Scottish Government

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

Introduction

1.1 This document reports the findings of a survey of candidates who stood for election to local government at the elections in May 2007 but were unsuccessful. The survey was undertaken by the Scottish Government between May and August 2007 and its findings are published alongside those of a survey of successful candidates, i.e. elected members, that was undertaken by the Improvement Service over the same period ³. This report draws on the findings from the latter 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. Comparisons are also made with the findings from similar surveys undertaken in 2003 to analyse changes over time. A separate extended summary pulling together the findings from both surveys has also been published and is available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/.

1.2 A joint project team comprised of members of the Scottish Government, Improvement Service and COSLA oversaw both surveys.

Background

1.3 Scotland's elected members have not historically been representative of the communities they serve for a variety of complex reasons. Under-represented groups include women, ethnic minorities and young people, and commonly cited possible reasons for their under-representation include:

• Confidence - these groups may be less likely to put themselves forward to seek political power and this issue may be compounded in many areas by a lack of opportunities for confidence building and training for candidates;
• Practical limitations - including financial reasons and caring responsibilities which may impact to a greater degree on these groups than some others;
• Lack of public knowledge about the role of a councillor including the process of standing and support available (although this is not limited to these demographic groups);
• Dominance of party politics - the vast majority of councillors represent political parties and the process of joining and being selected as a candidate by a political party can be a daunting prospect for many;
• The absence of factors that are necessary to motivate people to consider standing for election. Councils and councillors can suffer from a poor image and these groups (and others) may be put off by widely held perceptions of a male-dominated, adversarial environment and long hours culture; and
• Who the voters select.

1.4 A number of commissions and groups have looked at this issue over the 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. Following the devolution vote in 1997, the Commission on Local Government and the Scottish Parliament (The McIntosh Commission) was established to examine how to build successful relationships between local government and the new Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive and to examine how councils could best make themselves responsive and democratically accountable to the communities they serve. It stated:

"we see it as an important element in enhancing the democratic credibility of councils that their membership should itself broadly reflect the make-up of the community." ⁴

1.5 The Renewing Local Democracy working group (also known as the Kerley Working Group) was appointed in 1999 to build on the recommendations of the McIntosh report and its remit included considering ways in which council membership could be made attractive to a wider cross-section of the community and councils could become more representative of the make-up of the community. It made a number of recommendations on widening access, remuneration and the introduction of proportional representation in the form of the single transferable vote ( STV) electoral system ⁵.

1.6 In 2002, the then Scottish Executive published the White Paper, "Renewing Local Democracy: the Next Steps", which again set out Ministers desire to make councils more representative of the communities they represent. It was followed by local government elections in May 2003 and, in July of that year, a draft Local Governance (Scotland) Bill was published for consultation. Three working groups were established to examine practical issues related to the Local Governance (Scotland) Bill. These working groups mirrored the key elements of the Bill: widening access to council membership, the Single Transferable Vote system of election, and councillors' remuneration.

1.7 The Widening Access to Council Membership Progress Group was informed by surveys of unsuccessful local government candidates and elected members undertaken by the then Scottish Executive and COSLA respectively ⁶ following the 2003 elections in order to gather information on the characteristics of those choosing to stand for election and whether there were any significant differences between unsuccessful candidates and councillors (Scottish Executive 2003a ⁷; COSLA 2003 ⁸).

1.8 The Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004 ⁹ followed, providing for a number of initiatives designed to improve democratic participation and widen the range of people who become involved in local government. These include the introduction of:

• Single Transferable Vote ( STV), which it was hoped would make it easier for a wider range of people to be elected because of the higher degree of proportionality between votes cast and seats won;
• New remuneration arrangements (a basic salary of £15,452 for councillors) to replace the system of allowances, with the aim of making council membership a viable option for more people than the previous arrangements did;
• A one-off severance scheme for councillors who chose to stand down at the 2007 election. The policy intentions behind the scheme were to recognise long-service, to acknowledge that councillors had not been eligible to join an occupational pension scheme and to recognise that councillors may not want to continue their council career given the fundamental changes that were being introduced in 2007. It was anticipated that the scheme would also play its part among the measures to widen access to local government membership by leading to a higher level of 'turnover' in 2007 than is traditionally the case at local government elections, thereby creating more opportunities for new people to enter local government;
• The lowering of the minimum age for candidates from 21 to 18 years old.

