Community Impact of Public Processions

Annex B: Processions by Local Authority Area

+ Procession counts are based on individual procession notifications, and do not include return processions which may (or may not) be detailed on the same notification form.

*Estimated total figures - though Perth and Kinross is based on incomplete data rather than extrapolation from Orr report statistics. It should also be noted that these estimated figures were excluded when working out percentages for Table 3.1 in the main body of the report.

**Figures for North Lanarkshire were available in paper form, but were only available electronically for 2012 (see Table AB.3 below).

*The Stirling 2012 average excludes participants at the Grand Central Lodge procession in July 2012. If participants for this procession were included the 2012 procession size average would increase to 1388

Table AB.2 shows figures for all local authorities in 2012, broken down where available, into procession types. The local authority with the greatest number of processions remains unaltered from the Orr report in 2005, with Glasgow retaining the top spot in terms of the overall numbers of processions.

*Note: Procession notification figures were provided by all three local authorities and were, as far as we can be aware, complete. However, these figures do not include processions that may have occurred without formal notification being given. Nor do they capture those events, typically involving far-right bodies such as the Scottish Defence League, which did not require formal notification because a 'static demonstration' was planned instead of any formal procession.

The count of processions includes 'return processions', e.g. processions involving the same organisations or participants on the same day. Typically, this would involve an outward procession ending in some kind of static event, followed by a further procession, either retracting the original route, or taking a different one. Either way such 'returns' were counted as two processions. Processions where notice of withdrawal or cancellation was noted have not been counted, though we cannot discount that some processions would have been cancelled without notification to the authorities.

**Note: Size estimates, e.g. the number of anticipated participants, are based on those provided by procession organisers. These can only be seen as indicative, and in many instances are probably optimistic, resulting in over-estimations of the numbers likely to attend.

Estimates of the number and size of processions are also affected by local authority recording practices. For instances at least one group of processions celebrating the Battle of the Boyne, are presented here as smaller individual processions because this is how the notifications process operates, even though the public on the ground interpret the 'many parts' as actually constituting one larger event. However, it is not possible here to make definitive decisions on how to appropriately 'group' multiple processions occurring on the same day, and therefore in the absence of over-arching notifications, these smaller notifications are presented separately.

Taking the figures for the three areas as a whole, they clearly differ from the picture for Scotland overall. With two of the three being populous, West of Scotland urban areas there is clearly a much higher proportion of Loyalist and Irish Republican processions compared to Scotland as a whole, and indeed these form the majority of all small processions, including those under 100 participants and those involving between 100 and 199 processions were Loyalist or Irish Republican related (accounting for 71% of all processions involving 199 participants or less). Loyalist and affiliated processions make up the great majority of processions of this type (466 in total), compared to only 39 processions associated with Irish Republicanism (circa.5% of the total - twice the incidence across Scotland, at less than 2%). The Orange Order accounts for the largest number of processions amongst Loyalist groups, but also accounts for the largest number of processions in each of the different size 'categories'.

Our three sub-areas constitute three of the busiest areas for processions in Scotland, accounting for 753 processions in 2012. However, they are also quite distinct from each other in terms of the types, volume and size of processions as well. Edinburgh, experiences very few Loyalist and Irish Republican processions, only 5 out of 86 (circa. 6% of all processions compared with North Lanarkshire which hosts 216 Loyalist and Irish Republican processions out of a total of 283 processions (circa. 76% of all processions). It should be noted that all but 18 of the 216 processions in North Lanarkshire are Loyalist or Loyalist affiliated. Conversely North Lanarkshire hosts no political or diversity processions, whilst Glasgow hosts 12 and Edinburgh 17. Moreover, the majority of North Lanarkshire's processions consist of notifications for less than 100 participants, whilst only two processions in 2012 involved notifications for events involving over a 1000 participants. In comparison, Glasgow and Edinburgh hosted far more processions involving a 1000 or more participants (18 and 8 respectively). In Edinburgh all 8 of these processions (the largest involving crowd estimates of 250,000 to 300,000) related exclusively to community or political/diversity processions, whereas in Glasgow at least (see above) 7 of the 18 larger processions were associated with Loyalist processions. Glasgow proves in some respects the 'go-between' local authority area, hosting large numbers of processions of all types, though as with North Lanarkshire the biggest volume of processions remains smaller Loyalist processions.