Scottish Parliament Regions, Constituencies & Members – Political Knowledge Atlas (10 Apr 2020)
- April 10, 2020
The Scottish Parliament elects it’s 129 members by a mixed member proportional representation (MMP) – 73 to single member consisuencies by ‘first past the post’ & 7 to each of the 8 Electoral Regions system – every 5 years (the last election was in May 2016). Though these politicians fundamentally affect our lives on a day-to-day basis – be they ministers in the government of the day responsible for policy & the delivery of services, or supporting it from the ‘back benches’, or part of the opposition holding it to account, or ‘just a local MSP’ working on behalf of their constituents – it’s difficult to get the big picture AND the detail, AND how both have changed over time, in the one source. This first ever political knowledge atlas of the elected members, constituencies of the Scottish Parliament in Scotland helps solve that problem in a single, information rich, intuitive to navigate, easy to share, digital document.
Structured by Electoral Region and coloured by poitical party when appropriate, there are knowledge seed branches for every electoral region and constituency within them. Embedded within each is a contextual thumbnail location map and spreadsheet table of ‘All Election Results’ at region or constsuency level since the parliament was established in 1999, whilst there are attached multiple links to general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources about them.
There are also knowledge seed branches for all the current Scottish MSP’s (with those that have retired or died since they were last elected retained as sub-branches for reference), each with embedded official portrait picture and their previous electoral victories as data fields. Collections of sub-branches of links to ‘Official Parliamentary’, ‘Official Party & MSP Controlled’ and ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources about each MSP – with multiple selected links also attached to the seed branches – complete this first ever national local knowledge map of all the Scottish Parliament’s regions, constituencies & MSPs. It also provides a comprehensive & robust visual knowledge framework upon which to build other maps in the future and, with the next Scottish General Election scheduled for May 2021, that future is not that far away…
Our Scottish Parliament Regions, Constituencies & Members – Political Knowledge Atlas is the ideal starting point for ‘thumb & brain friendly’ desktop (or even ‘in the field’) research for anyone with an interest in the political make up of any, or all, of the Scotish Parliament’s 8 Electoral Regions and 73 Constituencies, and the 129 members (MSPs) elected to them. It is made up of visual framework of…
2 x 8 Scottish Parliament Electoral Regions political knowledge seed branches – with unique identifying codes, embedded thumbnail location map image and a spreadsheet table coloured by party showing the results – one set showing combined regional & component constituency results, the other just regional results – of all the elections so far, as well as attached multiple hyperlinks to core general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources, and index markers that also tag them with some of the contextual knowledge.
73 Scottish Parliament Constituencies political knowledge seed branches – with unique identifying codes, embedded thumbnail location map image and a spreadsheet table coloured by party showing the results (votes cast, winning majorities and turnout) of the most recent elections in the constituency, as well as attached multiple hyperlinks to core general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources, and index markers that also tag them with some of the contextual knowledge.
128 Scottish Parlaiment Elected Members (MSPs) – 56 Regional (‘List’) and 59 Constituency – political knowledge seed branches – coloured by political party with their embedded official profile image, their ‘electoral victory history’ as data fields, and notable changes in circumstance since they were last elected recorded as a branch note, as well as attached multiple hyperlinks to ‘Official Parliamentary’ (eg. official profile page(s) & entry in the register of members interests), ‘Official Party & MP Controlled’ and ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources, and index markers that also tag them with some of that contextual knowledge.
Each of these MSP seed branches also has collections of sub-branches, each with a single hyperlink to official / definitive / plain old useful ‘Official Parliamentary’, ‘Official Party & MSP Controlled’ and ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources about them found in the public domian.
Official Parliamentary Knowledge Resource Link Collection – This includes their official profile page(s) on the Scottish Parliament website, their contact details, official email address and register of members interests.
Official Party & MSP Controlled Knowledge Resource Link Collection – This includes the MSP’s official profile on their Party’s website, their own official website and their social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter.
Externally Controlled Knowledge Resource Link Collection – This includes the MSP’s entry on pro democratic process transparency websites run by social enterprises and volunteers such as The Public Whip (voting record), TheyWorkForYou (more detailed analysis of their voting), Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club (crowd-sourced details of the MSP as an election candidate), and, if there is one, their Wikipedia article.
Together these elements establish a comprehensive & robust visual knowledge framework upon which we can build many other maps about the ‘national local’ building blocks of Scotland based on the political makeup of Scottish Parliamentary Electoral Regions and Constituencies and their elected members (MSP’s) in the future.
MindManager Users – As with all our maps, the MindManager (.mmap) version of this map is also both a base map to add your own content to, or a source of content that can be added to your own existing maps.
Explore the other tabs for comprehensive descriptions of the knowledge seed branches and knowledge link collections that make up this knowledge atlas map….
- 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) in Total
- 56 Regional ('List') Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs)
- 8 Electoral Regions of the Scottish Parliament
- 73 Constituency Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs)
- 73 Constituencies of the Scottish Parliament
- 2,950 Total hyperlinks to public domain knowledge resources
- 1,763 Total map branches
Part of the 'Governance & Politics' Category
Anybody can view the html version of this map as a standalone, full-screen webpage in a new browser tab, using the ‘View HTML map full screen’ button below. However to download the HTML5 file – for viewing on-, or off-, line in any modern browser, on any device, without additional plugins – you will need to register for basic membership (it’s free 🙂 To download the original map in MindManager (.mmap) format – for amending, adapting & repurposing in MindManager software – you will need PRO membership, available for a modest annual, or one off lifetime, fee. Already joined? Login here.
Download MindManager (.mmap) Map [20.2 MB]
Knowledge seed branches provide a ‘base level’ of contextual knowledge about the subject embedded within, or attached to, them in the form of…
Image [Embedded] – Such as thumbnail location maps, flags, icons, people profile pictures etc., which provide a unique visual element that users can instantly latch on to as they navigate their way through the map.
Text [Embedded] – Rich (ie. variably formatted) branch text – such as names & unique identifying codes (taken from official sources) – is a unique MindManager feature.
Note [Attached] – Contains supplementary information with all the elements of a word processed page – variably formatted (‘rich’) text, tables and images.
Spreadsheet Table / Chart [Embedded] – Containing contextual facts & figures, which can be toggled between table and chart view as appropriate (once again unique to MindManager).
Multiple Single Data Fields [Embedded] – Another way of adding contextual facts & figures to the map (once again unique to MindManager), these are like single cells in a spreadsheet and the values can be used to format the topic.
Index Marker Tags [Attached] – Arranged in groups and added to individual branches as appropriate, tags add contextual knowledge, enable map filtering and navigation.
Multiple Hyperlinks [Attached] – Another unique feature, multiple links to a range of official definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources about the subject of the seed branch – usually selected from the full range of general & geographic knowledge resource collections – help turn the map into a knowledge portal without adding to the visual clutter.
All the seed branches and their associated embedded / attached contextual knowledge elements used in this map are described in detail below…
Scottish Parliament Electoral Region SUMMARY Political Knowledge Seed Branch
Scottish Parliament Electoral Region SUMMARY Knowledge Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Image: Thumbnail Location Map
MindManager allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirments. However with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ 🙂 we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.
‘Thumbnail’ Boundary Overview & Location Map – The double thumbnail map (which has been created by us) is comprised of…
- Main map – A low resolution screenshot of the official overview boundary map for the region produced as a PDF by the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (LGBCS) – the body officially tasked with defining electoral areas and their boundaries in Scotland – and showing the boundary of the region and it’s con sitiuencies against an Ordnance Survey basemap.
- Thumbnail location map – as used in the other types of seed branches in the map showing the boundaries of electoral regions in Scotland, with the selected electoral region coloured in red.
Note(s)
i) The link to the actual PDF map is included in the <Multiple Hyperlinks> attached to the branch.
ii) Due to the disparate nature of the geographic extent of equivelant administrative and electoral areas in Scotland, their locations are not always immediately obvious from the map for the smallest ones. If you zoom in on-screen, all should become clear though!
Text: NAME & Code
Thanks to MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – the ability to variably format individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All names and codes are meticulously sourced from official sources to ensure unambiguous identification of the administrative / electoral area / body and easy cross-referencing with other data sources, especially GIS databases (though it’s still not without it’s contradictions – see below!).
REGION NAME – Region name in UPPER CASE.
ONS Code – The UK Government Office for National Statistics (ONS) – in partnership with the devolved governments – maintain a series of codes to uniquely represent a wide range of geographical areas of the UK (such as Council Areas and Electoral wards), for use in tabulating census and other statistical data, known as ‘ONS codes‘ or ‘GSS (Government Statistical Service) codes’.
Although the codes are not formally hierarchical like the previous system it replaced, ONS codes for the same type of geographic area start with the same 3 characters…
- S12 = Unitary Authority
- S13 = Ward or Electoral Division
- S14 = Westminster Parliamentary Constituency
- S15 = European Electoral Region
- S16 = Scottish Parliament Constituency
- S17 = Scottish Parliament Electoral Region
- S21 = National Park
- S22 = Travel to Work Area
- S23 = Police Force Area
- S34 = Workplace Zone
- S92 = Country
Scotish Palriament – Given the number of branches in our maps, the screen space can fill up quite quickly as users drill down the hierarchy and expand their content. Thus we may repeat contextual knowledge from ‘further up’ the map hierarchy wherever expedient so users can more easily keep track of what they’re looking at. Also given the increasing number of Scottish electoral systems – local and national – covered by the Scotland The Map project, it is now possible to be comparing multiple knowledge maps onscreen at the same time. Given the repeated use of the same or similar sounding geographic names across the different systems, it again helps the users to repeat the ‘high level’ contextual knowledge.
Note: MSP Changelog
Additional knowledge can be attached to the branch in the form of a note. This is basically as rich an environment as a word processor page, so ‘rich’ text, tables and images.
MSP Changelog – With 2 different electoral systems in play, the political changes we hope to record in this note will come about in different ways…
- Regional Level – There are no ‘regional by-elections’. If a Regional List MSP dies in office or resigns, than in theory the next available un-elected candidate on the party’s regional list will take over (though see note below). However if the individual concerned has moved on in life and no longer ‘wants the gig’ (especially if this is happening a long time after the election), the party will work it’s way down it’s list until they find a former candidate that does fancy giving it a go.
