Electoral boundaries - determination process: consultation analysis

Views on any other rules or methodology changes

The consultation sought views on whether any other changes to the rules or methodology around setting electoral boundaries should be made, as a result of any possible change to the approval process in Scotland.

Of the 23 respondents who responded to this question, five said ‘no’ or ‘not at this stage’, and 18 made suggestions for change, with one individual respondent stating “If changes are made to the approval process—particularly if they move toward more automatic implementation of Boundaries Scotland’s recommendations—it becomes essential to introduce stronger safeguards and updated methodologies to ensure that fairness, representation, and public trust are not compromised”. Glasgow City Council noted in their response that “Any changes to the approval process should be accompanied by clear guidelines and criteria to ensure consistency and fairness”.

Parity

Four respondents (three individuals and one organisation) raised issues related to parity.

One respondent called for “clearer parity guidelines”, noting that “Scotland currently lacks a strict tolerance threshold for deviation from parity in local and national constituencies”, and suggesting that “A statutory maximum deviation range (e.g. ±7.5%) should be introduced to prevent disproportionate elector numbers between constituencies, while still allowing flexibility for rural and island regions”. A further individual respondent suggested “A 10% variation in parity is seen to work well elsewhere and is seen as best practice through the Venice Convention”.

Another individual respondent suggested that “Rather than strict parity, greater weight should be placed on geographic communities and making sure local identity is retained as much as possible. A few thousand here or there seems less important than keeping communities together”.

For Scottish Parliament reviews, Boundaries Scotland suggested the inclusion of a formulation of international best practice on parity (rather than strict limits) within legislation with the aim of improving clarity at the same time as maintaining flexibility to accommodate local circumstances, commenting:

“Boundaries Scotland sees the benefit of having a discretion to apply the rules to suit areas with different characteristics, rather than a prescriptive approach. However, to assist with clarity and increasing the understanding of the overall boundary setting process, the following suggestions should be considered: -

• Electoral parity should have precedence as ensuring each vote has the equal say throughout Scotland is a fundamental principle of boundary setting. This approach would also provide clarity and consistency with other UK boundary reviews (eg UK Parliament and Senedd).
• There should be no set limit on the % variation from the electoral quota as strict limits. For example, the 5%, as used for UK Parliament reviews, or 10% cited in Welsh legislation, could be too constraining given Scotland’s diverse geography. However, the Venice Commission provides a useful guide that variation “should seldom exceed 10% and never 15%, except in really exceptional circumstances”. It is this international best practice that the Commission has consistently followed. We would therefore support inclusion of this or a similar formulation within legislation as we believe this offers sufficient flexibility to illustrate the importance of parity, equality and fairness, and to accommodate local circumstances, without risking very large electoral wards, constituencies or regions in areas of lower population density”.

Boundaries Scotland noted that, for reviews relating to local authorities, it “supports the current approach of ‘effective and convenient local government’ being the paramount principle”, and further stated that:

“For local electoral reviews, it is noted that the rules set out in Schedule 6 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 provide the flexibility Boundary Scotland requires to identify solutions that work for communities of different sizes and shapes, in local council areas operating at considerably different territorial scales. Therefore, it is Boundaries Scotland’s view that there would be no benefit to changing the rules that allow it to devise its methodology for electoral reviews. This methodology is routinely discussed with Ministers and Parliamentary committees as well as local authorities before review work commences”.

Population / population growth

Four respondents (two individuals and two organisations) raised issues related to population and/or population growth. A further respondent had suggested that boundaries should be based on population data in response to the previous question, as set out in the section above.

One individual respondent called for consideration of using Census data on the total population in a constituency rather than the electoral register in boundary reviews, stating that “Once an MSP is elected they have to represent all the people within that constituency whither they are on the voters Roll or not, which leaves some MSPs representing a lot more constituents than others”.

Another individual respondent called for geospatial modelling improvements, suggesting that “Scotland should invest in more advanced geospatial population forecasting tools, including AI-based projections, to allow for boundary lines that remain stable and reflective of future demographic shifts—especially in high-growth or depopulating areas”.

The above call to take into account future demographic shifts was echoed in comments from Glasgow City Council and the Electoral Management Board, who noted:

GCC: “One key improvement would be to incorporate projected future growth into boundary reviews. This is especially important where development plans have already been approved or are actively in progress. Factoring in anticipated population increases would help ensure that boundaries remain representative and sustainable over time, rather than requiring frequent revisions shortly after implementation. This forward-looking approach would support more resilient and equitable electoral arrangements, aligning with long-term planning and community needs”.

