NATS ministers spent a “senseless” £25,000 promoting their botched 2022 census on TikTok, it has emerged.
The five-figure sum was paid to the Chinese-owned social media platform in an effort to boost the crisis-hit survey.
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But the ads targeting under-35s failed to prevent Scotland having a completion rate of just 89.8 per cent.
This is compared with 97 per cent for the 2021 census in the rest of the UK.
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “The SNP’s census just keeps getting more and more senseless.
“It is farcical the Government spent tens of thousands on an app that didn’t even seem to reach its target audience.”
A freedom of information request revealed the £24,992 bill.
TikTok was banned from all Scottish and UK Government devices last year.
This was over fears Chinese officials were using the video-sharing site to spy on personal data.
On the census, a spokesman for Scottish Government agency National Records of Scotland said: “A multi-faceted promotional campaign was developed to reach as high a proportion of the population as possible.”
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