- Constituency Level – If a Constituency MSP dies in office or resigns, then that will trigger a by-election (though see note below).
Note(s)
i) Constituency By-elections or changes in the regional MSPs in the Scottish Parliament are relatively infrequent. Even if an MSP is successfully elected to the UK Parliament at a UK General Election, they are not obliged to resign as an MSP and so a by-election is not automatic.
ii) As with mapping Local Councillors, it has proved impossible to find ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in Regions, Constituencies and / or MSPs in the institution’s (ie. the Scottish Parliament’s) ‘official’ website.
iii) As is so often the case in our knowledge mapping work, the only place where such information is gathered in the one, easily accessible place and freely accessible in the public domain, is Wikipedia. However…
- how quickly after the event the information appears on is another matter…
- … if at all (and we have no way of knowing it’s missing).
Spreadsheet Table: Previous Election Results & Number of MSP’s by Party (Combined Region & Constituency)
As well as the ability to link to, and import, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, MindManager also (again uniquely) has it’s own in-built spreadsheet tool that allows users to create their own from scratch within a branch. This provides yet another way of packing in a lot more visually structured knowledge into a single map branch eg. election results, colour coded by political party for easier comprehension!
Note(s)
i) If appropriate, and it’s correctly structured, embedded spreadsheets can be toggled between the Table View and a Chart View of the data. However this feature is only available within MindManager. Whatever view is set there at the point of export, is the one that will appear in the HTML version of the map.
ii) Like Embedded Data Fields, Embedded Spreadsheets can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner.
Previous Election Results & Number of MSP’s by Party (Combined Region & Constituency) – This embedded spreadsheet shows the combined regional and constituency level results results of all Scottish General Elections in the Electoral Region for each party – number of votes & MSP’s elected – going back to the first in 1999, coloured by political party. It provides ‘at a glance’ contextual political knowledge. The results shown in the table are a combination of the results in the Regional and Constituency Summary seed branches.
Note(s)
i) An explanation of the voting system for the Scottish Parliament – which is a dual vote system of ‘first past the post’ constituencies and proportional representation in electoral regions – can be found on Wikipedia here.
ii) The recommendations of the first review of Scottish Parliamentary Electoral Region & Consituency boundaries were enacted in time for the 2011 Scottish General Election so it may not be comparing like with like for earlier results.
Index Marker Tags & Goups: Various
A variety of Index Markers arranged into groups are used throughout the map to tag branches with contextual knowledge as appropriate and enable map filtering and quick navigation. Marker groups can be copied and used to do the same in any other maps.
Note(s)
i) Within MindManager tags…
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
NAVIGATION (‘NAV’) MARKERS
‘Navigation’ index markers tag the branch that they are named after. They provide another way of navigating the map – clicking on the tag in the index pane takes the user straight to the tagged topic.
NAV – Scottish Parliament Region –Each Scottish Parliament Electoral Region SUMMARY seed branch is tagged with it’s own index marker, created from the branch text itself. Thus there are 2 ‘parts’ to the marker tag – Region name (ONS Code) eg. Highlands and Islands (S17000011).
GEOGRAPHIC (‘GEO’) MARKERS
‘Geomarker’ index markers provide ‘spatial intelligence’ in a map by tagging topics as being part of a specific geographic area of various ‘types’ – administrative, electoral, statistical, topographic etc. The areas do not need to be topics in the map for them to be a ‘Geomarker’. They are the equivalent of ‘Lookup Tables’ in ‘GIS’.
GEO Borders
The nature of the area’s borders with it’s equivelant neighbours…
SCOT PARL REGN – Shared Land Borders – This Marker Group indicates which other Scottish Parliament Electoral Region(s) that the selected region shares a mutual land border with, as shown on the Ordnance Survey Election Map online viewer.
On mainland Scotland electoral area borders are contiguous i.e. there are no ‘gaps’ between them, so they have a complex interplay with shoreline, freshwater lochs, rivers, estuaries (firths), sea lochs and the ‘extent of the realm’ (the national boundary offshore). Thus in some cases constituencies share a mutual border on a water feature rather than land.
The ‘islands’ – Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles – are far enough away from the mainland that they do not share a mutual boundary with any others.
GEO Unique Identifying Codes
Within the branch text we incorporate unique identifiers codes for geographic areas for easy cross-reference with other data sources, especially GIS databases.
We also add some of the truly unique codes as ‘geo’ index marker tags to the topic. Only one topic in the map will have that ‘geo tag’. This offers interesting possibilities for adding further content at a later date.
SCOT PARL REGN – ONS Code – The Region’s official identifying code given by the UK Government Office for National Statistic (ONS) in partnership with the Scottish Government, as per the Branch Text above.
GEO ‘Look-Up Geographies
In the world of Geographic Information (GI) a ‘look up’ defines the link between one geographic feature and another. Most commonly this is between geographic areas of different ‘types’. For example a Local Council Electoral Ward will also coincide with ‘higher’ electoral geographies of Scottish Parliament Constituencies & Regions, and United Kingdom Parliament Constituencies. Of course the boundaries of the different geographies do not necessarily coincide or ‘nest’ exactly (though they might have done at one time). Thus relationships are often ‘one to many’, or even ‘many to many’, which is ‘database speak’ for ‘it’s complicated’.
Relationships are usually derived using computerised spatial analysis, with the results stored in ‘look-up tables‘ in databases or spreadsheets. ‘Geo’-tagging map branches that represent geographic areas is our hopefully useful alternative.
You can get more of an idea of the complexities of UK Geographihies from the handy UK Office of National Statistics Beginners Guide To UK Geography.
SCOT PARL REGN – Scot Parl Cons – All the Scottish Parliament Constituencies that are located within the Electoral Region. There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Constituency Name (ONS Code) eg. Argyll and Bute (S16000083).
Note(s)
i) Because of the way the dual electoral system works, Constituencies are only ever part of one Electoral Region.
SCOT PARL REGN – Scottish LCs – All the Scottish local council areas that overlap with the Scottish Parliament Region. There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Council Name (ISO3166-2 Code – ONS Code) eg. Argyll and Bute Council (GB-AGB – S12000035)
SCOT PARL REGN – SLC Wards – All the Local Council Electoral Wards that overlap with the Scottish Parliamentary Electoral Region. As is usually the case in Scottish electoral geography, whilst many Local Councils are wholy within the one Scottish Parlaimentary Region and even Constituency, it is not always the case, and sometimetimes even Local Council Electoral Wards are split between them. There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Local Council Electoral ward Name (LGBCS Ward Number – ISO3166-2 Code – ONS Code) eg. Cowal (Ward 6 – GB-AGB – S13002521).
SCOT PARL REGN – UK Parl Cons – All the UK Parliament Constituencies that overlap with the Scottish Parliamentary Electoral Region. There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – UK Parliament Constituency Name (ONS Code) eg. Argyll and Bute (S14000083).
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
Scottish Parliament Electoral Region Results Knowledge Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all constituencies.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
General Knowledge Resource Links
Wikipedia – Article on the Scottish Parliament Electoral Region – As well as the full history of elections and elected members for the region, the Wikipedia consituency article includes the general history. This is especially useful flagging up material changes to consituency boundaries over the years.
Geographic Knowledge Resource Links
Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland – First Review Region Map [PDF & online viewer] – The LGBCS helpfully publish GIS produced, region and constituency boundary maps in PDF (i.e. static) format as part of their periodic review process. The maps show the boundaries against an Ordnance Survey basemap, and can be easily printed if required.
Current boundaries were enacted at the 2011 election after the first review in 2010.
Note(s)
i) The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland took over responsibility for reviewing Scottish Parliament Electoral Region and Constituency boundaries from the Boundary Commission for Scotland in 2017.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Ordnance Survey Election Maps Viewer – This online map viewer has been created by Ordnance Survey as part of their duties to create and maintain detailed maps of all electoral areas in Great Britain.
Note(s)
i) It is not possible to link to individual map views in the viewer, so users will have to manually ‘switch on’ the ‘Scottish Parliament Electoral Regions’ and/or ‘Scottish Parliament Constituencies’ layers from the selection panel on the left side of the window.
ii) Ordnance Survey’s BoundaryLine GIS dataset is freely available to download as part of OS Open Data.
Electoral Knowledge Resource Links
BBC News Election Results – Region – The BBC News website has the last (2016) Scottish General Election results at national and individual constituency level (with a small amount of consistuency profile information).
**TO BE COMPLETED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Constituency Elections – Crowd-sourced details of all the candidates for all elections to the constituency since 2016.
Wikipedia – Election results subsection of Scottish Parliament Region Article – As noted in the General Links section above, the Wikipedia article on the constituency has the history of elections and elected members for the constituency.
Note(s)
i) As a crowd-sourced resource the quality, breadth and depth of the content of Wikipedia articles is entirely reliant on volunteers, who are able to source (and link to) reliable information found elsewhere in the public domain. In our experience it may be the case that…
- not all election results may be reported for every constituency.
- even if there is a long history of results, there may actually have been intervening boundary changes so the constituency is not exactly the same over time, even though it’s called the same name. These are not always picked up by Wikipedia contributors.
Scottish Parliament Electoral Region Results Knowledge Seed Branch
Scottish Parliament Electoral Region Results Knowledge Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Image: Thumbnail Location Map
MindManager allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirments. However with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ 🙂 we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.
‘Thumbnail’ Electoral Region Location Map – The double thumbnail map (which has been created by us) shows the location of the electoral region within Scotland on the left, with a close up map of just the region on the right.
Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.
ii) Due to the disparate nature of the geographic extent of equivelant administrative and electoral areas in Scotland, their locations are not always immediately obvious from the map for the smallest ones. If you zoom in on-screen, all should become clear though!
Text: Title & Name
Thanks to MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – the ability to variably format individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All names and codes are meticulously sourced from official sources to ensure unambiguous identification of the administrative / electoral area / body and easy cross-referencing with other data sources, especially GIS databases (though it’s still not without it’s contradictions – see below!).
Title – Regional List Results & Current MSPs.
