Good morning, and welcome everyone to the ninth meeting of the local government communities committee. Can I remind everyone present to turn off mobile phones as the meeting papers are provided in digital format tablets? You may see members using these during the meeting, and that's my appeal at the start of the meeting. If you see members using their phones in tablets, they're looking at briefing papers and that's what they're doing. If others could put their phones off, that would be welcome. We yet again have a full house of MSPs here on the committee and apologies have been received, and we move to agenda item 1, which is commissioner for ethical standards in public life in Scotland annual report on accounts 2015-16. The committee will take evidence on the commission for ethical standards in public life in Scotland annual report on accounts 2015-16, and in doing so can welcome Bill Thomson, commissioner for ethical standards in public life in Scotland. Good morning. And accompanied by Ruth Hogg, investigations manager, office of the commissioner for ethical standards in public life in Scotland. Good morning, Ruth. Thank you for coming along. Commissioner, I believe that you got some brief opening remarks before we move to questions. Thanks, convener. They're very brief. First of all, to say thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and discuss, answer any questions you have on last year's annual report, as you'll be aware, because they're in the papers. I've submitted in advance updates to several of the tables from the annual report. Those are updated to the end of September. In other words, the first half of the current year. I've simply picked out the ones that are related to complaints dealt with by my office in relation to cancers and members of public bodies, because I presumed perhaps incorrectly that that was the main area of interest. I'm obviously very happy to answer questions on those and on any other parts of the annual report, which are of interest to the committee. Thank you very much, Mr Thomson. I appreciate that. We'll move to questions, and Graham Simpson's MSP has indicated that he'd like to open the question this morning. Thanks, convener. I'll just declare an interest in that I'm still a councillor in South Lanarkshire. I've also been the victim of two complaints over the years to the Standards Commission, both of them spurious. Can I start off by asking about your budget, which is £862,000 a year. According to a report that we've got from SPICE, only seven cases in one year represent a breach. By my reckoning, that's over £123,000 a case. Does that represent value for money? The opening question, Mr Thomson. Yes, thanks. First of all, the complaints that I deal with are only part of my remit. Approximately one third of the expenditure of my office goes on the public appointments work. I am the successor to two previous commissioners, in fact three, one of whom was the commissioner for public appointments. So the calculation that you've made, which is interesting, is, I'm afraid, inaccurate. I think that the premise behind it is curious in as much as the implication in the question is that only those that result in a breach are worthwhile. I'm not sure that I'm minded to agree with that. There are actually hundreds of complaints that are dealt with every year, and I assume that those are important to the people who submit the complaint. So it's not just those that end up as a breach report and a hearing. I think that it's important that all of those are investigated as fairly and as proportionately as possible. Okay, Mr Simpson, would you like to follow up on that? So you've got hundreds of cases come before you. Hundreds of complaints? Hundreds of complaints. And you're telling us that all of them are genuine and worthy of investigation? I, convener, with respect, I don't think I said that, but until I have made some inquiries, I'm not in a position to take a view as to whether the complaint that comes in is genuine and worthy of investigation. I assume that you would look at the veracity of a complaint once you've investigated, rather than before you've investigated it. Do you want to say maybe a little bit more about the process that you go through, perhaps? Certainly, convener. Mr Simpson might want to come back in and maybe I'll just ask a supplementary relation to that. Some of the complaints that we receive are entirely outside my jurisdiction, so they don't receive much attention at all. Some of them are quite old in terms of the circumstances that they relate to, and we generally don't investigate complaints relating to matters that occurred more than 12 months previously. There are some exceptions to that. Other complaints relate purely to the key principles set out in the councillor's code, or for that matter in the code of conduct, for the members of the public body. In terms of the way in which those codes are drafted, those complaints cannot constitute a breach, even if I were to agree that councillor X had been dishonest or had failed to be properly open, or whatever the key principle might be. We have introduced, or were in the process of introducing a new approach where, if it is not clear that a complaint relates to or could relate to a provision of the relevant code, we engage with the complainer before we start the process, so that we find out whether it is something that is within my remit and therefore worth investigating. If it is not, we won't proceed any further. Around half of the complaints that I receive—this is in very broad terms—don't proceed to any sort of detailed investigation. I am not yet convinced that it is a waste of time to go through that process and reach the determination that it is not worth investigating further. I appreciate that some complaints are vexatious or frivolous, although it is difficult to tell when they come in. I think that we have to go through a process to at least do the best we can to determine whether they are worth investigating or not. Surely, if out of the hundreds of cases that come before you every year and only seven of them ultimately amount to a breach, that tells you something, does it not? I think that there are a number of conclusions that could be drawn from that, but in terms of, well, I would be interested to know which conclusion Mr Simpson thinks should be drawn. I am asking you what conclusion do you draw. That's fine, but maybe just finish off your thoughts on this. Mr Robinson will take Mr Simpson back in a moment. I am at risk of sounding facetious here, but this is a serious point. My conclusion is that if it is seven, and the number varies from year to year—in fact, it is near or double that number this year—my conclusion is that seven of those disclose a breach of the code. Do you want to explore that further, Mr Simpson? Convener, I may welcome back. I do want to honk things. Other members may have questions. Yes, absolutely. Just before we move on, a casual observation might be that a number of things could be happening. One could be that maybe members of the public are unclear in relation to when they should or shouldn't approach the commission. Therefore, they are not necessarily doing it inappropriately or facetiously. They are doing it for genuine reasons. Are you able to tease out how many people who make a complaint are not informed sufficiently in relation to the appropriate process to go through if they are dissatisfied with how a councillor has dealt with a case or something that they have read in the newspaper about a councillor or an interaction that has had with them at their surgery or whatever it may be? Is there an information gap out there about the purpose? I made the point before which I appeared last year that around a fifth of the complaints that we received were related purely to the key principles. I have not been critical of people who put in complaints because it is not obvious from the code that you cannot breach the key principles unless you have to read one sentence in paragraph 2.1 of the councillor's code. I think that those people genuinely felt that they had an issue. I also think that they were probably not sufficiently clear about what my remit is and what I can investigate. I am pleased to say that the percentage of complaints in the first six months of this year that relate purely to the key principles is significantly lower. I think that some progress is being made. When complaints come in, we try to tease out with the complainer whether, even though they may only have referred to one of the key principles, there is something else under the code that could be relevant. I am not trying to generate complaints, but I am trying to make sure that people who complain are not sent away dismissed without the issues that they have raised being properly addressed. In case you would automatically exclude that one-fifth of complaints that come in under a criteria that you could not possibly look at in any greater detail and make a ruling on, you would still interrogate those to a degree in case there was something else going on that would be a valid complaint? If I can give you one example without mentioning any names, we had a complaint this year from somebody who was unhappy about a comment attributed to somebody in a newspaper article. The newspaper article purported to be repeating something that had been said on social media by a councillor. The information was insufficient for me to take it forward. I did endeavour to trace the social media issue to which the person was referring and failed, so my office wrote back and asked for further clarification and indicated that, if we did not hear anything within a certain period, we would simply close the file, and that is where we are. That individual did not come back. I suspect that they were prompted by something that they saw in a newspaper of which they thought was shocking and decided to make a complaint, but there was no substance to it. Alexander Stewart To follow on, I also indicate that I am a serving councillor and person councillor. The code was, in my view, brought in as a safeguard, but, in practice, what the code has become, in my view, is that it is an opportunity to challenge, to attack and to condemn individuals. That reading through the whole process of the number of allegations that are made against individuals, where the code is used, might well be some of the cases. Planning seems to be one of the biggest areas, and planning is always a little bit—not necessarily black and white—there is a lot of grey areas in my 18-years as a councillor. I would suggest that it is not always a say of a black and white situation when you look at a planning application and people's impressions and people's processes about planning and enforcement. It is a perception, sometimes, that councillors might be more informed or have more information than the general public have, and that can sometimes cause some difficulties when they believe that, if it is their planning application and the authorities managing that application, individuals have more power and more influence if things are being breached. I can understand why a number of people get a little bit excited about planning applications and how it is processed and how the information for councillors is received and the applicants are received. My question would be, out of all that, where, as I said, I perceive it as a challenge, an area that people can condemn individuals. Do you, as an individual who is managing the whole process, do you believe that there are areas within that that are becoming much more prevalent in the way that individuals or organisations choose to challenge, attack or condemn? The short answer is yes. To give a bit more detail, we do report separately—there is a table in the report on the number of complaints that are related to planning issues. It was until recently the single biggest area, although I think that it is now in danger of being overtaken by complaints of disrespect, some of which may relate to planning cases, but most do not. I think that it is good news that the percentage of complaints relating to