The Committee wants to hear from you to understand what you think are the barriers discouraging a more diverse range of people from becoming councillors.
The 2022 Scottish local elections are due to be held on Thursday 5 May.
The Improvement Service undertook a survey of current councillors and found that of those who responded—
• 67% were aged 50 or above;
• 65.7% were male;
• 98% were white.
Ahead of next year’s elections, the Committee will be hearing from people at its meeting on 23 November to understand why there are not more younger people, more women and more people of colour becoming councillors or remaining as councillors.
The Committee is only holding one session on this issue at the moment, but it is something that the Committee may return to later in the session.
The Committee wants to hear from you to help the Committee decide what issues it should be focussing on at the meeting on 23 November.
The Committee is doing a questionnaire, so you can give us your views. The questionnaire can be accessed via the link below.
https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/17XSYO/
We would be really grateful if you could share this questionnaire with other people who you think would be interested or let us know people you think we should be contacting.
Please could you send your responses to the questionnaire by 15 November.
Responses which are sent after this may not be looked at by the Committee.
Kind regards,
Sameerah
Sameerah Ali
Committee Assistant
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
The Scottish Parliament
Tel: 0131 348 5882