Region Name – Given the number of branches in our maps, the screen space can fill up quite quickly as users drill down the hierarchy and expand their content. Thus we usually repeat the Electoral Region name wherever expedient so users can more easily keep track of what they’re looking at.
Note: MSP Changelog
Additional knowledge can be attached to the branch in the form of a note. This is basically as rich an environment as a word processor page, so ‘rich’ text, tables and images.
MSP Changelog – With 2 different electoral systems in play, the political changes we hope to record in this note will come about in different ways…
- Regional Level – There are no ‘regional by-elections’. If a Regional List MSP dies in office or resigns, than in theory the next available un-elected candidate on the party’s regional list will take over (though see note below). However if the individual concerned has moved on in life and no longer ‘wants the gig’ (especially if this is happening a long time after the election), the party will work it’s way down it’s list until they find a former candidate that does fancy giving it a go.
- Constituency Level – If a Constituency MSP dies in office or resigns, then that will trigger a by-election (though see note below).
Note(s)
i) Constituency By-elections or changes in the regional MSPs in the Scottish Parliament are relatively infrequent. Even if an MSP is successfully elected to the UK Parliament at a UK General Election, they are not obliged to resign as an MSP and so a by-election is not automatic.
ii) As with mapping Local Councillors, it has proved impossible to find ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in Regions, Constituencies and / or MSPs in the institution’s (ie. the Scottish Parliament’s) ‘official’ website.
iii) As is so often the case in our knowledge mapping work, the only place where such information is gathered in the one, easily accessible place and freely accessible in the public domain, is Wikipedia. However…
- how quickly after the event the information appears on is another matter…
- … if at all (and we have no way of knowing it’s missing).
Spreadsheet Table: Previous Regional Election Results & Number of Regional MSP’s by Party
As well as the ability to link to, and import, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, MindManager also (again uniquely) has it’s own in-built spreadsheet tool that allows users to create their own from scratch within a branch. This provides yet another way of packing in a lot more visually structured knowledge into a single map branch eg. election results, colour coded by political party for easier comprehension!
Note(s)
i) If appropriate, and it’s correctly structured, embedded spreadsheets can be toggled between the Table View and a Chart View of the data. However this feature is only available within MindManager. Whatever view is set there at the point of export, is the one that will appear in the HTML version of the map.
ii) Like Embedded Data Fields, Embedded Spreadsheets can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner.
Previous Regional Election Results & Number of Regional MSP’s by Party – This embedded spreadsheet shows results of all Scottish General Elections in the Electoral Region for each party – number of votes & MSP’s elected – going back to the first in 1999, coloured by political party. It provides ‘at a glance’ contextual political knowledge. The results are taken from the Wikipedia article for the Electoral Region, which contains the list of candidates and results of all general elections, as well as useful background historical knowledge (which makes it the ‘go to’ single source of general election knowledge that we have found).
Note(s)
i) An explanation of the voting system for the Scottish Parliament – which is a dual vote system of ‘first past the post’ constituencies and proportional representation in electoral regions – can be found on Wikipedia here.
ii) The recommendations of the first review of Scottish Parliamentary Electoral Region & Consituency boundaries were enacted in time for the 2011 Scottish General Election so it may not be comparing like with like for earlier results.
iii) Just because we could we also counted the number of different political parties that were fielding candidates in the region at each election as a measure of ‘bio-diversity’ in the political eco system. Many of these parties will not have fielded any candidates in constituencies due to the cost and high threshold of the ‘first past the post’ electoral system that operates there.
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
Scottish Parliament Electoral Region Results Knowledge Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all constituencies.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
General Knowledge Resource Links
Wikipedia – Article on the Scottish Parliament Electoral Region – As well as the full history of elections and elected members for the region, the Wikipedia consituency article includes the general history. This is especially useful flagging up material changes to consituency boundaries over the years.
Geographic Knowledge Resource Links
Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland – First Review Region Map [PDF & online viewer] – The LGBCS helpfully publish GIS produced, region and constituency boundary maps in PDF (i.e. static) format as part of their periodic review process. The maps show the boundaries against an Ordnance Survey basemap, and can be easily printed if required.
Current boundaries were enacted at the 2011 election after the first review in 2010.
Note(s)
i) The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland took over responsibility for reviewing Scottish Parliament Electoral Region and Constituency boundaries from the Boundary Commission for Scotland in 2017.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Ordnance Survey Election Maps Viewer – This online map viewer has been created by Ordnance Survey as part of their duties to create and maintain detailed maps of all electoral areas in Great Britain.
Note(s)
i) It is not possible to link to individual map views in the viewer, so users will have to manually ‘switch on’ the ‘Scottish Parliament Electoral Regions’ and/or ‘Scottish Parliament Constituencies’ layers from the selection panel on the left side of the window.
ii) Ordnance Survey’s BoundaryLine GIS dataset is freely available to download as part of OS Open Data.
Electoral Knowledge Resource Links
BBC News Election Results – Region – The BBC News website has the last (2016) Scottish General Election results at national and individual constituency level (with a small amount of consistuency profile information).
**TO BE COMPLETED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Constituency Elections – Crowd-sourced details of all the candidates for all elections to the constituency since 2016.
Wikipedia – Election results subsection of Scottish Parliament Region Article – As noted in the General Links section above, the Wikipedia article on the constituency has the history of elections and elected members for the constituency.
Note(s)
i) As a crowd-sourced resource the quality, breadth and depth of the content of Wikipedia articles is entirely reliant on volunteers, who are able to source (and link to) reliable information found elsewhere in the public domain. In our experience it may be the case that…
- not all election results may be reported for every constituency.
- even if there is a long history of results, there may actually have been intervening boundary changes so the constituency is not exactly the same over time, even though it’s called the same name. These are not always picked up by Wikipedia contributors.
Scottish Parliament Regional ('List') Member (MSP) Political Knowledge Seed Branch
Scottish Parliament Member (MSP) Political Knowledge Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Fill Colour: Political Affiliation
The colour of the branch indicates the MSP’s political party affiliation, or as an ‘independent’.
Image: Official profile picture
MindManager allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirments. However with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.
Profile Picture – This is much reduced resolution version of the official picture on the MSP’s page on the Parliament website.
Text: Name, Political Party Affiliation and Constituency & Region Represented
Thanks to MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – the ability to variably format individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user.
Name – This is the name as given on their MSP’s page on the Parliament website. Names are suffixed with the term ‘MSP’ at the end so that the reason why they are listed is unequivocal…
Note(s)
i) If the MSP’s name is listed as ‘Sandy’ rather than ‘Alexander’, then that’s what their called in this map.
ii) Some MSP’s have a range of civic, business and political profiles, potentially at both local & national levels, so it is helpful to know ‘which hat they are wearing’ :-). For example a recently elected MSP may still be a serving Local Councillor.
(Party Affiliation) – Designation of party affiliation is as per the branch fill colour.
[REASON FOR DEPARTURE] – If this is present on the MP branch, it indicates the reason why they are now no longer a serving MSP despite being elected at the last election. Possible reasons are…
- [DECEASED] – MSP has died
- [RESIGNED] – MSP has resigned
- [REFUSED TO TAKE OFFICE] – candidate was successfully elected, but declined to take up their position
Whatever the reason, this will instigate a by-election at which the MSP’s replacement is elected.
Note(s)
i) There will usually be a delay before a by-election date is set and announced.
ii) Once the by-election has taken place, the ex-MSP’s topic will become a subtopic of the replacement MSP (though the hyperlink will probably no longer work as the Parliament usually remove the MSP’s profile webpage as soon as their ‘departure’ has been made public).
iii) The reason for departure is expanded upon in the topic note.
iv) The reason for departure is also denoted by a topic index marker (see below).
Constituency & Region – Although this repeats information from ‘higher up’ the map hierarchy, it is helps users keep track of ‘who is who’ when many map branches are expanded and filling the screen.
Note(s)
i) *An asterisk after the name indicates noteworthy MSP circumstances…
- they are now no longer a MSP. The reasons why will also be shown in [SQUARE BRACKETS]
- they were elected at a by-election.
- they have changed their political affiliation since being elected. Usually they will have ‘resigned their party whip’, voluntarily or otherwise, temporarily or permanently, for whatever reason. They may now sit as an ‘independent’, or they may have changed political party completely.
ii) There is also a brief topic note describing the change of circumstances more fully. This is generally taken from the Wikipedia article on the last election.
Note: MSP Political Events Log
Additional knowledge can be attached to the branch in the form of a note. This is basically as rich an environment as a word processor page, so ‘rich’ text, tables and images.
MSP Political Events Log – If there have been any events that have caused a change in the MSP’s political circumstances, then they will be noted here (subject to the caveats in the notes below). So such things as (in increasing potential size of political ‘fall-out’)…
- their suspension of by their party or the council itself, preventing them from participating in normal council democratic processes.
- a change of allegiance – they may resign from their party and sit as an independent, or even “cross the floor” and join another party.
- their resignation / death, triggering a by-election (usually in a few weeks), that may or may not be won by another party!
Note(s)
i) As with mapping Local Councillors, it has proved impossible to find ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in Constituencies and / or MSPs in the institution’s (ie. the Scottish Parliament’s) ‘official’ website, especially the ‘old’ version.
ii) As is so often the case in our knowledge mapping work, the only place where such information is gathered in the one, easily accessible place and freely accessible in the public domain, is Wikipedia. However…
- how quickly after the event the information appears on is another matter…
- … if at all (and we have no way of knowing it’s missing).
Embedded Data Fields: MSP’s Results to date for each successful election to the Scottish Parliament
Single data fields embedded in the seed branch are another unique MindManager feature. They provide quick reference of ‘core’ data that provides context and enables meaningful comparison with other MPs, saving the user the time and effort of looking them up in the linked knowledge resources. These are taken from official sources if easily accessible in the public domain, or Wikipedia if not.
Note(s)
i) The Data Fields can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner.
ii) Data Fields are like single cells in spreadsheets..
- The data can be numeric or text.
- The values in cells can be calculated from other cells either in the same branch or in other branches. Formulas that define the values are built using MindManager’s ‘Autocalc’ feature (again unique).