failure to declare or register an interest, that percentage is going down, and that, of course, is an area that can be brought up in relation to planning applications. I agree that the opportunity to complain to my office is one that is tempting to people who are dissatisfied with planning decisions or the way that a planning process has proceeded. There have been quite a number of complaints that have certainly been prompted by dissatisfaction about the planning process. In some cases, people who have complained wrongly assumed that, were I to reach a decision that there had been a breach, that would allow them some way of clawing back the decision that was made under the planning process, and that is not the case. I agree that individuals do not like the answer when it comes to a planning situation, and that they use the opportunity of going to yourself as a way of, once again, challenging that process in their attempt to progress forward. As you rightly indicated, that is not your role or your remit, and you do not make a change to the decision. However, it still does not stop people putting it in, so their perception is that, by doing that, they think that they can progress. In the second year, I talked about, you mentioned respect. That is a very fluid issue, how people respect or not respect. I have been at many meetings over years in which individuals can get a bit heated, situations can become quite heated, and words are said or actions are done, and that is perceived once again as a breach. It entirely depends on the individual. A few on that would be quite useful, too. My decision on those is not the end of the story, of course, because I report to the Standards Commission if I consider that there has been a breach. Ultimately, it is their decision. Respect or the lack of it is a very difficult issue. It is a key principle quite correctly, I think, if we were to conduct public business without respect, that would be a sorry state of affairs. However, how to determine whether something is or is not disrespect is more difficult. The context of suggesting this is often critical. It is just a growing area in terms of the work of my office. One of the further complications is that—I mentioned this the last time I appeared before the committee—Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights protects freedom of speech. The jurisdiction of the European Court has made it very clear that statements made in a political context are given much wider latitude than other statements made in different contexts when you are looking at whether something is a breach in terms of respect or not. That is quite a live issue. I was interested in the whole issue of respect, because, in having chaired the Parliament in previous session, that is something that is quite difficult to judge in the Parliamentary Chamber, but it is a big part of the proceedings in there, too. I am interested in the answer that you gave to that. Overall, when I look back at the official report from the last time you were in front of the previous committee, you mentioned in that that if the code could be simplified and made clearer, that would make everybody's lives better, was the word that you used. You went on to say that ministers would have to agree to a reason to review it. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Has anything moved on that? Is that something that we need to be looking at? From my point of view, it would be very welcome if you were to look at it. I know that the standards commission to whom, as I mentioned in my report, have a list of areas of the code that they would like to be revised and improved. I believe that the Government is due to consult soon on possible changes to a particular aspect of the code, and my understanding is that the standards commission will take that opportunity to submit their wish list, if you like, of areas requiring improvement. I was asked by the convener of the previous committee to submit a note of points that I thought required attention. I did that around the time of the solution in March of this year, and I certainly hold to the points that I made in that letter, which, if the convener wishes, I am happy to repeat now. There is one that is plainly wrong, and it is not at all helpful. It is in relation to registration and declaration of interests, which are governed in part by a statutory instrument that requires registration within, in essence, a month of the interest being acquired or changing. The code itself, paragraph 4.2 of the councillor's code, refers to the need to check your entries and review them at least annually, which is not helpful, because you can be familiar with the code and yet not appreciate that you could be in breach if you leave it for three or four months before you register something. That is just a blatant error. There are other things that are complex, coming back to Mr Stewart's point. Planning is difficult in itself. Part 5 of the councillor's code applies to planning. It has several different iterations of the same test. That is difficult for anybody to get their head around. Part 7 also applies, and that same test is not referred to in one of the provisions in part 7, which also applies to planning. It is difficult for councillors who are advised to know where they stand, and it is particularly difficult for members of the public to know what is a proper complaint. I think that that is very helpful. Thanks for sharing that again with us today. As a new committee, we will obviously look at that letter that you sent the previous convener and take stock of that as a committee as well. Thank you for flagging that up for our attention. I know that Mr Simpson has supplemented some of the points raised there. Just on planning, you will be aware that one of the rules for councillors is that you are not allowed to publicly comment on a planning application if you are then subsequently part of the decision-making process around that. That has always struck me as quite a bizarre thing, because we are elected to form views, take decisions, represent people, and we can express views on any other issue that we like, but not planning. That rule was scrapped in England, I believe, and I just wonder whether you think that that should happen here, whether that would be helpful. I think that that is a policy issue in which I am very wary of commenting, in part because I may have to deal with complaints about breaches of that rule, and that could put me in a slightly odd position. I would observe that the rule is even more complex than that in as much as, as I am sure you are well aware, convener. Councilors can comment at the policy development stage, but they cannot comment on specific applications if they are then going to be dealing with them. I think that that puts councillors in a very difficult position at times. I readily appreciate that. I think that Mr Stewart wants to follow up on that. Can I tease that slightly further forward? Obviously, when complaints are put forward, as I say, and many of them are planning, the investigation that then takes place and the processes that you go through would appear that a number of them do not progress, maybe through lack of evidence, or how do they not end up being progressed further in your process? The number of circumstances is quite correct. It may be that the evidence is not there. It may be that the evidence is completely contradictory. The worst situation is the classic he said, she said, and nobody else was involved, in which case I have no basis for making a determination. More often than not, it is down to interpretation. I think that people are seeing things differently. I think that, as a general rule, the people against whom a complaint has been made, given that there are penalties possible under this process in the seven or more cases that come forward as breaches, the code has to be interpreted relatively strictly. That would apply if we were talking about the criminal law, and I think that it is fair to take the same sort of approach here, which tends to mean that the person against whom the complaint has been made will be given the benefit of the doubt, if there is any real doubt. That, of course, is not satisfactory to the people who have complained, and I receive comments to that effect, but I still think that that is the correct way of going about it. I will give a heads up to one or two of our committee members who have asked to come in on social media. They will know who you are and will take you in a second, but I will ask them for a general point. I was trying to get a taste of what has happened in the last year. In the year 1415, there were 680 complaints against councillors. In the year 1516, there were 202 complaints against councillors. Sorry to say that, over trivialised, councillors have been better behaved in the last year than the way of before, or they get in their act together, or they are boxing more cleverly. We have got some councillors on our committee here. Have they all been better behaved in the last year? I am making no comment on individuals in the room, obviously. The previous years, figures were distorted by multiple complaints in relation to one issue in the city of Aberdeen, and because of the way in which we are required to record and report on complaints, there were 524 complaints relating to the one issue. The overall number in that year was significantly less than the 600 nods that are reported. I do not think, unfortunately, that you can deduce from that that behaviour has improved to the point where there are significantly fewer complaints. Of course, the number of complaints is not necessarily an indicator of behaviour at all. It is just the number of people who are motivated to submit a complaint. That was perhaps just a more like-hearted way to ask the question, why there was such a variation in numbers there, but that is very helpful to put that on. Can I just add, convener? I am pleased to report that in the first half of this year, the volume of complaints is on a downward trend, which, from my point of view, is very welcome. I have mentioned social media. Our clerking team has just mentioned that social media in section of the code was one of the things that you had previously contacted the committee in relation to. Andy Wightman had indicated before the start of today's meeting that I was particularly interested to look at some areas around social media. Mr Wightman, you now make a good time to maybe raise some of those points. In your evidence last year, you said that at the top of your list is the way in which the code applies to statements that are made on social media. Given that social media is becoming more prevalent, more widespread, more used more frequently by elected officials and many others in society, has anything changed since you made that statement? In particular, what do you think the impact might be going forward on your potential workload? I know that you say that complaints are dropping, but they go up and down, I am thinking more strategically. Well, convener, the one thing that has changed is that the standards commission have issued revised guidance in relation to social media, which I think is helpful. It has limits in as much as sitting in my seat. I can only assess complaints against the code itself. Whether someone has had regard to the guidance obviously as a factor, but at the end of the day my decision has to be on whether someone has or has not been involved in a breach or something that is a breach of the code. The guidance is helpful, but it is not a determinant of the issue. The difficulty that I raised is that the code was drafted before social media was so prevalent that it makes no reference to it. The code correctly only applies to the actions that we are talking about. Councilers here obviously apply to members of public bodies as well, but it only applies to those people when they are acting in that capacity. One of the real difficulties with social media is working out whether the person who has said whatever they have said was doing so as an individual or as a councillor. If they were doing