Half of Scottish 2022 council election battles have wards with only men standing

Last week, we exclusively told how none of Scotland’s five main political parties managed to produce a gender-balanced candidate list ahead of the local authority election in May.

And when we analysed each council area individually, disparities in the levels of representation of women showed up across the country.

But it should be noted that there have been some improvements compared to 2017, as one campaigner from 50:50 Parliament pointed out when we discussed the figures with them.

READ MORE: Use council vote to make Tories ‘feel consequences’ of partygate, Nicola Sturgeon urges Scots

Of the councillors in Scotland elected in 2017, only 32.6% were female compared to 65.7% who were male, according to an analysis conducted by the Improvement Service.

The Sunday National analysed each candidate list from Scotland’s 32 local authority areas, categorising each political hopeful by council, ward, party and gender, to see how balanced the overall picture is.

And we found that almost half (15) of Scotland’s council areas have at least one ward which is standing all-male candidates.

The most heavily male-dominated area is Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, where there were six wards standing just men. The Western Isles has regularly returned the lowest number of female councillors in Scotland, the most being five in 2007, and returned none in 2017. In 2022, 84% of candidates are male (42) while only 16% (8) are women.

Aberdeenshire has three wards standing all-male candidates: Banff and District, Peterhead South and Cruden and Troup. However, overall the area has the second highest percentage of female candidates compared to men across Scotland (57.78% to 42.22%).

SOUTH Lanarkshire and Argyll and Bute both have two wards each with all-male candidate lists: East Kilbride Central North and Hamilton North and East for the former, and Lomond North and South Kintyre for the latter.

South Lanarkshire sits on the lower end of the representation scale council-wide, with 67.13% male candidates and 32.87% female, while Argyll and Bute is third from the bottom, with 72.5% male candidates and 27.5% female.

Dumfries and Galloway also has two male-only wards: Annandale South and Mid and Upper Nithsdale. Overall, candidates in the area are 64.86% male and 35.14% female.

The 10 other council areas with one ward each where voters will only be able to elect a male councillor are Aberdeen City, North Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, Falkirk, Edinburgh, Inverclyde, East Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, South Ayrshire and Highland.

Overall, the analysis of 2547 candidates showed only five councils overall had more than 40% of candidates standing being female, but the council area with the highest percentage of female candidates – West Lothian – only reached 42.47% (56.16% male, 1.37% non-binary). No council areas were even close to a 50-50 split.

A further 16 council areas have between 32% and 40% female candidates, while 11 have below 32% candidates who are female. Seven council areas in total didn’t reach 30% for female representation.

FRANCES Scott, the founder of 50:50 Parliament, which encourages and supports women to stand at all levels of government, said the figures were “marginally better” by going above the 32% benchmark set in 2017.

However, she cautioned: “It’s still not good enough. It shows that democracy is built and designed to accommodate men rather than women.

“It is not drawing upon our full diversity.”

Asked if she had concerns that this would impact on the number of female politicians who would move on to higher levels of government, such as Holyrood and Westminster, Scott said that she did, but it wasn’t the only way for women to involve themselves in politics.

She added: “Although you don’t have to start at the local level and be involved in politics, we wouldn’t want women to be diverted or at all put off by that.

READ MORE: Scottish Tories 'ashamed' of Boris Johnson as candidate distances herself from PM

“But local politics is a really good place to start, and it’s a very important part of our democracy.”

There are also 30 wards across Scotland which have a gender-balanced split of male and female candidates, which is a sign that things could be moving in the right direction.

However, local elections historically have a low voter turnout and are notoriously difficult to poll, which makes it difficult to assess whether this will improve women’s representation at local authority level. It should also be noted that there are six wards which have more than 90% of candidates standing being male, and none with 90% women.

There are 67 wards where 80% of candidates are male, compared to just two where 80% of candidates are women, and 64 where 70% of candidates are male. There are only four where female candidates make up 70%. Overall, just under 34% of all 2546 candidates standing for election on May 5 are women.