Scottish Government

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction

1. Scotland's elected members have not historically been representative of the communities they serve for a variety of complex reasons. A number of commissions and groups have looked at this issue in recent years, all underpinned by the assumption that the widest possible range of people should be encouraged to serve as councillors to ensure that councils are representative of the communities they serve.

2. The Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004 provided for a number of initiatives designed to improve democratic participation and widen the range of people who become involved in local government, including the introduction of the single transferable vote ( STV), new remuneration arrangements for councillors, a one-off severance scheme for councillors choosing to stand down at the 2007 election, and the lowering of the minimum age for candidates from 21 to 18 years old.

3. Alongside this, in 2005, the report of the widening access to council membership progress group set out action points and headline recommendations for how the widening access agenda can be taken forward, highlighting the need for multilateral action across a diverse range of bodies from local authorities to the Scottish Trades Union Congress and schools, as well as the Scottish Government.

4. Surveys of local government candidates, both those that were elected and those that were unsuccessful, were undertaken following the 2007 elections by Improvement Service and Scottish Government respectively, with support and advice from COSLA. They repeated surveys undertaken following the 2003 elections, on that occasion by COSLA and the then Scottish Executive respectively, and presented an opportunity to explore, among other things, the early impact of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act and other initiatives on how representative local government candidates are of the wider Scottish population.

5. The report summarised here presents the findings of the survey of unsuccessful candidates. The Improvement Service is publishing the findings of the elected members survey separately ¹, although they are drawn upon throughout this report where it is appropriate to make comparisons between successful and unsuccessful candidates and/or to present a picture of how representative all candidates are of the Scottish population. An extended summary of the findings of both surveys has also been published and is available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/.

Aims

6. The overall aims of the research were to gather evidence to inform the Scottish Government's understanding of: the impacts of reforms introduced following the 2003 elections that were intended to widen access to council membership; and, candidates' experiences of standing for election, with a view to informing preparations for future elections and any further policy development in this area as appropriate.

Method and Response

7. A questionnaire was developed in consultation with the Improvement Service and COSLA during April and May 2007. It was designed to be compatible as far as possible with the elected members survey questionnaire, with the 2003 questionnaires and with other Government surveys in order to facilitate comparisons between unsuccessful candidates and elected members (both in 2007 and since 2003) and between all candidates and the wider Scottish population.

8. All 1,384 candidates who stood at the 2007 local government elections but were unsuccessful were sent a paper copy of the questionnaire with a prepaid envelope for return and an option to complete it online should they prefer.

9. The responses were entered into an electronic database by Lindata Services Ltd and the analysis was conducted by Scottish Government researchers.

10. Bochel & Denver produced results and statistics on the 2007 Scottish local government elections, as they have done for many previous elections. Their data on the number, affiliation and gender (from analysis of names) of candidates who stood in 2007 have been used to supplement the related findings from this survey as appropriate.

11. A total of 804 responses were received, representing a response rate of 58.1%. The response rate for the elected member survey was 61.8%.

Findings

12. The main findings from this research were as follows.

Who Stands for Election?

• While the number of councillors elected under the new proportional system in 2007 remained the same as under first-past-the-post in 2003 at 1,222, the number of candidates standing for election fell by almost 40% from 4,195 in 2003 to 2,606 in 2007. This has been attributed to the tactic, principally within the larger parties, of fielding fewer candidates to avoid first preference votes being split among too many candidates (Bochel & Denver, 2007). By contrast smaller parties tended to field a larger number of candidates in 2007, anticipating a greater chance of success under STV than under the old first-past-the-post system.
• Of unsuccessful candidates, 54% had sought election previously and 27% had previously served as a councillor. Councillors were considerably more likely to have served as councillors in the past. The number of new faces elected to Scotland's councils, however, was substantially increased from previous years. In 2003 three quarters (76%) of incumbents were re-elected to their seats, whereas in 2007 this had dropped to half (51%)(Bochel & Denver 2007, p.10).
• The proportion of candidates who were female fell between 2003 and 2007, although the proportion elected was virtually unchanged at 21.6% (down from 21.8%). As with the reduction in the overall number of candidates, this trend was most evident among the larger parties. Bochel & Denver (2007) propose two explanations for this: either, in reducing the number of candidates that larger parties put forward, women lost out; or that women were previously more likely to stand as 'paper candidates', i.e. in unwinnable wards and, because under STV there is less need for such candidates, fewer women stood.
• Local government candidates tend to be older than the general population. In 2007 only 10% of unsuccessful candidates and 5% of councillors were aged 18-34 compared to 27% of Scotland's adults. Conversely, 60% of unsuccessful candidates and 68% of councillors were aged between 45-64 compared to only 33% of the adult population. The average age of unsuccessful candidates rose slightly between 2003 and 2007 from 51 years to 52.5. Over the same period the average age of councillors fell slightly from 55 to 54, although new councillors were, on average, five years younger than their re-elected counterparts (52 and 57 years respectively).
• Taking the findings on gender and age alongside the findings on the number of 'new faces' on Scotland's councils, it appears that, although there has been considerable success in bringing new faces to council membership, these new faces are not substantially different to the old ones in terms of their age or gender; the average councillor continues to be a male in his 50s.
• Of the unsuccessful candidates who indicated their ethnic background, 26 (3.2%) stated that they came from non-white backgrounds. The percentage of non-white councillors among respondents was 2%, which is roughly proportional to the ethnic background of Scotland's population overall.
• Local government candidates tend to be considerably more educated in terms of formal qualifications than the wider population. In 2007 52% of unsuccessful candidates and 47% of councillors held a degree, postgraduate qualification and/or professional qualification compared with 24% of the Scottish population. Among all candidates, females tend to be more educated than their male counterparts.
• Councillors and unsuccessful candidates are more likely to be married or in civil partnerships than the population (73% and 62% compared to 53% respectively). This is likely to be due to the over-representation of people aged 55-64 among unsuccessful candidates and councillors.
• Councillors and unsuccessful candidates are much more likely to own their home than the Scottish population (78% and 88% compared to 65% respectively).
• Around 25% of unsuccessful candidates and 18% of councillors have a long-term health issue. These figures are considerably lower than the 41.5% of the population who are affected by long-term illness, health problem or disability.
• Unsuccessful candidates (but not councillors) are more likely to care for someone who is sick, elderly or disabled than those in the wider Scottish population.
• Only 33% of unsuccessful candidates and 34% of councillors are economically inactive ( e.g. unemployed, retired, in full time education, unable to work through sickness or disability), compared to 48% of the population. Notably, both unsuccessful candidates and councillors are more likely to be self-employed than the wider population.
• The majority of both unsuccessful candidates and councillors work in professional or senior manager/administrator posts. Small proportions of responding unsuccessful candidates and councillors work in routine and semi-routine manual occupations (11% and 8% respectively) compared with 30% of the wider population.
• Local Government candidates are considerably less likely to work in the private sector than the wider population. Forty percent of unsuccessful candidates and 47% of councillors work in the private sector compared with 70% of the Scottish population. It is not clear if working in the public sector encourages people to stand for election, or if people who are likely to stand for election seek out public sector jobs.