it as an individual, then the code does not apply. If they were doing it as a councillor, at least arguably, the code applies. The question is whether they were commenting in a way that would be covered by the freedoms under article 10 of the European Convention? Yes, that is an interesting discussion. Rose, last time you were here on that question, I think that it is partly the nature of the media that makes the boundaries between when a councillor is acting in their capacity as a councillor and not rather more difficult than the past. Councilers were acting in their capacity obviously when they were in council chambers on council business, speaking at meetings and all the rest of it. When they were at home, they weren't, but now when they are at home, they have almost greater opportunities to speak to the world than they did previously. Are you any further forward in being able to draw that line a little bit more clearly partly to assist councillors themselves in how they interact with the public? Regrettably no, convener. I wish that I were. I suppose that, over time, there will be some clarity in as much as complaints where I find a breach will be considered by the Standards Commission at a public hearing and they will make decisions assuming that those are related to each other in some way and consistent, then the picture will become clearer, but we will still have the problem of how the code is applied and when is a councillor, not a councillor. It's an impossible question to answer, unfortunately. Just a brief follow-up on that and then we'll move to our final area of questioning. Does that leave a market area for yourself, Mr Thomson? You look at those Twitter accounts and the biographies will be tweeting in a personal capacity of users of my own, not my employer or whatever. Does that then give the individual running that account a blank check to just kind of save what they like without running risk of breaking the code? Is that the issue that there's a total lack of clarity in relation to this? I think that murky is a good word. Saying that you're doing this as an individual isn't necessarily a defence if that's the right word. Even if you're making comment on a matter of public concern, which can be considered to be political expression in technical terms, the protection that is given by article 10 isn't complete. There are things that are just beyond the pale, if I can use that phrase, and the difficulty is knowing just quite which side of that fence they fall. I think that that's helpful to put that on the record. Elaine Smith. Thanks very much. Turn into the public appointments part of your role, if you don't mind, Bill. We note that, for the first time, more women were appointed than men. My question would be, I suppose, in what way was that achieved. I note in your annual report that you say that a range of outreach activities that encourage applications for underrepresented groups was undertaken, so maybe a bit more detail about that, and also then following on how you can approach the poor representation in other sectors and how that can be addressed. Yes, convener. I welcome the opportunity to comment on that. That is quite a big topic. I'll try and be brief. My office is now working in a different way with the staff in the Government who are responsible for the administration of the public appointments process. That is in part thanks to the Government at a political level giving priority and prominence to the issue of diversity on public boards, specifically as a first priority, the gender imbalance, so that the political climate, if you like, has changed helpfully. I think that that has made it easier for the staff that are involved directly to apply themselves at an earlier stage when public appointments are to be made. We now have a process of early engagement with Scottish Government staff, including at a fairly senior level those who will be involved in a public appointment. Thinking about it in advance allows the whole process to be done in a way that is less likely simply to ask the same questions and get the same answers. The way that the board itself is looking at succession planning is improving, because it is being encouraged to do so and supported to do so. The way in which the people from my office, the public appointments advisers, are engaging with the appointment panel, which is different from time to time, allows better preparation. Sometimes just the way that the questions are asked makes a difference. The way in which the requirements are specified certainly makes a difference. As you have mentioned, there is active outreach, not in all cases, but there has been some very effective outreach. For example, a public meeting in Maryhill, which was done jointly with Cleter Glasgow and Clyde Health Board when they were trying to involve people in the board who had experience of community involvement. That was a successful exercise. There have been a number of those. Although some areas require even more thought, the overall position is improving. I have figures that, if the convener allows, I can give you to indicate progress that is being made in the course of this year. You have in table 25 before you the demographic profile of board membership as at the end of 2015. The position as at the end of October this year is that female board membership is now at 44.3 per cent, which is an increase. I accept that it is still below the Scottish population census figure, but it is an improvement. The percentage of people who have disclosed that the disability has gone down is 9.7 per cent. That is a significant gap between the Scottish population of 19.6 per cent. The proportion of black and minority ethnic people represented on boards has gone up from 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent, and that matches the Scottish population census figures. Those aged 49 and under have gone up from 17.6 per cent to 19.7 per cent. That is still way below 54.3 per cent, but it is a move in the right direction.  That is still below the target that we have of 6 per cent, but it is, again, a move in the right direction. No, that is very interesting. If you wish to send in any further comments on that, then I am sure that we would be happy to receive it. Thank you very much for that. I suppose that the thing in those figures that you give, Mr Thomson, is that it then gives the committee an anchor for subsequent evidence of the committee on an annual basis in relation to how those figures change. Where would the responsibility sit with Government, with yourself in relation to making further progress in relation to that in the year ahead? We are almost out of time, but if there is anything you want to say in that at all, we would otherwise do more effective scrutiny next year's evidence sessions. The primary responsibility sits with Government ministers to make the appointments. I have set out to work in partnership with Government on this, while still retaining my regulatory position. We have a very open working relationship. In fact, two of the Government's staff who are involved in this happen to be here today to hear what is being said about it, because there is an openness and an interest. There is a priority being given to that. There are a number of initiatives that are under way. Probably, if you are short of time, convener, it might be better if I were to submit a letter if you are comfortable with that to the clerk. After the meeting, I can give you a bit more detail, and I can also supply a copy of those figures, which I have read out. I apologise for doing so, but I have only received them recently myself. I think that that is very helpful. Time has defeated us here. That does take us to the end of this evidence session. I thank Mr Thomson and Ms Hawke. I thank both of you for coming along here this morning. That ends agenda item 1. Can we suspend the meeting briefly to allow us to make preparations for agenda item 2? We are about to have a round-table session on the Scottish local government elections and voting. The committee will take evidence from a number of witnesses in participation in Scottish local government elections and voting. Today's session will take place in a round-table format to allow for a more free flowing discussion of the issues. In a moment, we will get introductions from everyone here, including our witnesses and MSPs. We will do that in a moment. First of all, I welcome students from Reladies High in Motherwell, Andrews, Secondary and Cote Bridge, who are in the public gallery today, and the opportunity to have a chat with you after this morning session, if you wish. That is welcome. I also give a nod to the local government committee's Twitter account, where we asked for a number of views on how we encourage voter participation in local government elections. We have had some responses to that. Anyone who is watching this out with this room or even in this room, feel free to go on to our Twitter account and give suggestions. We will now move to the introductions of those around the table. I am Barbara Doris. I am an MSP for Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn, and I am the committee convener. I will go around this way. My name is Lynn Benny, and I teach and study politics at the University of Aberdeen. Elaine Smith, MSP Labour Central Scotland and deputy convener of the committee. I am Willie Sullivan, director of electoral reform society Scotland, and I published this book a couple of years ago called Missing million, why over a million Scots choose not to vote and what it means for our democracy. I am Andy Wightman, MSP, representing Lothian for the Scottish Green Party. Ruth Maguire representing the SNP and Cunningham South area. I am Vicksbury Hannigan. I am our secondary school teacher. I teach morning studies, and I represent the morning studies association. I am Dave Watson. I am the head of policy at Unison Scotland. I am Alexander Stewart. I am a member of Mid Scotland Fife for the Conservatives, and I have been a serving councillor since 1999. Hello, I am Debbie King, shelter Scotland, and I am the campaigns and public affairs manager. I am Kenneth Gibson, SNP MSP for Cone North. I am Kelly Thorpe, campaigns and policy manager at Enable Scotland, an organisation for people who have learning disabilities. Graham Simpson representing Central Scotland, and I am a Conservative. Okay, thank you everyone. We'll be joined by Sarah Patterson, who's been held up this morning. She'll join us shortly and join our round table event. Now, just to get the conversation started, our witnesses that we have here today were clearly looking to hear from yourselves about how we stem the trend of decreasing voter turnout, particularly in local government elections. We've got a new cohort of voters in 16 and 17-year-olds, as well as a variety of other particularly less represented groups in relation to those who do vote at elections. There's clearly short-term concerns about next year's local authority elections, but a long-term view on how we stem that decline and turn that around. Just to get the conversation going, I'm sure that you all have lots of different suggestions in both the short-term and long-term approach to this, but if you could pick one thing in the short term that you would like to see happen to try and encourage those to vote in May's elections next year, perhaps you could say a little bit about that just now, and then we'll just take it from there and the conversation can move on. So who would like to make a suggestion about how we increase voter turnout for next year's elections, particularly among groups that are less likely to go out and cast their votes? I work with Shadow Scotland, so we work with a number of people who have housing need, whether they're homeless or trying to get out of temporary accommodation and permanent accommodation. I suppose from our perspective, a lot of it is about enabling people to register to vote as the first starting point. We have a lot of difficulty with people who are in the private rented sector, for example, who are very underrepresented in terms of registering to