Government minister visits Dunfermline to find out about Citizens’ Assembly projectLast week, Dunfermline took another confident stride toward becoming a beacon of democratic innovation in Scotland. On Tuesday, Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee visited the Abbeyview Community Hub to meet with local councillors, Fife Council...Posted 27 Aug 2025
Vote splitting trick won’t work with Scotland’s Single Transferable VoteOn March 7th voters in Hillhead in Glasgow will be heading to the polls for a council by-election. Among those standing are candidates from the Scottish Greens and Independent Green Voice (IGV) – plenty of...Posted 04 Mar 2024
ERS Scotland: Our plans for the years aheadAt ERS Scotland we are constantly monitoring the political seas and updating our course to make sure we have the proper heading. Following this year’s local elections, the elections to the Scottish Parliament in 2021,...Posted 24 May 2022
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
Only real local democracy can rebuild our communitiesThe last twelve months have changed the way many of us think about our everyday lives. The lockdowns necessitated by the pandemic have made the world feel smaller and turned many people’s minds to a...Posted 09 Apr 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
Scotland’s local democracy is not an optional extraThe experience of the covid-19 crisis has served to underline and strengthen the case ERS Scotland has long been making for a revamped local democracy. The work undertaken in recent years – alongside a range...Posted 14 Jan 2021
Deepening democracy with Scotland’s Local Democracy BillDemocracy isn’t static, it is a process. It isn’t always simple or easy, and today it is being tested under the strain of a crisis of trust, one which affects political institutions, the public square...Posted 30 Mar 2020