1.9 Repeating the surveys of unsuccessful candidates and elected members following the 2007 elections has presented an opportunity to explore the early impact of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act on how representative local government candidates are of the wider Scottish population. It should be noted, though, that the measures provided for in the Act form only one 'front' in the drive to widen access to council membership. As noted in the report of the widening access to council membership progress group:

"This is not an agenda that can be taken forward by one government department or one body. It needs real commitment from local authorities and local government organisations, political parties, the Scottish Executive and Scottish Parliament and the range of organisations serving civic Scotland to make change happen" (Scottish Executive, 2005)

1.10 The action points and headline recommendations for how the widening access agenda can be taken forward, as set out in that report, demonstrate this point further in identifying lead bodies for each action. Local authorities, the Scottish Government and its committees, political parties, COSLA, the Improvement Service, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations ( SCVO), the Scottish Trades Union Congress ( STUC) and schools are among the diverse organisations identified as having a role to play in improving local democratic representation.

1.11 It is not the remit of this report to examine the extent to which those action points and recommendations have been pursued, and it therefore follows that, while we can comment on trends emerging from the data gathered in this survey, we are not able to establish causality in how representative local authorities candidates are of the wider Scottish population or draw conclusions regarding how the pace of the intended changes can be quickened.

Aims and Objectives

1.12 The overall aims of the research were to gather evidence to inform the Scottish Government's understanding of both 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.

1.13 In order to meet these aims the research pursued the following objectives:

• Identify the types of people who stand for election and whether there are demographic differences between those who are successfully elected and those who are not, between all candidates and the Scottish population, and between those who stood in 2007 and those who stood in 2003.
• Gather information on candidates' motivations for standing and whether there have been changes since 2003.
• Investigate candidates' experiences of standing for election and likelihood of standing again.

1.14 It was important to look at the characteristics of unsuccessful candidates, councillors and all candidates together for two reasons. The first was to explore who is choosing (or being chosen by their party) to stand and why. The second was to look at who is available for voters to elect and whether currently under-represented groups among councillors are also under-represented among unsuccessful candidates, or whether they are not and it is voters who are choosing not to elect certain types of candidates, contributing to their under-representation.

Methodology

1.15 The questionnaires for both the unsuccessful candidates' and elected members' surveys were developed during April and May 2007 and were designed to be compatible as far as possible with each other, 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. Where there was incompatibility between the 2003 questions and current harmonised questions used in large scale government-led surveys, we chose to use the latter to enable us to make comparisons with the current population and to increase the likelihood of the same questions being used should the survey be repeated in the future. The questionnaire for unsuccessful candidates is at Appendix 1. The questionnaire for elected members contained additional questions concerning early experiences in office and is presented in the report of the elected members survey findings (Improvement Service, 2007).

1.16 Candidates' addresses were compiled from the lists of Persons Nominated, as supplied by the Returning Officers in each local authority. The questionnaire, a covering letter and a freepost return envelope were sent to candidates' homes after the May 3rd local elections. The letter included a link to an online version of the questionnaire to cater for respondents who might prefer to respond electronically. A reminder letter was sent approximately three weeks after the initial mailing. A further reminder and copy of the questionnaire were sent out several weeks later, setting a final date for receipt of completed questionnaires a fortnight later.

1.17 The questionnaire responses were collated by the Scottish Government's ( SG) Local Government and Public Service Reform research branch. Lindata Services Ltd, an independent Glasgow-based data management firm, was commissioned to conduct all data entry and consistency checks. Data was then analysed, and open-ended questions coded, within the SG research branch.

1.18 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.

Confidentiality

1.19 Mailing lists and response databases are stored separately and no identification of individuals was made in the analysis nor is it possible from the presentation of findings in this report.

Limitations of Method

1.20 The survey reported here was a small-scale, largely quantitative survey, with limited qualitative data collected. The questionnaire was kept short in order to encourage a high response rate and the method was considered appropriate to the primary aim of monitoring demographic trends. As outlined earlier in this introductory chapter, however, the issues around widening access to local government are complex and a survey of this nature can inevitably tell us little about why the findings are as they are and, for the more subjective questions on candidates' motivations and experiences of standing, why candidates have responded in the way they did. To fully explore these issues would require a far larger study with a greater qualitative element, which was beyond the scope of this work.

Presentation of data

1.21 Results in this report are presented for the following categories as appropriate:

• Unsuccessful candidates - who stood for election, but were not elected.
• Elected Members/Councillors - who stood for election and were elected.
• All candidates - everyone who stood for election, whether or not they were elected.
• Population - the Scottish population. In all cases, the sources of population data are indicated below the table, figure or in the relevant paragraph.