vote, and also people who are homeless and with no fixed address. Either not understanding, they do have a right to vote and how they would go about registering to do so, so I suppose it's about information and support initially. Thank you very much. I would make a plea for informed and targeted voter registration and education campaigns last year. This year, we worked with the Electoral Commission to enable the vote, and that was a targeted campaign for people who have learning disabilities, so it was very specifically targeted in terms of not just the process of registering to vote but why you need to vote, but also the education side of things from parties, why people should vote for you and for people with learning disabilities. Some of the information that they're getting is just not accessible and not easy to understand, and that, for me, means that they're not making informed decisions about their right to vote, so that would be my suggestion. I wanted to take in other witnesses. We've got some MSPs starting to indicate that they'd like to make some comments, but would any of our witnesses want to add to that at the moment? Victoria, take your next. My kind of comment that I've been saying is that I get a time investment from authorities, and particularly not all authorities deliver modern sizes as part of the curriculum, but I think that they need to be a recognition that political literacy and citizenship education is an incredible valuable part across the curriculum in Scotland, so I think that there should be time made available for all schools across Scotland to have proper time investment by a proper trained modern studies teacher that can ensure that voters have the appropriate information to ensure that they can make informed decision making choices. Would that be irrespective of whether young people have chosen modern studies or not about the whole school initiative? As I said, no, not all schools across Scotland have one, so it's part of the curriculum, so I think that they expect greater emphasis from the Scottish Government that all schools should either deliver this or ensure that there's a greater time available for members of staff who can receive proper training to deliver this information to pupils rather than through a period of PSE. I should declare an interest of a form of modern studies teacher myself, but thank you for putting that up on the record. Dr Benny. I would just emphasise what's been said before, that registration, targeted registration campaigns are very, very important, but if you would ask me whether there's one thing that would make a difference, I think maybe communication from government, from experts, from political parties themselves, that should emphasise just how important local government is because I think that relative to other institutions, there is a perception out there that perhaps it is not that important and we have to in some way challenge counter that. Okay, thank you very much. Yeah, I think that emphasis on the new cohort is probably the one thing where you might make a little bit of a difference. I was going to say this before, I knew you were a modern studies teacher, but I think that modern studies is, you know, we're really lucky to have it in Scotland, I know my colleagues in England are quite envious of us to have it. But I think, you know, so I think that using the modern studies teachers and in the schools with the new cohort would probably be the one thing that might make a little bit of a difference this time. Thank you, Dave Watson. We are, obviously, cleaners. My wife's a modern studies teacher, that's why we're in the business, but so I think there are a lot of very practical issues that have been touched upon. I suppose my point is closer to that of Linbennes, which is I think people tend to vote on their perception of how important in particular the tier of government is and clearly as a local government trade union, our view would be that it's important that councils are seen to be an important part of the government of the country, not just simply administration. Therefore, coupled with that, councils themselves have a duty and a role, not always well carried out in our view, in terms of ensuring that voters have an opportunity to engage not just in voting time, but also in relation to engaging in the issues of the council throughout the year. So it's a slightly longer term perspective, but nonetheless, I think that's one of the reasons that the term has to so low. Thank you very much. Keith Gibson, MSP, you've been very patient because you indicated right at the start of that line of questioning that you wanted to come in for a supplementary, but if you want to go now. Yes, thanks very much. A lot of what's in the submissions talks about process. For example, you know the electoral commission talking about providing voters with information on how to register on the deadline for doing so, provide voters with information on the date of the elections and how to cast the votes. I think that that's all important, but I think that the most important thing is to let folk know what local authorities actually do, and that's really important. Victoria touched on the citizenship aspect. When I was at school, there was absolutely nothing whatsoever to talk about what any electoral system did, what any Parliament did, in fact, and things have changed for the better. However, the most important thing is to let people know that folk don't actually know what local authorities do, how important they are, how many people they employ, the key issues that they discuss, obviously social work housing, whatever it happens to be. I think that that's what's important, because folk think that the MSPs deal with half of those things these days, and I think that it's very important to go back to First Principles and a campaign of information to let people know what councils do is right. I would have to say, Lynne Benny, that I'm really delighted to see that you mentioned posters, election posters, I think that that is an issue. I think that having a bit of erasmatazin in the election, people are actually seeing there's an election on by having posters throughout a local authority area, I think that it is significant, just as advertising works, it works. I say that as someone who laments a day when they no longer can climb up a ladder because the administration in our local authority, or rather the combination of parties against the administration, banned posturing. I'm going to keep MSP comments brief on this. It's got them vexed to the idea of election posters. I'm delighted, I don't have to go up ladders anymore. I tell you that much, Mr Gibson, but it has lost something of an impact at a local level in relation to elections. Briefly, Elaine Smith and then Graeme Simpson, and then we'll take her witness season. Thanks, convener, which is why I wanted to put it out there whether or not the posters, I mean a lot of the issues with posters were one party putting them up, maybe another party taking them down, arguments, debates, police getting involved, all of that stuff, but if those posters were not party political posters, if those posters were actually advertising the election rather than advertising different parties, is that something that could be thought about? I noticed that it was Dr Benny that raised that in our submission. We're going to roll that together with Graeme Simpson's brief comment, and then I think that we should go to Dr Benny after that, Mr Simpson. Is this just some posters? Well, yes, because that's what we're talking about at the moment. I take a different view to Kenny Gibson on this. I certainly wouldn't describe posters as razzmatazz. Climbing up ladders certainly isn't. I don't think that they have much impact on myself, and that's why I voted to ban them in self-lanagry. Okay, Dr Benny, it was in your evidence that you've got the MSPs vexed about posters. Also, Dr Benny, and then I'll tell Mr Sulvers, was lamp posts don't vote, but it was bringing us back to public information and public awareness, Dr Benny? Okay. Well, at the risk of perhaps antagonising some people, I would say that academics over the years, over the decades and lots of different types of elections have really tried to analyse the importance of, I don't know, visibility of campaigns, and a part of that is posters. It does bring a certain vibrancy colour to political campaigns, and if there's one thing that we are clear about, it's that visible campaigns really, really matter in terms of support for individual parties, but also in terms of turnout. I do strongly think that it's been a mistake, and it's one possible solution to help with turnout that could be easily achieved, I would say. Okay, Willie Sullivan. I've not much to say on posters. I think that they might make a tiny little bit difference but not a massive difference, but I was going to respond to Kenny a wee bit there about this idea of telling people stuff, telling people how important local government is, telling people. I think that it's got to go beyond that in a way. People have got to feel really how important it is. They've got to feel the impact upon their lives. They've got to feel that they perhaps have some influence over what's happening. I think that that's why we've got a project, and it comes back to the modern studies things, about a democratic school where kids actually, you know, it's okay to tell people about processes and procedures, but actually until you feel what it's like to make decisions or feel what it's like to take part in democracies, then you're going to disengage in it. I think that's one of the major points that we want to make is going into the ballot box and making the vote is a really important part of democracy, but actually it's the end process. The real democracy takes place in the spaces and places where people have discussions, debates and conversations and feel what it's like to move through decision making and make decisions on behalf of each other, as well as just on them as themselves. Okay, and how would we do that? Could you give a suggestion, Mr Salomon? We talk about a democratic society, which is, if you imagine, a society honeycombed with lots of small democratic spaces where people are having these decision makings, where it's community-owned energy companies, community housing companies, schools, wherever people have to make decisions for themselves, really. Instead of, I mean, I think we described, if you imagine the institutions of democracy as one of those Victorian buildings that have the metal things propping them up on the inside, it kind of feels a bit like that to me. It's been hollowed out from underneath it and you kind of have to rebuild all of that. Maybe it was never there, you know, but I think there is an opportunity to build it now as we have technology and people seem much more interested and conscious of wanting to take part, I think. A number of local authorities, when they were making decisions and MSPs have referred to some of these, our members had to write papers saying whether the pros and cons of doing that and what the evidence—I've read a few of them and I think the difficulty is that the evidence trying to separate out, vote a decline and link that to those authorities that did allow posts—remember, some authorities never allowed posters on land posts and others did. It was more prevalent in Scotland, so I think the evidence that I've seen, anyway, I might be corrected, but the evidence that I've seen is difficult, I think, to justify one way or the other, the argument that putting posters up improved turnout. Obviously, speaking of our members who have to take them down when political parties forget to do so, I would have to say that although our members do have the benefit of cherry pickers, which political parties don't, makes it a tad easier, but nonetheless it's costly and a lot of very thankful tasks as well. I think that the important point is that there is a point about making a buzz around an election. I remember at school getting taught the basics of elections, which was all a bit dry, but