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NATIONAL SURVEY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT CANDIDATES, 2003
1.1 BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
Following consultation on the Local Government White Paper 'Renewing Local Democracy: the Next Steps' the Scottish Executive published the draft Local Governance (Scotland) Bill on the 4 th of February 2003. A number of initiatives were launched to address issues featured in the White Paper. These were intended to support and enhance the broad principles underlying the draft Bill of improving democratic participation and widening the range of people who become involved in local government.
As part of this, the Executive decided to commission research on candidates who stood at the local government elections in May and councillors who were elected. Separate surveys were conducted for unsuccessful candidates and councillors 1, as councillors were asked additional questions relating to their council duties. Since the Scottish Local Government Information Unit (SLGIU) - now part of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA) - were already committed to undertaking a similar survey of councillors it was agreed that a joint survey would be conducted. The findings from this survey were published jointly by CoSLA and the Scottish Executive in November 2003 under the title ' Scotland's Councillors'. We thank Paolo Vestri, Garrick Smith and their colleagues at SLGIU/CoSLA for their work on this survey.
The objective of the candidates' survey was to gather detailed information on candidates' background and profile to examine what sorts of people decide to stand for election. The aim was to assess how representative Local Government candidates are of the community as a whole and, in turn, whether there are significant differences between unsuccessful candidates and councillors. The research will help inform issues of widening access to council membership. To this end, the data collected will be made available to the Widening Access to Council Membership Progress Group, whose remit is "To take forward work on making council membership attractive to a wider cross-section of the community within the current legislative framework, including the preparation of non-statutory guidance on the definition of politically restricted posts, and make recommendations on the training, development, and support given to councillors."
We would like to thank all those candidates who took the time to complete the questionnaire; their assistance is much appreciated.
1.2. METHODOLOGY
Following an open tendering process, Progressive Research Ltd - an independent Edinburgh-based research firm - were commissioned to conduct the data collection phase of the project on behalf of the Executive. All data analysis was carried out in-house. The candidates' questionnaire (see Appendix 1) was developed during the course of April 2003 and was intended to be compatible with both the councillors' survey and questions contained in the 2001 National Census (to allow comparisons to be drawn between candidates, councillors and the wider population).
The questionnaire, covering letter and freepost return envelope were sent to candidates' home addresses in the week following the May 1 st local elections. Candidates' addresses were compiled from the lists of Persons Nominated supplied by the Returning Officers in the 32 local authorities. A postcard reminder was sent to those candidates who had not responded approximately three weeks after the initial mailing. A further reminder and second questionnaire were sent out two weeks later, with a final date for receipt of completed questionnaires set a fortnight after that. The contractor performed all data entry and consistency checks; open-ended questions were coded in discussion with the Executive's project manager.
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