Scotland annual report

Our work this year has focused on providing expert advice and evidence on the Scottish Government’s agenda for electoral reform, continuing to support stakeholders in the electoral community to meet their statutory responsibilities, and expanding our engagement work with communities most at risk of democratic exclusion. 

Our work to support electoral reform in Scotland:

• Worked closely with the Scottish Government to provide evidence-based advice on their proposals for electoral reform in Scotland. Our expert advice helped to shape the Bill introduced into the Scottish Parliament in January 2024.
• Submitted comprehensive written evidence on the Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill to the Standard’s, Procedures and Public Appointment’s Committee of the Scottish Parliament and providing oral evidence to the Committee.
• Published robust research on the accuracy and completeness of Scotland’s electoral registers, including evidence-based proposals for future reforms to support the quality and integrity of the registers. We also published analysis of the 1 December electoral registers in Scotland, looking at how the 2022 canvass in Great Britain was run and considering how the electoral registers have been affected by the canvass reforms introduced in 2020.
• Conducted research into how flexible voting options could work across Scotland and the wider UK. This research is designed to inform debate about the modernisation of voting.

We continue to monitor and support electoral administrators, candidates, parties and campaigners to comply with their responsibilities under electoral law:

• Provided advice and guidance to electoral administrators, candidates and agents at the 10 council by-elections elections held across Scotland in 2023/24 and observing by-elections to identify areas for improvement.
• Worked jointly with the Electoral Management Board in Scotland (EMB) to provide guidance and advice to electoral administrators in Scotland to support them in preparing for and delivering the polls. This included delivery of a joint conference in October 2023 focused on preparedness for the UK Parliament election held on July 2024 but also manging divergence between Scottish devolved and UK electoral legislation.
• Worked with the EMB to consult the electoral administration community on challenges around sector capacity and resilience and developing strategies for supporting the sector.
• Used our performance standards frameworks to support and monitor Returning Officers (ROs) during the Scottish council by-elections and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) on their year-round activities to maintain accurate and complete electoral registers.
• Held a webinar for Scottish political parties, to help them understand the digital imprint requirements that came out of the Elections Act 2022 and currently sit alongside the existing Scottish digital imprint regime.
• Built upon our established relationship with Police Scotland, holding regular engagements to facilitate information sharing and discuss opportunities for joint working, including strategies to address the intimidation of candidates at Scottish elections.
• Held a joint webinar with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) to reach members of Scotland’s third sector organisations, to help them understand electoral law and how it may apply to their campaigning work.
• Provided support and advice to the Petition’s Officer and campaigners at the Rutherglen and Hamilton West recall petition and publishing a report on the petition. Our report and evidence inform any discussions in Scotland around proposals for a recall process for the Scottish Parliament.

We have continued to expand our programme of democratic engagement work in Scotland:

• Worked with councils, EROs, and education bodies to deliver Welcome to Your Vote Week in January 2024, where 160 schools and other organisations signed up to deliver democratic education activities using our learning resources. As part of the campaign, we launched a new resource to support organisations to run a real vote on a topic that matters to young people, to help them understand the voting process and create opportunities for them to have their say.
• This year we began working with Children in Scotland to establish a youth voice network, made up of young people from across Scotland, to inform the Commission’s work to engage with young people. The group has provided feedback on our learning resources and generated ideas for Welcome to Your Vote Week.
• Participated in a working group made up of teachers and other stakeholders established by Education Scotland to review the current political literacy curriculum in Scotland, with the aim of creating a new framework for political literacy education to ensure consistent and effective delivery
• Supported EROs in their work to engage under-registered groups by establishing a network for council staff leading on communications and outreach work to provide a forum for sharing ideas and best practice, which meets quarterly.
• Worked closely with council communications teams to ensure voters receive clear messages by sharing information and resources with teams through the local authority communications network throughout the year, including on Welcome to Your Vote Week.