when we had to mock election, it livened the whole thing up and people then started to participate. Anything that creates a buzz in the community around the election must be a good thing. I suspect that, and I could be wrong, we'll find out later, that those in the public gallery from our ladies in St Andrew's posters and lamp posts will not be the clincher on whether they go and vote at the elections next May. That may be ourselves indulging ourselves a little bit in relation to that, but the idea about Dr Benney said about raising awareness, and Dave Watson about creating a buzz. If it is left to politicians that have been turned out to continue to decline local government elections, how do we create that buzz? Any ideas or any thoughts other than posters? On the parliamentary elections earlier this year, we took a bit of a different approach to creating that buzz for people who have learned disabilities. Just to say, normally, the rate of people who have learned disabilities who vote is 30 per cent, so there's a very low rate of voting. The people who engaged with us earlier this year through the enable the vote campaign, 80 per cent of them went on to vote, and 86 per cent said that that buzz that we'd created helped them to make an informed decision about their vote. What we did was we kind of took the debate out of politics and created a dialogue, because the traditional sort of hustling format doesn't really work for people who have learned disabilities, they're not getting the chance to engage, to ask their questions, they're not following necessarily a lot of the jargon and stuff that's going on. We actually took the conversation cafe model, which I think is being used more and more within the third sector to actually have political party representatives going round tables individually and engaging as an individual with people who have learned disabilities, rather than debating amongst themselves. I think that it's just thinking a little bit differently, but it's definitely about bringing people together for dialogue and debate and creating that energy. I think that that's very helpful, and I'll take in a little second. I'm just wondering if that's similar to what Willie Sullivan was suggesting about going out to where people are already empowered and in control and speaking to them on their terms and their environment, where they feel comfortable rather than, as we've all done as politicians, we've put out the leaflets, we've chopped their doors, we asked them to come to hustings and public meetings on our terms. I don't want to say a little bit more about that, but I've identified correctly. Sure, exactly. I think that the simple things like the design of meetings that you spoke about, where representatives go round tables and talk to people instead, is that they stand up on platforms, which again is an equality of power. They stand up on platforms and argue with each other. Some people will enjoy that, but a lot of people don't. Only because I saw Elaine first, not Elaine Smith, but Alexander, I've got you down once, come in for a comment, Elaine. Thanks, convener. I was a bit remiss because I should also declare an interest as a former modern studies teacher and still registered with the GTC, and I'm particularly going to do that because I want to refer back to something that Victoria said earlier. If we're trying to motivate the new cohort, as Willie Sullivan put it, and trying to motivate younger people out to vote, I'd be quite interested in a bit more detail on what Victoria was saying about in schools. Do they then have a responsibility to explain to young people the importance of local government in the short term for next year's election what kind of events should they be holding that are then reaching beyond the young people that are doing modern studies? Victoria? One of the biggest issues, in particular, is exactly what we're doing. I think that was a problem in the 2014 independence referendum. We used a lot of our time as modern studies to actively register pupils, and again, as I said, visible campaigns are really, really prominent. It was a buzz around to school, pupils were really engaging it. Again, in the Scottish parent election, the buzz went away because, again, the visible campaign was gone. However, in terms of in school, the biggest things that we are facing in schools just now, in particular, across S1 to S6, is that our integrated social subjects, S1 to S2, are integrated. For example, at the moment I'm doing single-teach delivery modern studies history and geography, so in particular a lot of our subjects, such as our local councils, our local government, how important that is, has actually been delivered by a non-subject specialist. Now, for me, it's great, it's a general understanding, but in terms of the level enthusiasm that a non-subject specialist can deliver is a big issue. Again, a lot of modern-size teachers are feeling that across the country, that, you know, how effective is integrated social subjects, you know, in trying to increase, you know, young people's awareness of the importance of, you know, different levels of government. Because again, we do cover that very superficially in first and second year normally.  It is part of a citizenship agenda, it is part of, you know, developing pupils to become more politically literate. I think, you know, it's a whole school agenda, it's not just a modern study, such as agenda, that there should be time invested across the school, whether it be, you know, election events across the school, week-worth events, you know, a payday or two and PSE just isn't enough, you know, it should be, you know, weaker to worth of events to increase and engage young people in terms of the matters that work. And again, kind of like what you said about Enable Scotland ensuring that, you know, it's a level of discourse, you know, it's not a discussion, it's not a debate, it's a little discourse of what's happening, you know, accessible information for young people as well, particularly in deprived areas as well, making sure that information's available to them in an easy-to-reform at an extent. That's very helpful and very passionate. And take on board what you say about not being the job of the modern studies teacher, and it does scream curriculum for excellence. Is there any responsibility of all, definitely? There will be young people who will just never be that engaged with the school, and there are other locations where young people will also hang out, be it a football community, the swim club, the community centre, wherever. So it's back again, I think, maybe, to the point that Caley was making and Willie was making about going to where people are, and young people aren't just in school. So any other, because what we're looking for is, yes, that long-term approach, but a short-term solution is to driving up interest in the election that we've got before us. So have a think about other suggestions that our witnesses would like to make. Alexander Stewart, whilst they're doing that, so catch my eye now if you want to come in with those comments and suggestions. Alexander, you did want to come in when you make a comment. Thank you, convener. I think it's been very interesting to hear the motivation that individuals believe that groups should have, and I do believe that there is a motivation in the younger voter, and I still think that we have a motivation in the older voter, or the grey market, that do come out to local government elections. It's the market in between. It's the sort of 25 to 55-year-old that we seem to have a problem trying to identify why they do not believe that the vote at a local government is relevant, because in any other vote they do come out. It would be interesting to get some people's views about that sector, and how we should be engaging with that sector to try and influence them, because my perception, having been accountable for four terms, is that our impact on that sector is probably quite intense. We look after the young and the old, but the ones in the middle, we also try to do as much as we can to support them, and their influence within the local government isn't always there. I'd like some views about how people feel that we should manage that market and try to get them buzzed up and get them involved and motivated to come out and support. I know that a witness will be thinking about that, but I know that Debbie King had wanted to come in. I suppose that I should go back to one of the previous points. The work that we've done with the Electoral Commission on the last five elections, both referendums and elections, has been more about awareness-raising about getting people to understand about registering to vote, which I know is the step behind where you're looking at it trying to get people out. The importance of that side of things plays into those hard-to-reach groups, when we know that there's a lot of people who are students in the sort of older student range, who are in private rented sector, and they're very underrepresented in understanding why that is and why they're not understanding that actually the process for registering and then going on to vote is really important, so how we get out the information to them. In terms of our campaigns, which were awareness-raising ones, it was very much about getting out through the media, which was one of the biggest routes we had to get out to people who were homeless or in the student population or tenants, but also using social media and using the channels that other people tend to use and just trying to engage that way, because tenants are very hard to reach even for us and we get a lot of them approaching us, so we use our website to try and get out, so it's using all those methods where people might engage more and see that actually this is something that they could register and then go on to vote if they're kind of motivated to do so. Okay, thank you very much. Dave Watson. On the practical, I mean, I think it is important that it's not just a matter for local government or politicians or political parties, frankly. I think civil society has an important role here. I mean, we do, like others, a lot of work in terms of ensuring our members are registered. There's much higher percentage of trade union members register, vote, and as a result of some of that work, we also encourage a much higher level of postal voting, but I think the, and that's important that, you know, it's no point in trying to engage people to vote if they're not registered, but I think the next stage really is around the election. I think I really do things important. We've tried two different models. We tried the traditional hustings model and, you know, obviously a number of politicians have had to come along and stand up on platforms and be grilled by our members on local government and other issues, but I do think we tried other models, and last year, last local government election, we got a number of our local government groups and actually got the politicians to do the table thing, to go around and talk to them. I have to say, politicians said to us they found that a lot more challenging than the hustings model, but our members said they found it a lot more useful because, you know, you might think, well, trade union members are more than happy to stand up and talk, but actually that ability to have an engagement with five or six people rather than having to stand up in a big hall of 100 people was very important in that engagement. The only point I would put back to the particular parties, I have to say, is that it's a point that the union, like ours, makes very often and was made last time round. Obviously, 75% of our members are women, and they did make the point very often that the politicians that were coming to talk to them didn't always reflect the society as a whole. We know, for example, that councils have got only 25% of the women, and I haven't seen the exact data for ethnic minorities, but I suspect that it's not that good either. I think that if political parties have a role to ensure that their candidates are more reflective of society, I