- The values in data fields may be used to control aspects of the visual formatting (eg. colour or shape) of the seed branch using Mindmanager’s ‘Smart Rules’ feature (again unique).
MSP’s Electoral Victory History to the Scottish Parliament – The Members of the Scottish Parliament are elected in 2 different systems running in parallel…
- 73 MSPs on ‘first past the post’ in 73 constituencies
- 56 MSPs by proportional representation ‘on the list’ – 7 from each of 8 electoral regions (comprising 8, 9 or 10 constituencies)
Once elected from either ‘Regional List’ or ‘Constituency’ MSP’s have equal status, but obviously because of the different systems we can’t record a successful election victory the same way for each one…
- Constituency Victory – This is recorded as the straightforward ‘first past the post’ majority for their party in the particular year e.g. ‘SNP Majority (2016) 5978’.
- ‘Regional List’ Victory – TThere are 2 aspects to record here – the order in which they were elected to one of the multiple (7, 8 or 9) available regional places, and their running order of selection on their parties list of regional candidates in [brackets] eg. ‘SNP Regional List (2007) 2 [2]’ – at the 2007 election they were were elected to the 2nd spot in the regional list, and they were 2nd on their parties regional candidates list.
All the previous electoral victories for the MSP that we have been able to find are recorded so it is possible to get a complete contextual picture of their experience. Details of each victory will be found in the multiple knowledge resources linked to in the branch.
Note(s)
i) MSPs running for election in constituencies often (but not always) run for election on the regional list for their party too, but this ill depend on internal party policy. If successfully elected to the constituency and they have been successfully elected to the regional list, they will take the more secure manadate (no guarantee they’ll make ‘the list’ next time round let alone be elected), their place on the list is taken by the ‘next’ candidate in their parties running order. If they fail to be elected for the constituency they may still be elected on the list depending on their parties vote and if they have a high enough ranking on it by their party. If they fail to get elected at either they may stand again in future elections.
ii) Constituency majorities may not be consecutive as MSP’s might lose their seat at one election and be re-elected at the next (if they have the tanacity!).
iii) There may be fewer majorities recorded for the MSP than recent election victories for their party (as given in the embedded results table in the Constituency Seed Branch) as previously incumbent MSPs have not sought re-election. Some MSP’s may also have represented other constituencies in the past.
iv) There’s a mixed bag of electoral victory histories for long serving MSP’s recorded on the seed branch. Some have only ever been elected ‘on the regional list’, whilst others start off as a successful regional list candidate and then get elected to a constituency (which may or may not be in the same region). Perhaps also ending up back as a ‘list MSP’ if they loste in the constituency again.
v) Should a list MSP resign for whatever reason during the course of the parliamentary term – perhaps they got elected at a constituency by-election, or to the UK Parliament (which has a different electoral cycle) – then in theory their place will be taken by the next candidate on their parties list from the last election without the need for another election event. However if that person is no longer is available, or still wishes, to serve as an MSP the party will work its way down the list in order until they find a previous candidate that still wants the job ;-).
vi) An explanation of the voting system for the Scottish Parliament – which is a dual vote system of ‘first past the post’ constituencies and proportional representation in electoral regions – can be found on Wikipedia here.
Index Marker Tags & Goups: Various
A variety of Index Markers arranged into groups are used throughout the map to tag branches as appropriate and enable map filtering and quick navigation. Marker groups can be copied and used to do the same in any other maps.
Note(s)
i) Within MindManager tags…
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
MSP – Type – Tags whether the MSP is currently elected to a ‘Constituency’ or ‘Regional List.
MSP – Gender – This is not recorded on MSP’s listings (for obvious reasons), so we have assigned this attribute manually ourselves. Thus any errors are ours, for which we apologise in advance ;-).
MSP – Political Affliliation (Elected) – As per the embedded election results table.
MSP – Political Affliliation (Current) – What they’re affiliation is now (as far as we know). Obviously this need not be same as when they were elected, however hte incidences of whene they differ are far rarer at level of national electoral politics than local.
MSP – Electoral History – Given that we are going to record MSPs over time in subsequent maps, and there may be a time lag between an MSP resigning and their replacement being elected at a by-election, there is an obvious need to keep track of the status of individual mebers. Possible tags….
- Elected at YYYY Scottish General Election (Constituency or Regional List) – All General Elections (a tage for each) in which the MSP has been elected (note this may not necessarily be for the same constituency or regional list)
- Elected post-YYYY (Constituency or Regional List)* – If the MSP was elected at a subsequent by-election.
MSP – Active Status – This tag indicates any change in circumstances since the MSP was last elected to the constituency.
- Still serving as elected – MSP still serving under the same party whip as last elected
- No longer under elected party whip – MSP no longer serving under the same party whip as last
- DECEASED – MSP has died
- RESIGNED – MSP has resigned
- REFUSED TO TAKE OFFICE – Candidate was successfully elected, but declined to take up their position
Note(s)
i) For any status that isn’t ‘Still serving as elected’, it will be expanded upon in the topic note.
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
Scottish Parliament Member (MSP) Political Knowledge Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all MSPs.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
Official Parliamentary Knowledge Resources
An elected representative is obliged to submit information to the institution authorities, who then publish it in the public domain on the institution website(s) as required, so this collection of knowledge resources is not under the control of the elected representative.
However how this member information is published and how the various strands are interconnected when presented to the user so they don’t have to go hunting for them on the website (or even websites plural), varies a lot between political institutions like parliaments and councils. There has been an improvement over the years but there’s still a ways to go.
Information that should be easily finable by the user are…
- contact details, including an e-mail address
- register of interests
- membership of official committes
- contributions to debates etc.
Note(s)
i) Institutions overhaul / revamp / upgrade / move stuff around on (or even completely replace) websites on an annoyingly frequent basis (usually just as we’re about to finish a map :-(. If the map links to specific pages / resources no longer work, and you can’t work out where it is from the menus in the new setup, then use the search bar!
ii) Moden web architecture allows the content of a ‘page’ to change interactively by user selection without this changing the URL (the web address in the browser bar) e.g. ‘tabs’ with different content. Thus…
- it is often not possible to link to specific resources because they are contained within the page e.g. register of interests.
- when you ‘arrive’ at the url you may still have to hunt around the page looking for the resource you want (e.g. click on a tab, unfold a section etc.)
Scottish Parliament MSP Profile – The Scottish Parliament has changed thier website since it first launched and MSP profile pages no longer contain any personal biography information about them (they used to do a wee introductory video about themselves), however there is improved interlinking across the differentareas of the MSPs parlaimentary activitiy.
**LATEST ONLY**
‘Tabbed’ subsections are…
- Contact details
- Committees
- Cross-party groups
- Parliamentary and Government Roles
- Party Roles
- Previous Roles
- Register of interests
And Recent Acctivity
- What was said
- Votes
- Motions
- Written questions
Contact Details – How to contact the MSP at the Scottish Parlaiment. It may also include constituency office contact details.
Email MP @parliament.scot – This is the official e-mail address of the MSP at the Scottish Parliament. Other contact details, are given on the MSPs official parliamentary profile page.
Register of Interests – The ‘Register of Interests’ provides details about MSPs’ financial interests and benefits. Anything that could be perceived as influencing an MSP’s votes, words or actions should be included, such as…
- payment for work done outside of MSP duties
- property and land ownership
- gifts
- overseas visits (related to work)
All MSPs are legally required to provide these details. The Register of Interests is publicly available and updated every time there is a change. MSPs must register any changes within 30 days. You can see each MSP’s register of interests on their page.
Official Party / MP Controlled Knowledge Resources
This collection of knowledge resources is directly controlled by the MSP, or their political party, and consists of websites and social media accounts. As is the case with the ‘real world’, some MSPs have a bigger / more active ‘online presence’ than others…
Official Party MSP Profile – Most political parties provide a profile page of their MSP’s on their main website. They are usually fairly minimal in content. They may have some personal biography information, but at the very least will have contact details for the MSP and their local party association. Sometimes this is the only ‘official’ website an MSP has.
MSP’s Official Website – This is the MSP’s own wesbite and so is presumably under their control. That said some are better than others (or even absent completely), and are more personalised than ‘corporate template’. They usually provide details of how to get in touch with the MSP and local surgeries for constituents.
Facebook – MSP’s Facebook page if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do.
Twitter – MSP’s Twitter feed if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do, or still have (it’s not as if politicians could get vilified for something that they had ‘tweeted’ in the past or anything like that…).
Externally Controlled Knowledge Resources
This collection of knowledge resources is published by external, and therefore ‘unofficial’, parties. With the sophisticated level of web technology available now, some combine and repackage knowledge from official parliamentary sources on the one ‘page’ as a service to consitiuents so they can get the full picture of what their MSP is actually doing in parliament. And then there’s good old Wikipedia, which is amazingly ‘current’ on UK politics.
The Public Whip Voting Record – A not for profit, open source project that ‘scrapes’ the flat text of the parliament Hansard (daily transcription of what is said) and turns it into a useful online database of meaningful knowledge about how individual MSPs have voted on specific ‘divisions’.
TheyWorkForYou – Another not for profit project run by mySociety, that ‘scrapes’ a variety of online sources of MSPs activities in parliament and turns them into a useful online knowlegde base of not just how individual MSPs have voted on specific issues, but also some analysis and sharing tools.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Crowd-sourced details of the MSP as an election candidate in all UK elections going back to 2016 (plus the 2015 & 2010 general elections).
Wikipedia – Article on MSP (if available) – There is a Wikipedia article on just about all MSP’s, though the amount and quality of the content does vary. Usually it contains a bit more personal biographical information than is available from ‘official’ sources.
Note(s)
i) As with all Wikipedia links…
- If you know something that’s not there, get involved and add your contribution to the article so everybody can benefit from your knowledge.
- The external Links’ section at the bottom of the articles provides a great ‘jumping off point’ to discover new knowledge resources.
Scottish Parliament CONSTITUENCY REGIONAL SUMMARY Results Knowledge Seed Branch
Scottish Parliament CONSTITUENCY REGIONAL SUMMARY Results Knowledge Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Image: Thumbnail Location Map
MindManager allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirments. However with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ 🙂 we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.
