Shared Parenting Scotland’s submission to the recent Scottish government consultation on changes to the next census, due in 2031, criticises the misleading presentation of household data in 2022 that misses the lived reality of tens of thousands of children and their parents.

Data on this issue ought to be seen as vital for planning a range of services and giving perspective to future policy development. It is also important for Scotland’s idea of itself.

The National Records Scotland (NRS) briefing issued with the consultation makes an unequivocal claim: “Census statistics provide an accurate picture of Scotland’s population including its size, distribution, and demographics, including age, sex, ethnicity, and household composition.”

Data on shared parenting is not complete, clear or accurate because questions that would reveal it are not put.

An NRS output report on Demography and Migration, derived from the 2022 Census (published August 1, 2024), stated: “Census data on household type allows us to count households containing lone parent families.” Headlines and broadcast news bulletins faithfully picked up the lone parent label.

Brevity should not be at the expense of accuracy

We understand the need for brevity in conveying complex information but that should not be at the expense of accuracy. What the report really meant was that ‘on that date the form was completed in 2022 there was only one adult in the household with dependent children’. The decision to simplify to ‘lone’ parent was careless wording and easily misunderstood in common usage to imply the children have only one parent in their life. The existence and the involvement of another parent was rendered invisible. Uncounted.

Shared Parenting Scotland chief executive, Kevin Kane, said: “This is clearly unsatisfactory. In a Court of Session case published last month, the judge allowed an adoption to proceed even though the parents now lived in different houses after separation. Lady Tait accepted that the child was thriving, living with loving, committed parents, albeit in different houses. But if the Census was held tomorrow one of the parents would be counted as ‘lone’ parent and the other as a single adult, depending on which house the child was spending the night. That’s clearly absurd in the rigorously examined circumstances of the Court of Session decision.

“It is not in any way to undermine the recognition and respect of parents who care for their children with no involvement of the other parent to suggest it is equally unfair as well as inaccurate to write out of the data entirely another parent who is extensively or equally involved in parenting their children.”

Two single parents?

In reality a more accurate term would be that many children in Scotland have two single parents. It may be a challenge to introduce ‘two single parents’ into common usage but it is an important concept for future planning and funding of services that are designed to support children’s wellbeing and aspirations.

Recognising that children may, for example, travel to school from two homes on different days needs a change of attitude within many local authorities that will only be driven by gathering data.

Shared Parenting Scotland uses data to raise awareness among legislators, policy makers and planners of the realities in the lives of children whose parents do not live together and the embedded barriers to full involvement of parents after separation which is the longstanding position of successive Scottish governments.

The current ‘how many adults are in the home with dependent children on census night?’ question is no longer sufficient.