think that that encourages the sort of engagement that we talked about. Okay, thank you, Mr Watson. Yes, Ruth? I'm not a modern studies teacher, I'll just say before we start. Not yet. Just on that point about the different kinds of engagement, I did a couple of those sort of conversation, still cafes, one with the older people's group and one with Oxfam, and it was more challenging, but it was also more enjoyable because it allowed that conversation. If you gave an answer, the person could come back, and I think it's really worth noting how good they are. I also just wanted to mention when we're talking about getting young people registered, as Sarah is not here yet, so I'll give a mention to the youth workers. Certainly in North Ayrshire, our youth services team did huge amounts of work getting young folk registered, and the participation levels were quite high, so I think on that point about going out to where young people are, so the youth clubs and things at that, not just schools, is crucial. Okay, any comments on that? I'm not seeing anyone trying to attract my attention at the moment, not so many. I was maybe just going to address the question about, I think, essentially what Alexander Stewart is saying is about generations and how we do have these strategies that target young people and older people, and I do agree with what you said that we sometimes miss the big middle area. Certainly having looked at attitudes towards voting, there is real generational change at work, so older voters do feel a real commitment to voting, and we talk about civic duty to vote, and that doesn't exist amongst younger generations. I would like to make that point without being critical of it, but I think that we just need to understand that there is societal change at work, and that leads on to the point that perhaps 40 per cent turnout is not a bad turnout in a local election for a set of elections where the level of government is not seen as important as other levels of government, but that then leads to the point of, perhaps we should be talking about longer-term reform to local government and giving it more teeth, not less teeth, and I think that might get to the heart of the problem here. I will take you in, but I want to give preference, and I will take you in directly next, but I will take Willie Sullivan in first and then I will come to you, Graham, okay? Yeah, I think that if you get 40 per cent in the next election, it will be pretty good, but I don't think that's enough, really. The democratic system relies on that voting for its legitimacy and the turnout for its legitimacy, and if 60 per cent of the population aren't voting on it, it's a vicious decline. Less people vote for it, less important it seems, less legitimacy it has, and less people vote for it. So I do agree that we need a long-term approach, which is about flushing power through the system. As I've said, it's not just about the elected bodies having that power, but the communities having the power in all sorts of different ways. I think that that's the necessary long-term strategy, because I have, like the book that I mentioned in my support of the progress signal, I'm concerned about democracy, I'm concerned about that declining legitimacy, because it's not because a lot of people don't vote not, it's not because they don't have the time or they don't have the information, it's actually a conscious political decision not to go, I'm going to give you legitimacy because I don't think you're legitimate, and that's a worry. Thank you. So it really follows on from what Dr Benney was saying. I was struck by three submissions that we received, one from myself, Dr Benney, one from Unison and one from Dr Gilmaw, who's not here, all making the same point, sorry. For the record, because anyone watching would realise what happened there, but yes, he is here and thank you for that, thank you for coming along. Good to see him. So all making the same point that when people perceive powers being eroded from local government, they don't see the point in voting in council elections, and you've all used powers in your submissions. Dr Benney talks about eroded powers, Unison, you talk about powers moving away, and Dr Gilmaw talks about a significant decrease in powers. So I think when people think that there is little point in this, they won't vote. Okay, anyone want to come in and explore the idea of additional powers, whether to local government or whether it's passing from this tier or others to local government or indeed from local government and to communities? Mr Watson. I mean, obviously, local government reform is a pretty big issue, but I think the important point from the election's point of view is that, yes, there is a perception, obviously, that we have a very centralised state, and that's not about any recent decisions. Obviously, powers have gone from local government like police and fire and others, but it's more about the fact that, even before that, local authorities in Scotland were some of the largest in Europe, not the largest in Europe, and we've put some of the statistics there. Obviously, there was the local democracy commission, which went into this in some detail and talked about just the scale. I remember doing a meeting in this very room when we had some colleagues from Norway over to talk about their system there, and there was a lady present at that meeting who lived in Fife, and she was Norwegian. She came in, she said, she said, I live in Cacodi, and when I arrived, I said, where's the local council? And they said, oh, it's Fife. And she said, isn't that a region, and didn't that used to be a nation in its own right? In Norway, Cacodi would have had its own council, and there is that whole issue of actually being local and doing that, but I don't think that that in itself would work, because easy to say to government, well, as we do, more should be decentralised, more power should go locally. There is an argument for smaller local authorities in that context, where the pressure tends to be in the other direction because of the alleged economies of scale of having bigger councils, so the pressure is there, but I do think that if you did do that, and we would obviously argue that's the case, it's also then incumbent on councils to play their role in that, and councils playing their role would be about that local engagement. There are mechanisms that councils try, citizens, juries, participatory budgeting, all of those things, and the President of the Scottish Government, I know, has put that in their plan to encourage more of that, and I think that some of those mechanisms can work, but I think that there's got to be a feeling that you're not just being token consultation, and that there's actually a real power and a real engagement from local people. If they've got that, I think that they're more likely to participate in the local elections. Yeah, I think that it's difficult because we've never really had high turnouts in local government elections in Scotland, and it might be in other countries, particularly some of the Scandinavian countries, that they have like 78 per cent turnout in these elections. So, in some ways it's about a culture and a way of thinking about where power is and how it's used and how it operates, and Leslie Riddick says this, it's a British point of view that power comes from the top and is given down, you know, and it's imbided in all of us the way we think about it, a lot of us anyway. So, I think that for talking about long-term now, then that kind of culture has to shift, and the only way that people will realise that they can do stuff for themselves and for each other and will trust each other and have confidence in their own communities to, you know, run energy companies or run healthcare or run their own housing would be by letting them try it and do it. Thank you very much. Anyone else want to put on that theme, Keely? Well, I'm not really going to come in on the sort of reform theme. I think that's probably a longer term discussion, but in terms of that importance of understanding what your local council does, I think that that's hugely important is educating people and talking to people about what decisions they make and what powers they have and what influence they have on your life. Certainly, from our perspective, a lot of the issues that we've seen raised at the parliamentary hustings were decisions that were made locally and were issues that could be influenced locally rather than at a parliamentary level. Okay, thank you very much. Now, Elaine, I'll take you in a second. I know that Andy Wightman has been quite patient. You were into his earlier. Do you want to come in? Do you still wish to come in, Andy? Yes, thank you. Thank you, convener. Yes, just picking up a little bit on that conversation. I mean, I'm intrigued at the extent to which, in Lynn Benney's sights and figures about, you know, since the 1940s, turnout has been broadly below 50 per cent for local government. We're doing better than England, a little bit better than Wales. But that does contrast with other countries like Austria and Denmark and Finland, which are all in the 60 per cent range and above. I was particularly struck reading a paper recently on the Icelandic elections, where they say that looking as far back as data has been collected, voter participation in Icelandic local government has always fluctuated between a maximum of 87.8 per cent and a minimum of 81.9 per cent until 2006, when it dropped below 80 per cent, leading to a bit of a fuss, when it fell below 80 per cent. We're now below 40 per cent. I'm just wondering why, I mean, are there any merit or have any studies been done to look at why voting in most other European countries is consistently higher than it is in the UK as a whole? consistently higher?  I mean, I'm not an expert on Iceland, but I think there are different layers of government where the responsibilities are clearer and it would be seen more broadly as a more democratic system. So I think, you know, what you're citing there is proof that local elections can produce high turnouts in certain circumstances and certain conditions with certain powers attached to the body that they're electing. It's not the same thing about, you know, Scottish people or British people that's different here. It's the structures of government that are different. I think it's both. Do you think? Yeah, I think so. Well, that's it. I guess one needs a culture, that's right. Do we add anything to that, will we? No, just, I mean, I think I spoke a little bit about the culture, but the culture begets the structures that people accept and they work with, so like, we all give our taxes to the centre and then our taxes are distributed down the way, whereas in a lot of these states that have high turnouts, much of the tax is collected locally and then given up in a kind of confederal arrangement. And then I get the other thing that is often said is that in a lot of these states, the structures of local government are constitutional. They can't just be done away with by a higher body. I think that's, again, that way of thinking about where power is, you know, it's powers given from the top and allowed from the top instead of allowed from the bottom up. It was interesting. I was up at Kirkantillic SMP branch last week talking about local democracy as an invitee. And there was a discussion there about how central government was going to vet community councillors. There was half the room where quite outraged that central government would decide who was capable of being a community councillor or not. That's something to explore and understand why we think in that way, why we think that the top should vet the grass roots all the time. Is that all? Just whilst we're looking a little bit at the structures, Mr Watson, I'm just wondering if we have moved, of course, to much larger multi-member council wards, where back in the day, whether you liked it or not, I thought it was more or less democratic. Everybody knew who their local councillor was, whether you liked them or whether you voted or didn't vote them. There