Background to Gypsies/Travellers Counts
This introductory note provides background to the counts.
It is only within the past few years that information on the distribution of Scotland's Gypsy/Traveller community has been collected on a regular basis.
While the Scottish Office's national counts in 1969 and 1992 were consistent in coverage and methodology across Scotland, it became increasingly clear that information generated from regular and consistent counts would be beneficial to all involved in any way with this community and its needs.
In July 1998 the Scottish Executive instituted the new counts on a twice-yearly basis. Since then each Scottish council has been asked to make a return at the end of January and July each year, times when movement is likely to be at its lowest and highest level respectively and hence most representative of this community’s location patterns.
The counts are concerned only with the three groups of Gypsies/Travellers who do not live in houses, ie those living on official council caravan sites; those staying on privately-owned sites; and, thirdly, those who, either of choice or necessity, continue to stop on unauthorised locations.
The counts provide a picture of the presence and level of use of each of each of these categories of stopping place.
The nature of the source data means that more detailed and robust information is available for those Gypsies/Travellers on council sites than for those on private sites or unauthorised locations, particularly in terms of household numbers, structure and movement.
However, for each category of location it allows estimates of numbers of both households and people to be made for each Council area and, in turn, to generate overall numbers for Scotland as a whole.
Although the counts do not cover Gypsies/Travellers settled in houses, it is recognised that some of these may occasionally appear within July counts on privately owned sites or unauthorised locations, if they choose to travel for periods in the summer months.
Information from any one count was seen as important in its own right but, from the outset, it was recognised that its value would increase over time as part of a growing body of regular and consistent information across Scotland. In this way, assessment of change or stability from year to year and between summer and winter seasons would be possible.
The first three years of the counts were managed by the Scottish Executive's Social Research Unit which also prepared reports of the findings. These were made available to councils, voluntary organisations and others working with Gypsies/Travellers.
In the autumn of 2001, the Executive commissioned Research Consultancy Services (RCS) to undertake a review of the first three years of the counts (Research Consultancy Services, The Twice-yearly Count of Travellers in Scotland: The First Three Years, Scottish Executive Central Research Unit, 2001 – link opens in a new window).
RCS was also asked to take on management of the counts and preparation of reports. A new format for the printed and web reports was introduced from January 2002.