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News Release

Births, Deaths and Other Vital Events – First Quarter 2011

The Registrar General for Scotland today published provisional figures for births, deaths, marriages and civil partnerships registered during the first quarter of 2011.

The figures show:

• 14,611 births were registered in the first quarter of the year – 58 (0.4 per cent) fewer than in the same period of 2010.
   
• At 3,130, the number of marriages was three fewer than in the first quarter of 2010.
   
• 98 civil partnerships (46 male and 52 female) were registered in the quarter, 36 more than in the first quarter of 2010.
   
• 14,530 deaths were registered in Scotland in the first quarter of 2011 – 1.1 per cent fewer than in the same period of 2010, and the lowest total, in quarter one, for at least 30 years.
   
• Deaths from coronary heart disease fell by 10.4 per cent, while deaths from cancer and stroke rose by 1.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively.

Registrar General for Scotland, Duncan Macniven, said,:

“Today’s figures show that the number of deaths in the first three months of 2011 were slightly lower than in the same period last year – and were at the lowest level in the period from January to March for at least three decades. Although this quarter shows a record low number of deaths, we shouldn’t draw conclusions from that. Death rates fluctuate through the year and quarterly figures aren’t indicative of a trend.”

These are the first death statistics which the National Records of Scotland has published since upgrading its coding software to take account of a number of updates that the World Health Organisation has made to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). The overall scale of change is small: for Scotland as a whole, about 2% of deaths will be given a cause of death code in a different chapter of ICD-10 from the one that would have applied previously. However, the scale varies between causes of death: it represents a larger percentage for some and has very little or no effect on others. Further details are available via
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/theme/vital-events/deaths/bckgr-info/certificates-and-coding-causes/index.html

The full publication Births, Deaths and Other Vital Events - Quarterly Figures is available on this website and includes figures for nhs boards and local authority areas.