was always an intimacy to the voting process. That was the guy or that was the one, unfortunately, mostly a guy who was your local councillor. You knew who the other candidates were. You probably did get a knock at the door. You probably did see them down the local supermarket, but some of those wards are huge now. I know that's structured again. I'm just wondering, just leave that sitting there. Mr Watson, I know that you wanted to come in. We were one of the organisations that argued very strongly for the proportional local government and also to separate it from national elections, which created a higher turnout because people were voting in a national election. In fact, it was one of the very few occasions where we were supporting a Conservative-private member's bill at the time, which was David Mondell's, originally, and then Brian Montieth took it over in terms of separating the two elections. I'd have to say that it clearly hasn't delivered an improvement in turnout, not in fairness that that was our primary motivation for supporting it, but it hasn't in itself done that. We need to move on and look at other reasons for that. I spoke at our sister union always conference last year and had the opportunity to have a long discussion because they have 400-odd local authorities. In fact, one of them drew their island for me, and I assumed that there would be one council on this island. Actually, there were three. When you saw the mountains, you understood why. The important point was that the staff there said that, yes, it's very small. There were two things that they felt were important. One was that they were a unitary authority. Public services were not delivered by 10, 12 or 15 bodies that we pulled together in community planning. The local police, primary schools and primary health care were all delivered by the same council, so there was a joining up there of services. There was a unitary authority that did not have clangos from Oslo running a range of services in that area. The other interesting point that I am talking to some of the individual members is that they felt with that smaller council a real connection with their community. The officer-in-charge of the care, the one care for the elderly home in one authority said to me, I'm not worried about the once-a-year inspection from an inspector from Oslo coming down. I'm more worried about being knobbled in the supermarkets about the quality of care in my home. It brought that really local element to it. I think that there is much to be said for that model. There are economic and other arguments strongly in the other direction, but I agree with Willie. I think that we need to start thinking about building up from the bottom rather than building down from the top. Any of our witnesses want to come in and I'll move on to Elaine Smith. Just on word size, I mean, just to say that I was a councillor in Dunfermline for one period in Dunfermline Central Ward, which is a massive four-member ward. Even though I got paid some money for doing that, as councillors do, if you have indulged me with my personal experience for a minute, I couldn't really do that job properly in a way that I wanted to. It was just far too big and far too many people to represent and do another job as well. I would have loved to have just looked after the little part of the town that I lived in, Parknook. I would have done it. We know half a day a week for nothing gradually as a public service. I was in my mid-40s then, but I was the youngest person in the Labour group at that time. There are lots of people who would want to represent their local community if it was of a manageable size. They would be much more connected than trying to run those big, massive wards. The main point on that is that the size of the ward is a product of the system, but the system is not the level of representation of the problem. It could have a proportional system with a lot more councillors, and it would deal with that problem of that ward size. Actually, when I indicated earlier that convener is aware of the issues that I wanted to explore, I can just take it a wee bit further if that is okay. It is helpful the discussion that we have been having. Dave Watson has figures in unison submission, which is one councillor per 4,270 people in Scotland, and in France it is one per 125, which I think goes back to what the point that Willie Sullivan was making. I wondered from Dr Benny's figures about the average turnout in local government elections by decade. Those do not seem to be split down, so I wondered whether there are any figures around four district councils and whether the turnout for the district councils was higher than for the regional councils, for example, because, again, that takes us back to the point that you yourself made, convener, and, again, building on what Willie Sullivan said, that in district councils you did have smaller areas where people lived, where people knew the councillor. Just an example from when I was younger and living in a flat and sec side and across the road was councillor, the local councillor, who was quite happy for you to knock her door and happy for everybody in that community because she knew them and she would deal with them. I would be interested in whether the turnout was better for districts. Over the past number of years, we have had a reorganisation of the districts and the regions, and a further reorganisation of the voting system to proportional representation. It seems to me that Dr Benny's words in her submission, which is that the structure of local councils is ripe for review and reform, and maybe for the longer term that is something that we have to actually start to consider. Anyone want to come in and make any comment in relation to that? That would fit in very well with what the current theme has been. Dr Benny, do you have anything to add to that? I think that we are all hinting in some way or another at some kind of fundamental reform that would look at community involvement and the kind of bossam-up approach as opposed to talking down. However, there are fundamental issues of reform that would not happen before the next set of elections. On the question of district and regional turnout, I do not know that I can look that up for you. Those figures are amalgamated figures. I suspect that they are quite similar, but it goes back to the notion of the perceptions of power. It is not just about the locality, it is about the perception of what the district and regional councils did then, but it is worth investigating it further. I am conscious that one of the things that is running through this is that we are saying that one of the ways to make local government more intimate and direct is that it is more power in local areas, but it might also be more politicians, which might not be popular in itself with the people that are not voting in those elections that we have left behind. There might be a slight conflict, so I am sorry, Mr Sullivan. I think that my colleague was here last week, Katie, and we made a submission on that, because we did some polling on April this year. It was not just an open question, it was in response to the levels of representation compared with Scotland to Europe. We asked people if they did want more councillors, and when we asked them if they wanted them to be more community volunteers who were not paid, they said that it was in the high 80s that people wanted more councillors. Obviously, we thought that people would want more for nothing, but we asked them whether they wanted more councillors, even if they were paid as they are at the moment. It was still in the high 70s. When people realise that they have not the level of representation and an abnormal level of representation, I know that most people want more politicians, but they do. The evidence shows that when you ask people what their views of politicians are, it is negative, but when you say, tell me what your local politicians tend to say, they are different, they are really helpful, etc. Politicians are classic, they get the bad reputation, but individually in their communities it tends not to be so bad. He says that he is naively hoping. Perhaps Mr Watson. It is not easy to tell that we should have more politicians, but I think that we are talking about a different type of politician. I remember some years ago that a Government minister said that councillors are part-time. The outrage from a number of local councillors was that absolutely not. In fact, some councils, I remember, even ran double-page features in the local newspaper to show that their first meeting was at seven o'clock in the morning and their last was at ten o'clock at night, just to make the point, to say minister, that they were part-time. The trouble is that it is entirely contrary to where we wanted to go. Actually, we have got too many full-time or at least a lot of retard. The age of councillors is too old. Very few people of working age actually do this and do another job as well. Part of that, of course, is because of the workplace. We have to recognise that civic roles are not as respected by a lot of employers in the way that they used to be. The statutory entitlement of the time off to carry these is there, but whether it impacts on your promotion and other impacts in the workplace means that people of a working age are perhaps less willing to be part-time councillors, as they should be, in the main than they used to be. We need to think about making it more part-time. If it was smaller, the role was not as large and the wards were smaller, that would make it a lot easier for people to volunteer and be prepared to do it. However, I think that the last point is in relation to the districts and regions. We should remember that the district councils had very limited powers and some of them had even less than that. It is the same issue for community councils. If they are going to make it worthwhile to some of the working age to allocate some of their time to it, they have to feel that they have some power to change things in their community, and that means having the right powers at the right level. Thank you very much for that. Mr Sullivan, yes? The same poll that we did in April, we asked—another one of those myths is that people just want somebody to go and do stuff for them. They do not want to be involved in running their local community. I think that 25 per cent of people were willing to give up a day a month to help to run their local community. We asked that question in quite a hard way because we gave them options of saying, no, I'm too busy or no, I've got more important things to do. There were only small numbers of people who took that option, but another interesting part was that of the people who said that there were actually 6 per cent of people who said that they were willing to give up three days a month as well. Of the people who said that they weren't willing to give up any time, 22 per cent of them said that it was because they didn't feel that they had anything to contribute. It wasn't so much that they didn't want to, but it was more a level of capacity and confidence. As I said, that is a vicious circle. You need to give people the ability to make decisions and get involved in their local community in order so that they will have the confidence to keep doing it. It does resonate very much with the work that we do with Shadow Scotland, with service user involvement. It is about enabling people to make decisions, to get experience, to move on with their lives and move up to what they want to do, and very much about elections and getting people involved and getting people registered. It is about supporting and empowering people within the community that does resonate with having the system that is more intimate and more geared towards recognising what the community needs are, what people's needs are in the community. If there is the support then, the long term, to get people with lived experience of homelessness, for example, to then go on to become a councillor, that adds to what happens within the councillor and how decisions are made. A couple