‘Down amongst the bins and potholes’: The evolving roles of local government councillors in Scotland

This article presents research on the democratic roles and experiences of councillors in the North-East of Scotland. In-depth interviews with councillors examine perceptions of change in the councillor’s role(s) and day-to-day experiences of representation. By analysing councillors’ narratives, our goal is to understand the elected member ‘doing’ politics locally and to offer insight on how their roles are evolving. How do councillors perform their roles at a time of financial restrictions, technological change, and rising discontent amongst voters? Councillors are critical actors in our political system, with knowledge and insight on how local democracy functions, and we examine their views on how the role of councillor might be reformed. Our findings demonstrate increasing challenges faced by councillors, not least restrictions on council budgets and rising levels of harassment, although councillors still gain a great deal of satisfaction from the role. Community representation remains a key function, but responsibilities have expanded to include communication of council cuts and managing digital media. Our research suggests that councillors suffer from a ‘status problem’, in that they feel under-resourced and under-appreciated relative to other elected representatives. We argue that to attract others to the role the status of councillors should be enhanced.