1.22 The names of the following parties have been abbreviated throughout as follows:

Scottish Conservatives: Conservative/Conservatives
Scottish Green Party: Green/Greens
Scottish Labour Party: Labour
Scottish Liberal Democrats: Liberal Democrat/Liberal Democrats
Scottish National Party: SNP Scottish Socialist Party: SSP Solidarity Scotland: Solidarity

1.23 Where analysis has been undertaken with small numbers of responses, actual numbers rather than percentages have been presented for clarity. For example, where responses have been analysed by party, in some cases there may be less than 10 respondents from a party to a particular question so it would be misleading to describe their response in percentage terms alongside those from larger parties that may number in the hundreds.

Response rates and Representativeness and Implications for Findings

Response Rate

1.24 The survey achieved a response rate of 58.1% (representing 804 responses from the total of 1,384 unsuccessful candidates). This is a satisfactory figure for a postal survey, and is comparable to the response rate for the Councillor Survey (61.8%). It is, however, lower than the response rate for the 2003 surveys of unsuccessful candidates and councillors which were 67.6% and 60.5% respectively.

Representativeness

1.25 The survey of unsuccessful candidates received a positive response from most parties, as well as Independents. Over 57% of unsuccessful candidates from the five parties who fielded the most candidates overall (see Figure 1) and unsuccessful independent candidates responded to the survey, with the response rate from SNP candidates particularly high at 82.2% (see Table 1). Less than half of unsuccessful candidates from the SSP (45.6%) and Solidarity (39%) responded to the survey meaning that, where analysis is presented by party, it should be noted that the findings presented for these parties represent the views of less than half of their unsuccessful candidates.

1.26 Table 1 also shows that, in terms of political affiliation, the sample is very close to being proportionate. For example 11.9% of unsuccessful candidates were Liberal Democrats and 11.9% of respondents to the survey were Liberal Democrats. The proportion of SNP, Labour and Green respondents was slightly greater than their proportion of unsuccessful candidates and the proportion of all other parties and Independents was slightly lower, but overall the achieved response is broadly representative of those who stood.

Table 1 Response rates by party, 2007

1.27 Table 2 shows that the response rate among women was 6 percentage points higher than that among men but that overall the gender profile of respondents is only slightly different to that of all candidates - 25.5% of the respondents were female compared to 23.7% of all the unsuccessful candidates.

Table 2 Response rate by gender, 2007

Note to table

* Data on gender of all unsuccessful candidates drawn from Bochel & Denver (2007, pp.70-72, p.76)

Who Responded and Implications for Findings

1.28 We have demonstrated above that the survey achieved a reasonable response and that the gender and political affiliation of the respondents were broadly representative of the gender and political affiliation of all the local government candidates who stood. It is, however, important to note that, where results are presented for all unsuccessful candidates or all candidates, the views of the larger parties who fielded correspondingly large numbers of candidates, will impact on the results to a greater extent than those of smaller parties. As such, findings are presented by party where appropriate to illustrate where there are differences in the responses of particular parties or independents.

1.29 The political affiliations of the respondents to the unsuccessful candidates survey are presented in Table 1 above, and alongside those of the respondents to the elected members survey in Figure 1, below, to show the affiliations of all candidates who responded to one or other questionnaire.

Figure 1 Political affiliation of candidates who responded to either the unsuccessful candidates or elected members survey (n = 1,559)

1.30 The greatest number of responses to the unsuccessful candidates survey was received from Independent candidates who returned 208 questionnaires representing over a quarter (27%) of all responses received. The Conservatives (17% of responses received), Labour (14%) and Liberal Democrats (12%) returned the second, third and fourth greatest numbers of responses. The SNP and Greens returned 60 questionnaires each, representing 7% of the overall response each. As explained further at the start of Chapter 2, SNP candidates stood a far greater chance of being elected than Green candidates, hence their appearance in fairly low numbers, relative to the size of the party, in the unsuccessful candidate survey - more of their views are represented in the elected members survey. Conversely only a small (although significant) proportion of Green candidates were successfully elected, hence more of their views are represented in the findings of the unsuccessful candidates survey than in the elected members survey (see Figure 1).

Report Structure

1.31 The remainder of this report is structured as follows

• Chapter 2: Profile of Candidates
• Chapter 3: Motivations and Experience of Standing for Election
• Chapter 4: Conclusions
• Annex 1: Questionnaire
• Annex 2: Bibliography