Local Government Candidates Survey 2022

A voluntary demographic survey of candidates running in the Scottish Local Government elections of 2022


9. Sexual Orientation

Candidates were asked to describe their sexual orientation with 80% identifying as straight/heterosexual, 15% as lesbian, gay, bisexual or other and 5% preferring not to say.

Figure 13: Sexual Orientation of respondents

Bar chart visualising proportion of respondents split by sexual orientation. The chart shows that the majority of respondents identified as heterosexual.

Comparing this to the national picture as identified by the SSCQ dataset we can see that, as per figure 14 below that there was a difference of 12 percentage points compared to the overall population.

Figure 14: Sexual orientation of respondents compared to overall Scottish population

Bar chart visualising the percentage difference between respondents and the Scottish population with regards to sexual orientation. The chart shows that there was a higher percentage of respondents who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or in some other way as compared to the overall Scottish population.

When comparing the profile of elected versus unelected candidates we can see that individuals identifying as heterosexual made up 83% of the elected group, followed by individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or in some other away at 13%. For the unelected group individuals identifying as heterosexual made up 77% of the group, followed by individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or in some other away at 17%.

Figure 15: Electoral outcome by sexual orientation

Bar chart visualising sexual orientation of respondents split by electoral outcome (i.e. who was successfully elected). Chart shows that the majority of individuals who were successfully elected were heterosexual.

Contact

Email: Arfan.Iqbal@Gov.Scot

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