A changing Scotland: How we are supporting people
Our work is guided by wider government strategies and priorities and the needs of our customers. This ensures we can continue to meet our statutory responsibilities, deliver high quality services and play a central role in the Scottish Government’s commitment to opportunity, wellbeing, fairness and sustainability.
We contribute to a number of the outcomes in the Scottish Government’s National Performance Framework, including upholding democratic rights and participation, access to justice, cultural enrichment, and celebrating the vibrancy and diversity of our nation and its people.
Our statistics directly support the Scottish Government’s four strategic priorities to end child poverty, grow the economy, tackle climate change and deliver sustainable public services. With unique insights into ethnicity, religion, education, housing, the labour market, veterans, sexual orientation and trans status, no other survey matches the depth and reach of Scotland’s census.
Our strategy demonstrates our commitment to the Scottish Government’s Public Service Reform Strategy, setting out an ambitious programme to transform and modernise our services to deliver more efficiently for our customers and become more sustainable as an organisation.
We contribute to Scotland’s net zero goals through sustainable estate management and digital infrastructure, supporting targets set out in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2019.
Our customers want choice in how they access our services, including in-person, online and remotely. Our strategy sets out how we will meet these needs by providing accessible services, modernising our digital systems, expanding access to data, and personalising support. Our work supports the Digital Strategy for Scotland and is guided by the Digital Scotland Service Standard to ensure it is user-focused, consistent, effective and accessible.
In our annual customer survey, customers told us that they would value a formal customer forum to engage with us. We recently established a Customer Advisory Panel to give our customers the opportunity to get involved in planning our services and decision making at a strategic level.
Through the Open Government Partnership, we promote transparency, accountability and participation through public access to records, providing evidential requirements for public inquiries and access to justice. Under the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011, the Keeper agrees Records Management Plans submitted by over 250 public authorities.
Under the Public Sector Equality Duty we have a responsibility to eliminate discrimination, advance equality and foster good relations. These duties inform our workforce policies, service delivery, outreach and engagement activities, ensuring fairness and inclusion is embedded in everything we do.
Our impact
Using our civil registration data, we deliver vital insights into Scotland’s changing population, tracking shifts in size, structure, life expectancy, mortality, and household trends that reflect how we live today. We publish over 25 high-quality statistical publications on our website every year.
The data we published from the 2022 census saw more than a billion statistics made available through innovative and accessible tools.
Our statutory registration services uphold civic rights, with an entry in the birth register supporting access to benefits, a passport, GP and school registration. Birth registration is also critical for establishing parental rights and responsibilities, and citizenship rights for other countries.
Since 2022 we have responded to 2,083 requests for information from people seeking evidence to make a claim under Scotland’s Redress Scheme.
Since autumn 2023, we have operated a Memorial Book of Pregnancy and Baby Loss Prior to 24 Weeks, for those who want to commemorate their loss.
Our Scotland’s People service has a global reach of 1.3 million customers, helping people access information and records.
In 2024-25 we hosted nearly 5000 visits to our historical search room with over 15,000 physical items produced.
In 2024-25 we spoke at events and engaged with approximately 2,500 archive professionals.