‘Thumbnail’ Electoral Region Location Map – The double thumbnail map (which has been created by us) shows the location of the electoral region within Scotland on the left, with a close up map of just the region showing the constituency boundaries on the right.
Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.
ii) Due to the disparate nature of the geographic extent of equivelant administrative and electoral areas in Scotland, their locations are not always immediately obvious from the map for the smallest ones. If you zoom in on-screen, all should become clear though!
Text: Title & Name
Thanks to MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – the ability to variably format individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All names and codes are meticulously sourced from official sources to ensure unambiguous identification of the administrative / electoral area / body and easy cross-referencing with other data sources, especially GIS databases (though it’s still not without it’s contradictions – see below!).
Title – Individual Constituency Results & Current MSPs.
Region Name – Given the number of branches in our maps, the screen space can fill up quite quickly as users drill down the hierarchy and expand their content. Thus we usually repeat the Electoral Region name wherever expedient so users can more easily keep track of what they’re looking at.
Note: MSP Changelog
Additional knowledge can be attached to the branch in the form of a note. This is basically as rich an environment as a word processor page, so ‘rich’ text, tables and images.
MSP Changelog – With 2 different electoral systems in play, the political changes we hope to record in this note will come about in different ways…
- Regional Level – There are no ‘regional by-elections’. If a Regional List MSP dies in office or resigns, than in theory the next available un-elected candidate on the party’s regional list will take over (though see note below). However if the individual concerned has moved on in life and no longer ‘wants the gig’ (especially if this is happening a long time after the election), the party will work it’s way down it’s list until they find a former candidate that does fancy giving it a go.
- Constituency Level – If a Constituency MSP dies in office or resigns, then that will trigger a by-election (though see note below).
Note(s)
i) Constituency By-elections or changes in the regional MSPs in the Scottish Parliament are relatively infrequent. Even if an MSP is successfully elected to the UK Parliament at a UK General Election, they are not obliged to resign as an MSP and so a by-election is not automatic.
ii) As with mapping Local Councillors, it has proved impossible to find ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in Regions, Constituencies and / or MSPs in the institution’s (ie. the Scottish Parliament’s) ‘official’ website.
iii) As is so often the case in our knowledge mapping work, the only place where such information is gathered in the one, easily accessible place and freely accessible in the public domain, is Wikipedia. However…
- how quickly after the event the information appears on is another matter…
- … if at all (and we have no way of knowing it’s missing).
Spreadsheet Table: Previous Combined Constituency Results & Number of Constituency MSP’s by Party
As well as the ability to link to, and import, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, MindManager also (again uniquely) has it’s own in-built spreadsheet tool that allows users to create their own from scratch within a branch. This provides yet another way of packing in a lot more visually structured knowledge into a single map branch eg. election results, colour coded by political party for easier comprehension!
Note(s)
i) If appropriate, and it’s correctly structured, embedded spreadsheets can be toggled between the Table View and a Chart View of the data. However this feature is only available within MindManager. Whatever view is set there at the point of export, is the one that will appear in the HTML version of the map.
ii) Like Embedded Data Fields, Embedded Spreadsheets can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner.
Previous Combined Constituency Results & Number of Constituency MSP’s by Party – This embedded spreadsheet shows the combined results of all Scottish General Elections in all the Constituencies in the Electoral Region for each party – number of votes & MSP’s elected – going back to the first in 1999, coloured by political party. It provides ‘at a glance’ contextual political knowledge. The results are taken from the Wikipedia article for the Electoral Region, which contains the list of candidates and results of all general elections, as well as useful background historical knowledge (which makes it the ‘go to’ single source of general election knowledge that we have found).
Note(s)
i) An explanation of the voting system for the Scottish Parliament – which is a dual vote system of ‘first past the post’ constituencies and proportional representation in electoral regions – can be found on Wikipedia here.
ii) The recommendations of the first review of Scottish Parliamentary Electoral Region & Consituency boundaries were enacted in time for the 2011 Scottish General Election so it may not be comparing like with like for earlier results.
iii) Just because we could we also counted the number of different political parties that were fielding candidates in the region at each election as a measure of ‘bio-diversity’ in the political eco system. Many of these parties will not have fielded any candidates in constituencies due to the cost and high threshold of the ‘first past the post’ electoral system that operates there.
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
Scottish Parliament CONSTITUENCY REGIONAL SUMMARY Results Knowledge Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all constituencies.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
Internal Navigation Links
Constituencies in Region – Clicking on these links will ‘take you’ to the individual constituency seed branch.
Scottish Parliament Constituency Political Knowledge Seed Branch
Scottish Parliament Constituency Political Knowledge Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Branch Outline Shape
For geographic area seed branches the outline shape indicates the nature of it’s borders with it’s equivelant neighbours…
CIRCLE = all coastal borders (ie. ‘island(s)’)
HEXAGON = all land borders (ie. ‘land-locked’)
ROUNDED RECTANGLE = mixed coastal & Land borders
Note(s)
i) Assignment of shapes to geographic area seed branches is controlled by MindManager’s unique Smart Rule feature using the ‘SLC – Borders Types’ tag (eqivelant to thematic mapping in GIS).
Fill Colour: Political Affiliation
The colour of the constituency branch indicates the current MSP’s political party affiliation, or as an ‘independent’.
Image: Thumbnail Location Map
MindManager allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirments. However with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ 🙂 we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.
‘Thumbnail’ Consituency Location Map –
The double thumbnail map (which has been created by us) provides locational context…
- thumbnail map of Scotland on the left with boundaries of electoral regions, with the selected electoral region coloured in red.
- thumbnail map of just the region with boundaries of each constituency on the right, with the selected constituency coloured in red.
Note(s)
i) This map image is also used for the region seed branch.
ii) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.
iii) Due to the disparate nature of the geographic extent of equivelant administrative and electoral areas in Scotland, their locations are not always immediately obvious from the map for the smallest ones. If you zoom in on-screen, all should become clear though!
Text: Official Name & Unique Identifying Codes
Thanks to MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – the ability to variably format individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All names and codes are meticulously sourced from official sources to ensure unambiguous identification of the administrative / electoral areas and easy cross-referencing with other data sources, especially GIS databases (though it’s still not without it’s contradictions).
Costituency Name – We have taken the names of the Constituency from the parliament website.
ONS Code – The UK Government Office for National Statistics and in partnership with the devolved governments maintain a series of codes to uniquely represent a wide range of geographical areas of the UK (such as Council Areas and Electoral wards), for use in tabulating census and other statistical data, known as ‘ONS codes‘ or ‘GSS (Government Statistical Service) codes’.
Although the codes are not formally hierarchical like the previous system it replaced, ONS codes for the same type of geographic area start with the same 3 characters…
- S12 = Unitary Authority
- S13 = Ward or Electoral Division
- S14 = Westminster Parliamentary Constituency
- S15 = European Electoral Region
- S16 = Scottish Parliament Constituency
- S17 = Scottish Parliament Electoral Region
- S21 = National Park
- S22 = Travel to Work Area
- S23 = Police Force Area
- S34 = Workplace Zone
- S92 = Country
Region Name & Parliament – Given the number of branches in our maps, the screen space can fill up quite quickly as users drill down the hierarchy and expand their content. Thus we often repeat contextual information from ‘higher up’ the map – in this case the Electoral Region name and the fact that it’s a constituency in the Scottish Parlaiment – wherever expedient so users can more easily keep track of what they’re looking at.
Note: By-Election Log
Additional knowledge can be attached to the branch in the form of a note. This is basically as rich an environment as a word processor page, so ‘rich’ text, tables and images.
MSP Changelog – With 2 different electoral systems in play, the political changes we hope to record in this note will come about in different ways…
- Regional Level – There are no ‘regional by-elections’. If a Regional List MSP dies in office or resigns, than in theory the next available un-elected candidate on the party’s regional list will take over (though see note below). However if the individual concerned has moved on in life and no longer ‘wants the gig’ (especially if this is happening a long time after the election), the party will work it’s way down it’s list until they find a former candidate that does fancy giving it a go.
- Constituency Level – If a Constituency MSP dies in office or resigns, then that will trigger a by-election (though see note below).
Note(s)
i) Constituency By-elections or changes in the regional MSPs in the Scottish Parliament are relatively infrequent. Even if an MSP is successfully elected to the UK Parliament at a UK General Election, they are not obliged to resign as an MSP and so a by-election is not automatic.
ii) As with mapping Local Councillors, it has proved impossible to find ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in Regions, Constituencies and / or MSPs in the institution’s (ie. the Scottish Parliament’s) ‘official’ website.
iii) As is so often the case in our knowledge mapping work, the only place where such information is gathered in the one, easily accessible place and freely accessible in the public domain, is Wikipedia. However…
- how quickly after the event the information appears on is another matter…
- … if at all (and we have no way of knowing it’s missing).
Spreadsheet Table: Previous Constituency Election Results (coloured by party)
As well as the ability to link to, and import, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, MindManager also (again uniquely) has it’s own in-built spreadsheet tool that allows users to create their own from scratch within a branch. This provides yet another way of packing in a lot more visually structured knowledge into a single map branch eg. election results, colour coded by political party for easier comprehension!
Note(s)
i) If appropriate, and it’s correctly structured, embedded spreadsheets can be toggled between the Table View and a Chart View of the data. However this feature is only available within MindManager. Whatever view is set there at the point of export, is the one that will appear in the HTML version of the map.
ii) Like Embedded Data Fields, Embedded Spreadsheets can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner.
Previous Constituency Election Results (coloured by party) – This embedded spreadsheet table shows the results of all Scottish General Elections in the Constituency for each party – number of votes for each, winning majority & voter turnout – going back to the first in 1999, coloured by political party. It provides ‘at a glance’ contextual political knowledge. The results are taken from the Wikipedia article for the Constituency, which contains the list of candidates and results of all general elections, as well as useful background historical knowledge (which makes it the ‘go to’ single source of general election knowledge that we have found).
