, Ross Greer Thanks, and just briefly following up the points that Mike raised around modern languages the education committee are doing some work related to this, it's part of wider work on the senior phase so if we were to write to the education committee which I also set on if we were to write to the education committee and ask that some of the specific questions that have been raised here are taken up as part of the air inquiry I was going to suggest that so thanks, excellent Any other points? I think that what we have raised particularly the work that we did in Erasmus was of a very high quality and I think that it's important that we keep on top of that and I'll just draw attention as well to the letter from Mr Lockhead about horizon 2020 which is like the guarantees offered by the UK Government only go so far and it mentions that parts of horizon 2020 are unlikely to be open to the UK as an unassociated third country and mentioned significant loss of income to research organisations in Scotland depending on the Brexit date so I would be keen to the first thing I was going to do was suggest that the points that we have raised here we raised with Scottish ministers perhaps in a letter from myself and the deputy convener to sign off that covers all these points but also I'm getting from members that they would also like us to raise some of these issues with the UK Government decision makers on many of these matters so we'll do something similar with that regard we can now move into private session thank you very much