Reasons for Standing

• The most common reasons for standing for election selected by both councillors and unsuccessful candidates were 'interest in community' (selected by 75% of unsuccessful candidates and 86% of councillors) and 'to improve services and/or the local area' (selected by 67% of unsuccessful candidates and 80% of councillors).
• It is not clear whether the introduction of salaries for councillors has increased the percentage of candidates and councillors from lower-income groups, but 10% of both unsuccessful candidates and councillors stated that the pay was one factor in their decision to stand ².
• The programme of public information encouraging people to stand influenced the decision of Independent unsuccessful candidates and councillors to seek election more than those from parties. This may have been a result of timing - in some cases the selection of party candidates had been undertaken prior to the public information becoming available.

Experiences of Standing

• Only 4.2% of unsuccessful candidates were very confident of winning the seats, while a further 32% were quite confident. SNP unsuccessful candidates were generally the most confident; Solidarity and SSP unsuccessful candidates the least.
• Among both unsuccessful candidates and councillors, large proportions felt that the position of candidates' names on the ballot papers affected the number of votes they received. This view was more pronounced among candidates standing in wards where their party had put forward more than one candidate, with 84% of unsuccessful candidates and 82% of councillors in this situation stating that it affected the number of votes 'a little' or 'a lot'. Among all unsuccessful candidates and councillors, only 23% and 22% respectively felt that the position of candidates' names on the ballot papers did not affect the number of votes they received at all.
• High percentages of unsuccessful candidates (81%) and councillors (96%) attended the count. Many felt that they had not received enough information regarding the process and/or an adequate explanation of the results. This was particularly the case for more experienced candidates, perhaps due to the changes in the electoral system.
• Despite being unsuccessful, 60% of candidates stated that they will definitely or probably seek election in the future. Female unsuccessful candidates are slightly less likely to intend to stand again than their male counterparts. Unsuccessful candidates from Labour and SNP were more likely to rule out standing again than those from other parties. The survey did not explore respondents' reasons for their responses to this question.

Conclusions

13. The large overall drop in the number of candidates between 2003 and 2007 appears to have blunted the capacity of STV and other measures to bring about significant improvements in the demographic representativeness of candidates on this occasion as parties have grappled with their tactics under the new system. It is perhaps not surprising that with such a drop in the overall number of candidates, there was in fact less room for new faces among candidates in the larger parties than in 2003. Smaller parties did, however, benefit from STV and took the opportunity to field a larger number of candidates under the new proportional system.

14. Despite the slight drop in the proportion of new faces among all candidates, among those who were actually elected there were significantly more new faces, i.e. people who had not served as councillors before, than in 2003. It is likely that, as experience of the new system and awareness of the new arrangements grows, so analysis of patterns in candidature in future elections should yield more insight into the impact of the reforms.

15. It should be noted that the focus of this report is on candidates' demographic representativeness of their communities. The initiatives introduced to improve representativeness necessarily require 'new faces' among candidates and councillors for the demographic profile to change. It is, however, recognised that there is a trade off between the desirability of having 'new faces' and the desirability of having experienced councillors to oversee a period of considerable change in the way Scotland's councils are run and the report does not seek to undermine the importance of the latter.