Note(s)
i) *An additional column marked with a year and an asterisk indicate a by-election.
ii) The recommendations of the first review of Scottish Parliamentary Electoral Region & Consituency boundaries were enacted in time for the 2011 Scottish General Election (as indicated by the vertical dark line in the table). Some boundaries were amended, whilst some constituencies were abolished completely and new ones created. Thus it is not always possible to compare all electoral results ‘like for like’ before and after this review.
iii) An explanation of the voting system for the Scottish Parliament – which is a dual vote system of ‘first past the post’ constituencies and proportional representation in electoral regions – can be found on Wikipedia here.
Index Marker Tags & Goups: Various
A variety of Index Markers arranged into groups are used throughout the map to tag branches with contextual knowledge as appropriate and enable map filtering and quick navigation. Marker groups can be copied and used to do the same in any other maps.
Note(s)
i) Within MindManager tags…
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
NAVIGATION (‘NAV’) MARKERS
‘Navigation’ index markers tag the branch that they are named after. They provide another way of navigating the map – clicking on the tag in the index pane takes the user straight to the tagged topic.
NAV – Scottish Parliament Constituency – Each Scottish Parliament Constituency seed branch is tagged with it’s own index marker, created from the branch text itself. Thus there are 2 ‘parts’ to the marker tag – Constituency name (ONS Code) eg. Argyll and Bute (S16000083).
POLITICAL MARKERS
‘Political’ index markers tag the branch with knowledge about the designation and current political representation of the constituency.
SCOT PARL CONS – Designation – Historically there were several diferent types of Paliamentary Constituency in the UK, with significant differences between the way each worked. However since the advent of universal suffrage, the differences between county and borough constituencies are slight.
From Wikipedia:-
“Borough constituencies are predominantly urban while county constituencies are predominantly rural. There is no definitive statutory criterion for the distinction; the Boundary Commission for England has stated that, “as a general principle, where constituencies contain more than a small rural element they should normally be designated as county constituencies. Otherwise they should be designated as borough constituencies.”[1] In Scotland, all House of Commons constituencies are county constituencies except those in the cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and three urban areas of Lanarkshire”.
SCOT PARL CONS – Current Political Party – Designation of sitting MSP’s current party affiliation (tag is coloured as per the usual UK political party colours).
Note(s)
i) This can change even without a general or by- election so the current ‘political colour’ shown can be different to the one at the last election if the MSP has ‘lost the party whip’ and now sits as an independent, or even joined another party altogether!
GEOGRAPHIC (‘GEO’) MARKERS
‘Geomarker’ index markers provide ‘spatial intelligence’ in a map by tagging topics as being part of a specific geographic area of various ‘types’ – administrative, electoral, statistical, topographic etc. The areas do not need to be topics in the map for them to be a ‘Geomarker’. They are the equivalent of ‘Lookup Tables’ in ‘GIS’.
GEO Borders
The nature of the area’s borders with it’s equivelant neighbours…
SCOT PARL CONS – Border Types – This Marker Group indicates the status of the constituency’s borders with all of it’s equivalent neighbours, in respect to the ocean (as per the topic shape). Thus these tags will enable the filtering of a map to show / hide those areas that do / do not have a coastline.
Possible tags…
- All Coastline (Island)
- Mixed
- No Coastline (Land-locked)
SCOT PARL CONS – Shared Land Borders – This Marker Group indicates which other Scottish Parliament Constituency(s) that the selected constituency shares a mutual border with, as shown on the Ordnance Survey Election Map online viewer.
On mainland Scotland Parliament constituency borders are contiguous i.e. there are no ‘gaps’ between them, so they have a complex interplay with shoreline, freshwater lochs, rivers, estuaries (firths), sea lochs and the ‘extent of the realm’ (the national boundary offshore). Thus in some cases constituencies share a mutual border on a water feature rather than land.
The ‘islands’ – Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles – are far enough away from the mainland that they do not share a mutual boundary with any others.
GEO Unique Identifying Codes
Within the branch text we incorporate unique identifiers codes for geographic areas for easy cross-reference with other data sources, especially GIS databases.
We also add some of the truly unique codes as ‘geo’ index marker tags to the topic. Only one topic in the map will have that ‘geo tag’. This offers interesting possibilities for adding further content at a later date.
SCOT PARL CONS – ONS Code – The Constituenciy’s official identifying code given by the UK Government Office for National Statistic (ONS) in partnership with the Scottish Government, as per the Branch Text above.
GEO ‘Look-Up Geographies
In the world of Geographic Information (GI) a ‘look up’ defines the link between one geographic feature and another. Most commonly this is between geographic areas of different ‘types’. For example a Local Council Electoral Ward will also coincide with ‘higher’ electoral geographies of Scottish Parliament Constituencies & Regions, and United Kingdom Parliament Constituencies. Of course the boundaries of the different geographies do not necessarily coincide or ‘nest’ exactly (though they might have done at one time). Thus relationships are often ‘one to many’, or even ‘many to many’, which is ‘database speak’ for ‘it’s complicated’.
Relationships are usually derived using computerised spatial analysis, with the results stored in ‘look-up tables‘ in databases or spreadsheets. ‘Geo’-tagging map branches that represent geographic areas is our hopefully useful alternative.
You can get more of an idea of the complexities of UK Geographihies from the handy UK Office of National Statistics Beginners Guide To UK Geography.
SCOT PARL CONS – Scot Parl Region – Scottish Parliamentary Consituencies are divided amongst regions, which also have elected members. The marker is in the form Electoral Region Name (ONS Code) eg. Highlands and Islands (S17000011).
SCOT PARL CONS – Scottish LCs – All the Scottish local council areas that overlap with the Scottish Parliament Constuency (there may be more than 1). There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Council Name (ISO3166-2 Code – ONS Code) eg. Argyll and Bute Council (GB-AGB – S12000035).
SCOT PARL CONS – UK Parl Cons – All the UK Parliament Constituencies that overlap with the Scottish Parliamentary constituency. There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – UK Parliament Constituency Name (ONS Code) eg. Argyll and Bute (S14000083).
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
Scottish Parliament Constituency Political Knowledge Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all constituencies.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
General Knowledge Resource Links
Scottish Parliament – Constituency Representation – We mention this here because it is concpicuous by it’s absence as the Scottish Parliament website no longer contains any information about constituencies or electoral regions, other than the MSPs elected to them. There at least used to be a map page.
Scottish Government Statistics Portal – Scottish Parliamentary Constituency – This is the link to the constituency’s data profile page in the ‘Scottish Parliamentary Constituencies’ section on the geostatistical atlas section of the statistics.gov.scot website. As well as key facts, the data about the Constituency is grouped as…
- Social Environment
- Crime and Justice
- Economic Activity, Benefits and Tax Credits
- Economy
- Education, Skills and Training
- Environment
- Geography
- Health and Social Care
- Housing
- Labour Force
- Population
- Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation
- Transport
Wikipedia – Article on the Scottish Parliament constituency – As well as the full history of elections and elected members for the constituency, the Wikipedia consituency article includes the general history. This is especially useful flagging up material changes to consituency boundaries over the years.
Geographic Knowledge Resource Links
Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland – First Review Constituency Map [PDF & online viewer] – The LGBCS helpfully publish GIS produced, constituency boundary maps in PDF (i.e. static) format as part of their periodic review process. The maps show the boundaries against an Ordnance Survey basemap, and can be easily printed if required.
Current boundaries were enacted at the 2011 election after the first review in 2010.
Note(s)
i) The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland took over responsibility for reviewing Scottish Parliament Electoral Region and Constituency boundaries from the Boundary Commission for Scotland in 2017.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Ordnance Survey Election Maps Viewer – This online map viewer has been created by Ordnance Survey as part of their duties to create and maintain detailed maps of all electoral areas in Great Britain
Note(s)
i) It is not possible to link to individual map views in the viewer, so users will have to manually ‘switch on’ the ‘Scottish Parliament Electoral Regions’ and/or ‘Scottish Parliament Constituencies’ layers from the selection panel on the left side of the window.
ii) Ordnance Survey’s BoundaryLine GIS dataset is freely available to download as part of OS Open Data.
Electoral Knowledge Resource Links
BBC News Election Results – Constituency – The BBC News website has the last (2016) Scottish General Election results at national and individual constituency level (with a small amount of consistuency profile information).
**TO BE COMPLETED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Constituency Elections – Crowd-sourced details of all the candidates for all elections to the constituency since 2016.
Wikipedia – Election results subsection of Scottish Parliament constituency Article – As noted in the General Links section above, the Wikipedia article on the constituency has the history of elections and elected members for the constituency.
Note(s)
i) As a crowd-sourced resource the quality, breadth and depth of the content of Wikipedia articles is entirely reliant on volunteers, who are able to source (and link to) reliable information found elsewhere in the public domain. In our experience it may be the case that…
- not all election results may be reported for every constituency.
- even if there is a long history of results, there may actually have been intervening boundary changes so the constituency is not exactly the same over time, even though it’s called the same name. These are not always picked up by Wikipedia contributors.
Scottish Parliament Constituency Member (MSP) Political Knowledge Seed Branch
Scottish Parliament Member (MSP) Political Knowledge Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Fill Colour: Political Affiliation
The colour of the branch indicates the MSP’s political party affiliation, or as an ‘independent’.
Image: Official profile picture
MindManager allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirments. However with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.
Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.
Profile Picture – This is much reduced resolution version of the official picture on the MSP’s page on the Parliament website.
Text: Name, Political Party Affiliation and Constituency & Region Represented
Thanks to MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – the ability to variably format individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user.
Name – This is the name as given on their MSP’s page on the Parliament website. Names are suffixed with the term ‘MSP’ at the end so that the reason why they are listed is unequivocal…
Note(s)
i) If the MSP’s name is listed as ‘Sandy’ rather than ‘Alexander’, then that’s what their called in this map.
ii) Some MSP’s have a range of civic, business and political profiles, potentially at both local & national levels, so it is helpful to know ‘which hat they are wearing’ :-). For example a recently elected MSP may still be a serving Local Councillor.
(Party Affiliation) – Designation of party affiliation is as per the branch fill colour.
[REASON FOR DEPARTURE] – If this is present on the MP branch, it indicates the reason why they are now no longer a serving MSP despite being elected at the last election. Possible reasons are…
- [DECEASED] – MSP has died
- [RESIGNED] – MSP has resigned
- [REFUSED TO TAKE OFFICE] – candidate was successfully elected, but declined to take up their position
Whatever the reason, this will instigate a by-election at which the MSP’s replacement is elected.