EMB: “Comments have been raised with the EMB by RO teams that reviews do not always take any or sufficient account of projected population growth. Reviews of local government boundaries and wards do consider population growth to some degree but Scottish Parliament reviews are based wholly on historical electorate numbers. Population distribution is changing significantly in some areas of Scotland with rapid and substantial growth in some areas and decline in others. The frequency of reviews is such that such rapid growth, which can be clearly and accurately forecast based on planning and development, is not always reflected in boundaries”.

In a related point, the EMB highlighted the potential impact of automatic or automated voter registration, which has been proposed by the UK Government, and which could lead to significant changes in electorate numbers in some areas. The EMB noted that “There may then be pressure for similar changes to registration in Scotland. Such change in registers in certain areas, if electoral parity were to be maintained, would present immediate arguments for significant revisions to electoral boundaries with potentially new constituencies in areas where the registers increase as a result of the changes. There need to be plans to anticipate such pressures”.

Community / special geographic considerations

Four respondents (two individuals and two organisations) raised issues related to community and/or special geographic considerations.

Boundaries Scotland commented that “special geographic considerations should continue to be an exception to the strict application of parity and other rules. This flexibility assists with recognising Scotland’s diverse geography and protecting remote areas from the strict application of electoral parity. We recognise that the set number of elected representatives and the protected constituencies in Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands and Na h-Eileanan an Iar provide challenges for designing constituencies in rural and remote parts of mainland Scotland. In the absence of more radical changes, retaining flexibility around special geographic considerations allows us to seek to address this”, and “Local ties and the inconvenience of crossing local authority boundaries should continue to be considered when setting boundaries”.

There were also suggestions that community impact assessments should be undertaken and published, with one response from a community council stating: “There requires to be more accountability to the public justifying the reasons why communities are split up and moved from one area to another and an impact assessment done on the effects of a change has on a community as well as balance the numbers”.

A further individual respondent called for mandatory community cohesion impact reports, suggesting that “Each boundary proposal should be accompanied by a formal report assessing disruption to local community identity, historic boundaries, and transport or service linkages. Where significant disruption is identified, mitigation strategies should be proposed, or revisions considered”.

A related point was made by an individual respondent, who suggested that the process for Scottish Parliament reviews of drawing the constituency boundaries first, and then the regions, was flawed because it “gives the constituencies primacy in the process, leaving the regions as an afterthought, rather than viewing the two as a coherent whole”. The respondent suggested that this “negatively impacts effective local representation at the regional level” and provided examples of “odd” regional boundaries to support their point. They suggested that “possible regions should be defined as the first step of the Scottish Parliament review process. This should give consideration to both existing local authority boundaries and to traditional or historic boundaries […] This may have the advantage, per my response to an earlier question, of reducing the number of review stages. If regional boundaries are firmed up earlier in the process, this may make it easier to draw constituencies within each of those prospective regions”.

Consultation / engagement

An individual respondent suggested that the signature threshold required to trigger local inquiries should be lowered “e.g. from 100 electors to 50 in rural areas, and from 500 to 250 in regional cases”, commenting that “This would enhance grassroots democratic accountability, especially in smaller or underrepresented communities”.

A further individual respondent commented on the need to “Get the public involved more”, and another suggested providing the opportunity to vote on solutions, stating: “There are always mathematically many options that would satisfy the numbers that are required in each electoral area and with the advent of AI presumably easier to come up with multiple solutions rather than one solution that could be presented to the public and elected officials, and potentially the opportunity to be voted on”.

Other

Other issues raised by individual respondents in response to this question were:

• “Electoral Impact Audits (Non-Partisan): Alongside boundary recommendations, require a formal audit on projected electoral impacts, prepared independently and not tied to any political party or campaign. These audits would model how historical voting patterns might be redistributed to ensure the reforms are not unintentionally skewing electoral outcomes”.
• “Timing Safeguards to Avoid Constitutional Interference: No major boundary changes should be implemented within 12 months of a national or local election or referendum unless a broad cross-party consensus agrees it is necessary”.
• “Open to change which improves transparency and democratic scrutiny”.
• “Rules and methodology must take democratic participation and representation into account. MSPs are representative of communities and automaticity could inadvertently weaken this link if decisions are taken by individuals or bodies not directly accountable to communities”.
• “My situation, single household, locale, rural, populous sparse. would benefit from having representation in smaller communities, meeting by forum, with a representation for the constituency”.
• “Unlike the last two Council ward reviews, deprivation should not be part of the formula for deciding Councillor numbers. Councillor numbers should be determined by the number of electors, the population density and local transport connections, with flexibility permitted”.