of our MSP colleagues wish to make comments, but I am conscious that, after that, there are around 10 minutes or so left. Let's look at the long term stuff. We have council elections in May, and we are keen to hear any suggestions that you think. Is it really an opportunity to get to having a think about how the committee could be usefully involved going forward in relation to that, or what local authorities can do to give some additional support to driving turnout at next year's elections, among everyone, not just under-represented groups? Have a think about that, and I will give priority to the last 10 minutes to our witnesses. However, Mr Gibson and Elaine Smith— It is just an issue that has not been touched on, convener, when we are talking about turnout. The media has had a very pernicious effect on attacking all politicians of all parties year in, year out at all levels. That has deterred a lot of people not only from voting but from putting themselves forward in terms of going through the democratic process. The issue of remuneration. I am certainly a great believer in local government reform, but if we are going to work with the system that we have now, we need to have a level of remuneration that attracts people into local government to serve, because people of working age simply cannot afford to do so. There is an issue about gender, but there is even more, I believe, a disproportionate issue about older people, retired people being councillors rather than people of young age. I think that there are a number of issues there that have to be addressed. The issue of the media is one that we are always going to have to wrestle with, but it certainly does, I believe, have a detrimental effect on who wants to involve themselves in politics. I will take it in a second, Mr Sullivan. What we are going to do is look at Elaine Smith in just now, and that allows us to give the last 10 minutes or so to our witnesses, rather than the MSPs, Elaine. Thanks very much, convener. Just focusing on next year, and a couple of points. We have extended the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds, but what we have not done is extend their ability to stand as councillors. Actually, I had an issue where a young person was keen to stand and can't because, although they can vote, they cannot actually stand as a candidate. That is one issue that we need to think about. Another issue is proxy voting that was raised last week at the committee with the minister and Dr Benny raised in her submission. How easy is it when something happens to someone? Actually, people are being disenfranchised because getting a proxy vote maybe is not that easy, either. Those are other issues, too. For next year, I think, that we might need to address. Okay, thank you very much. I will take Mr Sullivan just now, but if the other witnesses could maybe you may not get the opportunity to come back in again after this round of comments, so if you could maybe indicate if you get something you want to say in the next 10 minutes. Mr Sullivan. When Kerry was speaking there, it just reminded me that I heard this guy saying that if Tesco's and Sainsbury's attacked each other in the way that political parties do, then nobody would shop in supermarkets. It is something to think about. One thing to do is that Electro Reform Society, along with a coalition of lots of organisations, is launching a campaign called Act as if you own the place before next in May's local elections, which we are setting up. We are partnering with community groups in different communities to hold act as if you own the place events, which are kind of weekend, well, day-long deliberative forums where local communities can come and have a discussion, a structured discussion, using deliberative techniques to think about what they would do if they ran their local town or community. Any support, I know that five councils are part of the coalition, so any councils, community groups, or we are doing one with a political party, earthen, I forgot where it was now, but an SNP branch is doing it. We want as many and diverse partners as possible to run these events, so anybody who wants to help, the website will be launched on 21 November. It was just to really touch on disenfranchised people in terms of what Elaine mentioned. In our submission, we talked about some of the additional barriers that are faced by people who have learned in disabilities, and particularly that I would like to raise that I have not had the chance to yet, is around limiting expectations of people's ability to vote and people's right to vote. There are still some misconceptions that people's learned disabilities are not allowed to vote, and some of our members and people with support have faced that. I think that polling place staff are not immune to those misconceptions, and we need to do a bit of work to train and to support polling place staff to ensure that nobody is turned away from their right to vote. Returning to some of the practical things that we can do for next year, one of the difficulties is that we represent registration staff who are responsible for doing all the registration work. As you will be aware, a lot of councils have had to cut back on anything that is not absolutely statutory because of the cuts to local government spending, so there is time to do that. Even if it was a one-off funding boost to allow registration staff to do, some of the things that they used to do, I remember that I came to work in Scotland 26 years ago having lived in England for a number of years, and I was mightily impressed because there was a gap in the register in my area that two registrations turned up on my doorstep to find out why there was not a registered person to address. I suspect that that is pretty rare these days, but there are things that the registrations are trying to do, and they could do more of. Going to schools, for example, to register 15-year-olds in advance of the 16- to 17-year-olds, so not just doing the awareness, but actually going there and actually doing the registration is important as well. Perhaps we might also, in the Scottish Government's Fair Work Convention initiative, perhaps build something in there about the civic role of employers and trade unions in terms of promoting elections and providing some space within that, certainly for employers to recognise that civic role and encourage people to stand and to vote, and also generally encourage more buzz and awareness around it. I take the point about the media, but the other point about the media, of course, is that local media has been significantly weakened in recent years. It is much smaller than it used to be. We all know that a lot of our local newspapers are run by one journalist in the main and lots of syndicated stuff. Some funding towards publicity might boost some of the finances and enable them to take a more active role. I think that that is probably four practical things that I would end up by offering. Precisely what we were asking witnesses to do. It is like Debbie King, yes? Maybe just to emphasise those practical points in terms of people who are homeless. We have got over 10,000 people in temporary accommodation, around 5,000 people slept rough in Scotland last year. Those are not small numbers. Around 35,000 people had homeless applications last year. There is a large percentage of the population, 350,000 households in the private rented sector. Again, it is around the registration office and understanding the declaration of local connection that people can make, which often they do not know and definitely lots of people that we work with do not understand. It is around that information and support to emphasise that. It is important if you want to involve people and get them to be able to exercise their right to vote to make sure that they are supported to do so. Okay, thank you, Debbie. I do not know if Victoria, do you want to? Thank you. Again, I want to emphasise more. More time needs to be invested in schools. I know that a few had commented on going to the young people within their community, but again, a lot of the feedback and a lot of the community that I have worked in, there is not a lot of services for young people, for politicians to come out and see them at. So again, school is a main drive and it is a main access point for young people. So again, having individuals come in to emphasise the importance of registration, again, as a modern-size teacher, and again, we have been pushing that since the referendum, since the change in voting age, and again, we are continuing to do that. But again, time is very limited in school. Again, it is about emphasising that there is a need for more time across a whole school, rather just in the modern-size remix. Again, there are a lot of pupils within Scottish schools that do not even choose the subject, so how can we reach these pupils as well across a whole school agenda? Very briefly touched upon, you know, this whole idea, more visibility is really needed in terms of, you know, raising young people's awareness of local government campaigns in particular, you know, there's a huge buzz around the EU referendum, the Scottish and the Bench referendum, pupils are very much engaged in that, but it comes to local elections in terms of your deliver in the class, they have not got an interest in it, they're very interested in their local area, they're very clued up on it, but in terms of, you know, wanting to go out and vote and make a difference, they're not that bothered about it. So again, there needs to be greater visibility, and will it be posted on a lot of time this year, but again, areas where people can, kids can get access to information and go on to choose to find that further for themselves. Thank you very much, Victoria. Yeah, Willie Sullivan, anything you want to add? I think what Dave said, those four points seem really, really useful and obviously I was selling our campaign, but I think it is, you know, we just see ourselves as being a hub where we can connect lots of people who are doing stuff to get people interested in running their own communities. I would just say, you know, these registration drives are clearly fundamentally important. The next level is communicating to voters why they should actually vote, and I think maybe that's where public information campaigns could be a bit less technical, you know, in terms of how to vote using STV and move beyond that to, you know, why they should vote and what local councils do for them and the difference, you know, they make to their lives. I think that that is fundamentally important, but the other thing I would add is that I think in a way we need to get with, you know, modern societies, and I don't think we've mentioned social media, that's clearly very important in engaging young people, but also in postal voting, proxy voting. We have to make it as easy as possible for people to vote in modern societies, and that might be something in the short term that we could focus on. Okay, thank you very much. Just a brief opportunity, the way that these evidence sessions sometimes go, there's usually one witness sitting there who really wanted to say something, and the nature of the discussion doesn't give them the opportunity to say that now is the time to, it's a final opportunity. Not for everyone, we don't have time for that, but if there's something you really wanted to say and you've not had the opportunity to say it, feel free to get my attention now. Delighted, that's not the case, it allows us to stay on schedule. Can I thank all the witnesses for their time here this morning, and just to let you know that the committee will consider the evidence that we received today, it won't just sit there and, you know, the ether will seek to do something with it, and we'll have to decide our approach in relation to really targeting a decent voter turnout at next year's elections, but also the longer term strategies that we're here with today. So thank you everyone, and as previously agreed, we now move into private session. Thank you.


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