• Continue to provide expert advice to the Scottish Government and Parliament on the Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill. We will work with electoral administrators and campaigners to develop and consult on any additional guidance required on changes arising from any resulting legislation.
• Through advice, training and briefing sessions, support parties and campaigners to comply with the law, while continuing to ensure political finance is transparent.
• Work with parties in Scotland to update our Code of Conduct for campaigners at devolved elections.
• Work with Police Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the Electoral Management Board, and the Scottish Assessors Association (SAA) to deliver a briefing session for Police Scotland’s divisional SPOCs (Single Points of Contact) 160 schools signed up to Welcome to your Vote Week 2024 68 across Scotland so that they are confident in the application of electoral law in their work around elections.
• Continue to work with governments across the UK and the wider electoral community to consider the risks posed by cyber-security and disinformation. This includes working with voters to ensure they are confident about understanding who is targeting them and why so they can be alert to the risks of disinformation in all forms.
• Continue our work with partner organisations to reach out to various campaigning organisations based in Scotland to ensure they are aware of non-party campaigning rules and how they apply to the different elections in Scotland.
• Work with the EMB to support ROs and EROs to help them meet the challenges they face in delivering well-run electoral services which continue to meet voters’ needs. This will be particularly important in the context of the turnover of senior staff in electoral administration across the country. Our work will continue to include identifying opportunities to strengthen the resilience of electoral administration teams and exploring options for modernising the voting process.

We will continue to expand our support for democratic engagement in Scotland:

• We look forward to developing our work with Children in Scotland and our youth voice network to create youth-friendly resources for Welcome to Your Vote Week 2025 and the 2026 Scottish Parliament election.
• We will continue to contribute to Education Scotland’s review of political literacy and development of a new framework, including exploring whether the Commission should develop additional learning resources and teacher training to support effective delivery of the new framework.
• We recognise the important role charities and other civil society organisations can play in increasing registration amongst under-registered groups, and will therefore be establishing a process to commission democratic engagement projects and initiatives. By providing funding to test out innovative approaches to democratic engagement we hope to build our understanding of what works in supporting participation amongst under-registered groups.
• The Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill includes provision to create a grant making power for Scottish Ministers to increase democratic engagement. We will work with Scottish Government to ensure we avoid duplication and confusion for organisations who may wish to apply for funding.

We will continue to address the barriers that people face in standing for election:

• In May 2024 we hosted a session in Edinburgh with the Electoral Commission Board focused on barriers to electoral office. This included participants representing groups of people who may face particular challenges, including intimidation, when standing for election. Participants in the discussion will include those representing disabled people, 69 ‘New Scots’, women, and transgender people. This will inform the Board’s ongoing discussions on how these barriers may be most effectively addressed both by the Commission and wider society.

We will also commence a project, drawing in stakeholders from amongst those administering Scottish council elections and those who campaign in these elections, to identify strategies for improving voter understanding of the single transferable vote system, with the aim of lowering the level of rejected ballots at Scottish council elections. This work was due to commence in 2023/24 and was paused due to the workloads of electoral administrators in preparing for the changes introduced by the UK Elections Act.

The Electoral Commission serves a diverse democracy in Scotland and we are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We have continued to be an active participant in the EMB’s accessibility sub-group working on strategies to ease the process of voting and accessing relevant election information for disabled people in Scotland. This has included supporting the delivery of guidance setting out short, medium and long term objectives for the electoral community in Scotland to address barriers to voting for disabled people.

In 2023/24 we have provided funding to support learning disability charity Enable to develop Easy Read resources and plan engagement activity. While this work focused on supporting people to participate in the UK general election held on July 2024, we will work with Enable to build on this work ahead of the elections in 2026 and 2027.

During 2023/24 we utilised 99.8% of £2m of budget available. This was predominately staffing £1.1M (57%); the remaining amounts represent the Scottish Parliament contribution to common activities and corporate overheads. Our segmental reporting on pages 154-155 of the full report shows the breakdown between direct and indirect costs.

The Commission is accountable to the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body (SPCB) for our work on devolved Scottish purposes. We continue to report to other committees for our work in different policy areas, most notably the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.

In September 2023, we submitted our fourth estimate to the SPCB for the funding of our work in the year 2024/25. The process for developing the estimate followed the ‘Statement of Funding Principles’, which we agreed in 2021 with both the Scottish, Welsh and UK Parliaments.

We also submitted a supplementary estimate for 2023/24 to cover a staff pay award in response to the cost-of-living increase faced by staff, and the costs of addressing a cyber-attack on the Commission. This was approved by the SPCB in December 2023.

In 2023/24 the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee introduced an annual reporting session for the Electoral Commission. We were pleased to meet with the Committee in November 2023 for the first of these sessions which created an opportunity to engage with the Committee on the broad range of the Commission’s work in Scotland.