Note(s)
i) There will usually be a delay before a by-election date is set and announced.
ii) Once the by-election has taken place, the ex-MSP’s topic will become a subtopic of the replacement MSP (though the hyperlink will probably no longer work as the Parliament usually remove the MSP’s profile webpage as soon as their ‘departure’ has been made public).
iii) The reason for departure is expanded upon in the topic note.
iv) The reason for departure is also denoted by a topic index marker (see below).
Constituency & Region – Although this repeats information from ‘higher up’ the map hierarchy, it is helps users keep track of ‘who is who’ when many map branches are expanded and filling the screen.
Note(s)
i) *An asterisk after the name indicates noteworthy MSP circumstances…
- they are now no longer a MSP. The reasons why will also be shown in [SQUARE BRACKETS]
- they were elected at a by-election.
- they have changed their political affiliation since being elected. Usually they will have ‘resigned their party whip’, voluntarily or otherwise, temporarily or permanently, for whatever reason. They may now sit as an ‘independent’, or they may have changed political party completely.
ii) There is also a brief topic note describing the change of circumstances more fully. This is generally taken from the Wikipedia article on the last election.
Note: MSP Political Events Log
Additional knowledge can be attached to the branch in the form of a note. This is basically as rich an environment as a word processor page, so ‘rich’ text, tables and images.
MSP Political Events Log – If there have been any events that have caused a change in the MSP’s political circumstances, then they will be noted here (subject to the caveats in the notes below). So such things as (in increasing potential size of political ‘fall-out’)…
- their suspension of by their party or the council itself, preventing them from participating in normal council democratic processes.
- a change of allegiance – they may resign from their party and sit as an independent, or even “cross the floor” and join another party.
- their resignation / death, triggering a by-election (usually in a few weeks), that may or may not be won by another party!
Note(s)
i) As with mapping Local Councillors, it has proved impossible to find ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in Constituencies and / or MSPs in the institution’s (ie. the Scottish Parliament’s) ‘official’ website, especially the ‘old’ version.
ii) As is so often the case in our knowledge mapping work, the only place where such information is gathered in the one, easily accessible place and freely accessible in the public domain, is Wikipedia. However…
- how quickly after the event the information appears on is another matter…
- … if at all (and we have no way of knowing it’s missing).
Embedded Data Fields: MSP’s Results to date for each successful election to the Scottish Parliament
Single data fields embedded in the seed branch are another unique MindManager feature. They provide quick reference of ‘core’ data that provides context and enables meaningful comparison with other MPs, saving the user the time and effort of looking them up in the linked knowledge resources. These are taken from official sources if easily accessible in the public domain, or Wikipedia if not.
Note(s)
i) The Data Fields can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner.
ii) Data Fields are like single cells in spreadsheets..
- The data can be numeric or text.
- The values in cells can be calculated from other cells either in the same branch or in other branches. Formulas that define the values are built using MindManager’s ‘Autocalc’ feature (again unique).
- The values in data fields may be used to control aspects of the visual formatting (eg. colour or shape) of the seed branch using Mindmanager’s ‘Smart Rules’ feature (again unique).
MSP’s Electoral Victory History to the Scottish Parliament – The Members of the Scottish Parliament are elected in 2 different systems running in parallel…
- 73 MSPs on ‘first past the post’ in 73 constituencies
- 56 MSPs by proportional representation ‘on the list’ – 7 from each of 8 electoral regions (comprising 8, 9 or 10 constituencies)
Once elected from either ‘Regional List’ or ‘Constituency’ MSP’s have equal status, but obviously because of the different systems we can’t record a successful election victory the same way for each one…
- Constituency Victory – This is recorded as the straightforward ‘first past the post’ majority for their party in the particular year e.g. ‘SNP Majority (2016) 5978’.
- ‘Regional List’ Victory – TThere are 2 aspects to record here – the order in which they were elected to one of the multiple (7, 8 or 9) available regional places, and their running order of selection on their parties list of regional candidates in [brackets] eg. ‘SNP Regional List (2007) 2 [2]’ – at the 2007 election they were were elected to the 2nd spot in the regional list, and they were 2nd on their parties regional candidates list.
All the previous electoral victories for the MSP that we have been able to find are recorded so it is possible to get a complete contextual picture of their experience. Details of each victory will be found in the multiple knowledge resources linked to in the branch.
Note(s)
i) MSPs running for election in constituencies often (but not always) run for election on the regional list for their party too, but this ill depend on internal party policy. If successfully elected to the constituency and they have been successfully elected to the regional list, they will take the more secure manadate (no guarantee they’ll make ‘the list’ next time round let alone be elected), their place on the list is taken by the ‘next’ candidate in their parties running order. If they fail to be elected for the constituency they may still be elected on the list depending on their parties vote and if they have a high enough ranking on it by their party. If they fail to get elected at either they may stand again in future elections.
ii) Constituency majorities may not be consecutive as MSP’s might lose their seat at one election and be re-elected at the next (if they have the tanacity!).
iii) There may be fewer majorities recorded for the MSP than recent election victories for their party (as given in the embedded results table in the Constituency Seed Branch) as previously incumbent MSPs have not sought re-election. Some MSP’s may also have represented other constituencies in the past.
iv) There’s a mixed bag of electoral victory histories for long serving MSP’s recorded on the seed branch. Some have only ever been elected ‘on the regional list’, whilst others start off as a successful regional list candidate and then get elected to a constituency (which may or may not be in the same region). Perhaps also ending up back as a ‘list MSP’ if they loste in the constituency again.
v) Should a list MSP resign for whatever reason during the course of the parliamentary term – perhaps they got elected at a constituency by-election, or to the UK Parliament (which has a different electoral cycle) – then in theory their place will be taken by the next candidate on their parties list from the last election without the need for another election event. However if that person is no longer is available, or still wishes, to serve as an MSP the party will work its way down the list in order until they find a previous candidate that still wants the job ;-).
vi) An explanation of the voting system for the Scottish Parliament – which is a dual vote system of ‘first past the post’ constituencies and proportional representation in electoral regions – can be found on Wikipedia here.
Index Marker Tags & Goups: Various
A variety of Index Markers arranged into groups are used throughout the map to tag branches as appropriate and enable map filtering and quick navigation. Marker groups can be copied and used to do the same in any other maps.
Note(s)
i) Within MindManager tags…
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
MSP – Type – Tags whether the MSP is currently elected to a ‘Constituency’ or ‘Regional List.
MSP – Gender – This is not recorded on MSP’s listings (for obvious reasons), so we have assigned this attribute manually ourselves. Thus any errors are ours, for which we apologise in advance ;-).
MSP – Political Affliliation (Elected) – As per the embedded election results table.
MSP – Political Affliliation (Current) – What they’re affiliation is now (as far as we know). Obviously this need not be same as when they were elected, however hte incidences of whene they differ are far rarer at level of national electoral politics than local.
MSP – Electoral History – Given that we are going to record MSPs over time in subsequent maps, and there may be a time lag between an MSP resigning and their replacement being elected at a by-election, there is an obvious need to keep track of the status of individual mebers. Possible tags….
- Elected at YYYY Scottish General Election (Constituency or Regional List) – All General Elections (a tage for each) in which the MSP has been elected (note this may not necessarily be for the same constituency or regional list)
- Elected post-YYYY (Constituency or Regional List)* – If the MSP was elected at a subsequent by-election.
MSP – Active Status – This tag indicates any change in circumstances since the MSP was last elected to the constituency.
- Still serving as elected – MSP still serving under the same party whip as last elected
- No longer under elected party whip – MSP no longer serving under the same party whip as last
- DECEASED – MSP has died
- RESIGNED – MSP has resigned
- REFUSED TO TAKE OFFICE – Candidate was successfully elected, but declined to take up their position
Note(s)
i) For any status that isn’t ‘Still serving as elected’, it will be expanded upon in the topic note.
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
Scottish Parliament Member (MSP) Political Knowledge Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all MSPs.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
Official Parliamentary Knowledge Resources
An elected representative is obliged to submit information to the institution authorities, who then publish it in the public domain on the institution website(s) as required, so this collection of knowledge resources is not under the control of the elected representative.
However how this member information is published and how the various strands are interconnected when presented to the user so they don’t have to go hunting for them on the website (or even websites plural), varies a lot between political institutions like parliaments and councils. There has been an improvement over the years but there’s still a ways to go.
Information that should be easily finable by the user are…
- contact details, including an e-mail address
- register of interests
- membership of official committes
- contributions to debates etc.
Note(s)
i) Institutions overhaul / revamp / upgrade / move stuff around on (or even completely replace) websites on an annoyingly frequent basis (usually just as we’re about to finish a map :-(. If the map links to specific pages / resources no longer work, and you can’t work out where it is from the menus in the new setup, then use the search bar!
ii) Moden web architecture allows the content of a ‘page’ to change interactively by user selection without this changing the URL (the web address in the browser bar) e.g. ‘tabs’ with different content. Thus…
- it is often not possible to link to specific resources because they are contained within the page e.g. register of interests.
- when you ‘arrive’ at the url you may still have to hunt around the page looking for the resource you want (e.g. click on a tab, unfold a section etc.)
Scottish Parliament MSP Profile – The Scottish Parliament has changed thier website since it first launched and MSP profile pages no longer contain any personal biography information about them (they used to do a wee introductory video about themselves), however there is improved interlinking across the differentareas of the MSPs parlaimentary activitiy.
**LATEST ONLY**
‘Tabbed’ subsections are…
- Contact details
- Committees
- Cross-party groups
- Parliamentary and Government Roles
- Party Roles
- Previous Roles
- Register of interests
And Recent Acctivity
- What was said
- Votes
- Motions
- Written questions
Contact Details – How to contact the MSP at the Scottish Parlaiment. It may also include constituency office contact details.
Email MP @parliament.scot – This is the official e-mail address of the MSP at the Scottish Parliament. Other contact details, are given on the MSPs official parliamentary profile page.
