Scottish local democracy can build and strengthen our communitiesDemocracy is the right for people to decide how the place where they live is run. But too few people now believe that this right is being honoured, too few believe that they decide and...Posted 13 May 2022
England and Wales can learn from Scotland’s success with STVIt is now 15 years since Scotland abandoned First Past the Post for local government elections and adopted the Single Transferable Vote form of proportional representation. What many will have seen as a small shift in process...Posted 01 Apr 2022
Should I rank all the candidates in the Scottish council elections?On Thursday 5 May, 2022, voters will go to the polls to elect councillors for each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. This will be the fourth time that Scottish councils will be elected using a proportional system,...Posted 25 Feb 2022
COP26 shows we need to democratise to decarboniseIn the run up to the COP26 climate change conference, a coalition of leading democracy organisations joined together on a campaign to put strong democracy at the heart of any response. The campaign’s message was...Posted 26 Nov 2021
Local communities must be the foundation on which we build Scotland’s recoveryThe pandemic has given us a fresh insight into what we already knew about Scotland’s communities; people will sacrifice their time and resources to aid their neighbours. But that sense of community cannot be taken...Posted 26 Mar 2021
Looking back at a decade of proportional representation for local elections in Scotland"When we now come to use Westminster’s one-person-takes-all system in Scotland, it seems perverse and unwieldly."Posted 04 May 2020
SNP delegates pack out ERS Scotland fringesOn Sunday at SNP spring conference, delegates showed their interest in a deliberative and local democracy by packing out 2 events hosted by ERS Scotland. The first, a discussion around the merits of citizens’ assemblies,...Posted 01 May 2019