Diversity in political representation in Scotland: data improvement project proposal

1. Introduction

Electoral stakeholders in Scotland have a long history of taking and promoting measures to widen access to political participation and seeking to ensure that our elected institutions are representative of the communities they serve. Data on the characteristics of candidates and elected representatives is very limited, however, making it impossible to fully assess the diversity of political representation in Scotland, to effectively monitor change over time, and to ensure policies and initiatives are aligned with accurate data.

The Scottish Government has been scoping out a project to work with partners and stakeholders to improve the completeness of data on the diversity of election candidates and elected representatives in Scotland.

This paper sets out the details of a proposed new data collection at the 2022 local council elections, and is being published to invite feedback and comments on the proposed approach. Contact details are provided at the end of the paper.