Register of Interests – The ‘Register of Interests’ provides details about MSPs’ financial interests and benefits. Anything that could be perceived as influencing an MSP’s votes, words or actions should be included, such as…
- payment for work done outside of MSP duties
- property and land ownership
- gifts
- overseas visits (related to work)
All MSPs are legally required to provide these details. The Register of Interests is publicly available and updated every time there is a change. MSPs must register any changes within 30 days. You can see each MSP’s register of interests on their page.
Official Party / MP Controlled Knowledge Resources
This collection of knowledge resources is directly controlled by the MSP, or their political party, and consists of websites and social media accounts. As is the case with the ‘real world’, some MSPs have a bigger / more active ‘online presence’ than others…
Official Party MSP Profile – Most political parties provide a profile page of their MSP’s on their main website. They are usually fairly minimal in content. They may have some personal biography information, but at the very least will have contact details for the MSP and their local party association. Sometimes this is the only ‘official’ website an MSP has.
MSP’s Official Website – This is the MSP’s own wesbite and so is presumably under their control. That said some are better than others (or even absent completely), and are more personalised than ‘corporate template’. They usually provide details of how to get in touch with the MSP and local surgeries for constituents.
Facebook – MSP’s Facebook page if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do.
Twitter – MSP’s Twitter feed if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do, or still have (it’s not as if politicians could get vilified for something that they had ‘tweeted’ in the past or anything like that…).
Externally Controlled Knowledge Resources
This collection of knowledge resources is published by external, and therefore ‘unofficial’, parties. With the sophisticated level of web technology available now, some combine and repackage knowledge from official parliamentary sources on the one ‘page’ as a service to consitiuents so they can get the full picture of what their MSP is actually doing in parliament. And then there’s good old Wikipedia, which is amazingly ‘current’ on UK politics.
The Public Whip Voting Record – A not for profit, open source project that ‘scrapes’ the flat text of the parliament Hansard (daily transcription of what is said) and turns it into a useful online database of meaningful knowledge about how individual MSPs have voted on specific ‘divisions’.
TheyWorkForYou – Another not for profit project run by mySociety, that ‘scrapes’ a variety of online sources of MSPs activities in parliament and turns them into a useful online knowlegde base of not just how individual MSPs have voted on specific issues, but also some analysis and sharing tools.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Crowd-sourced details of the MSP as an election candidate in all UK elections going back to 2016 (plus the 2015 & 2010 general elections).
Wikipedia – Article on MSP (if available) – There is a Wikipedia article on just about all MSP’s, though the amount and quality of the content does vary. Usually it contains a bit more personal biographical information than is available from ‘official’ sources.
Note(s)
i) As with all Wikipedia links…
- If you know something that’s not there, get involved and add your contribution to the article so everybody can benefit from your knowledge.
- The external Links’ section at the bottom of the articles provides a great ‘jumping off point’ to discover new knowledge resources.
Hyperlinks to official / definitive / ‘plain old useful’ knowledge resources found in the public domain is one of the main focus of our knowledge maps. Links are added to our maps in 2 ways…
Multiple Hyperlinks Attached To Seed Branches – MindManager has the unique ability to attach multiple hyperlinks to a single map branch. This means that…
- maps need fewer branches so are less visually cluttered.
- a single branch can become a mini knowledge portal in it’s own right (one of the reasons why we call them ‘knowledge seed branches’).
- links to core knowledge resources (usually the most important links taken from the Link Collections) can remain with the branch when it’s re-used in other maps, whether or not it’s the kep focus of that map.
The multiple hyperlinks attached to the different types of knowledge seed branches in this map are already detailed in the ‘Seed Branches’ tab.
Knowledge Link Sub-Branch Collections – Sub-branches – each with a single attached hyperlink to an external knowledge resource – are grouped into related collections, such as ‘General Knowledge Resources’ or ‘Geographic Knowledge Resources’. This makes for easier, more ‘thumb friendly’ browsing & discovery of knowledge resources, which helps in more intensive activities like prolonged desktop research.
The knowledge link sub-branch collections in this map are detailed below…
Official Parliamentary Knowledge Resources Links Collection
Scottish Parliament Member (MSP)
An elected representative is obliged to submit information to the institution authorities, who then publish it in the public domain on the institution website(s) as required, so this collection of knowledge resources is not under the control of the elected representative.
However how this member information is published and how the various strands are interconnected when presented to the user so they don’t have to go hunting for them on the website (or even websites plural), varies a lot between political institutions like parliaments and councils. There has been an improvement over the years but there’s still a ways to go.
Information that should be easily finable by the user are…
- contact details, including an e-mail address
- register of interests
- membership of official committes
- contributions to debates etc.
Note(s)
i) Institutions overhaul / revamp / upgrade / move stuff around on (or even completely replace) websites on an annoyingly frequent basis (usually just as we’re about to finish a map :-(. If the map links to specific pages / resources no longer work, and you can’t work out where it is from the menus in the new setup, then use the search bar!
ii) Moden web architecture allows the content of a ‘page’ to change interactively by user selection without this changing the URL (the web address in the browser bar) e.g. ‘tabs’ with different content. Thus…
- it is often not possible to link to specific resources because they are contained within the page e.g. register of interests.
- when you ‘arrive’ at the url you may still have to hunt around the page looking for the resource you want (e.g. click on a tab, unfold a section etc.)
Scottish Parliament MSP Profile – The Scottish Parliament has changed thier website since it first launched and MSP profile pages no longer contain any personal biography information about them (they used to do a wee introductory video about themselves), however there is improved interlinking across the differentareas of the MSPs parlaimentary activitiy.
**LATEST ONLY**
‘Tabbed’ subsections are…
- Contact details
- Committees
- Cross-party groups
- Parliamentary and Government Roles
- Party Roles
- Previous Roles
- Register of interests
And Recent Acctivity
- What was said
- Votes
- Motions
- Written questions
Contact Details – How to contact the MSP at the Scottish Parlaiment. It may also include constituency office contact details.
Email MP @parliament.scot – This is the official e-mail address of the MSP at the Scottish Parliament. Other contact details, are given on the MSPs official parliamentary profile page.
Register of Interests – The ‘Register of Interests’ provides details about MSPs’ financial interests and benefits. Anything that could be perceived as influencing an MSP’s votes, words or actions should be included, such as…
- payment for work done outside of MSP duties
- property and land ownership
- gifts
- overseas visits (related to work)
All MSPs are legally required to provide these details. The Register of Interests is publicly available and updated every time there is a change. MSPs must register any changes within 30 days. You can see each MSP’s register of interests on their page.
Official Party/MP Controlled Knowledge Resources Links Collection
Scottish Parliament Member (MSP)
This collection of knowledge resources is directly controlled by the MSP, or their political party, and consists of websites and social media accounts. As is the case with the ‘real world’, some MSPs have a bigger / more active ‘online presence’ than others…
Official Party MSP Profile – Most political parties provide a profile page of their MSP’s on their main website. They are usually fairly minimal in content. They may have some personal biography information, but at the very least will have contact details for the MSP and their local party association. Sometimes this is the only ‘official’ website an MSP has.
MSP’s Official Website – This is the MSP’s own wesbite and so is presumably under their control. That said some are better than others (or even absent completely), and are more personalised than ‘corporate template’. They usually provide details of how to get in touch with the MSP and local surgeries for constituents.
Facebook – MSP’s Facebook page if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do.
Twitter – MSP’s Twitter feed if they have one. Many, but by no means all, do, or still have (it’s not as if politicians could get vilified for something that they had ‘tweeted’ in the past or anything like that…).
Externally Controlled Knowledge Resource Links Collection
Scottish Parliament Member (MSP)
This collection of knowledge resources is published by external, and therefore ‘unofficial’, parties. With the sophisticated level of web technology available now, some combine and repackage knowledge from official parliamentary sources on the one ‘page’ as a service to consitiuents so they can get the full picture of what their MSP is actually doing in parliament. And then there’s good old Wikipedia, which is amazingly ‘current’ on UK politics.
The Public Whip Voting Record – A not for profit, open source project that ‘scrapes’ the flat text of the parliament Hansard (daily transcription of what is said) and turns it into a useful online database of meaningful knowledge about how individual MSPs have voted on specific ‘divisions’.
TheyWorkForYou – Another not for profit project run by mySociety, that ‘scrapes’ a variety of online sources of MSPs activities in parliament and turns them into a useful online knowlegde base of not just how individual MSPs have voted on specific issues, but also some analysis and sharing tools.
**TO BE UPDATED**
Who Can I Vote For? by Democracy Club – Crowd-sourced details of the MSP as an election candidate in all UK elections going back to 2016 (plus the 2015 & 2010 general elections).
Wikipedia – Article on MSP (if available) – There is a Wikipedia article on just about all MSP’s, though the amount and quality of the content does vary. Usually it contains a bit more personal biographical information than is available from ‘official’ sources.
Note(s)
i) As with all Wikipedia links…
- If you know something that’s not there, get involved and add your contribution to the article so everybody can benefit from your knowledge.
- The external Links’ section at the bottom of the articles provides a great ‘jumping off point’ to discover new knowledge resources.
We are continually striving to find further, freely accessible in the public domain definitive / official / plain old useful 🙂 knowledge resources to link to in our maps, as well as keeping the existing links up to date. The changelogs below summarise the actions undertaken to initially create – and subsequently update – this knowledge map.
Scottish Parliament Regions, Constituencies & Members – Polticial Knowledge Atlas (10 Apr 2020)
Version – 1.0
Links to knowledge resources – 2,950
Map Branches – 1,763
File Sizes – HTML5 – 29.3 MB; MindManager (.mmap) – 20.2 MB
Basemap Framework(s) – This is the basemap! Unfortunately other than Wikipedia, we have not discovered any other general knowledge resources about Scottish Parliament Regions or Constituencies in the public domain, not even on the Scottish Parliament website or the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe), so unlike our other governance & politics maps we have created so far, we are producing the ‘Political Knowledge Atlas’ for the Scottish Parliament first before a ‘General & Geographic Knowledge Atlas’ about the electoral areas.
Actions – The main work done in making this version of the map was…
- Initial creation of main framework of knowledge seed branches for Scottish Parliament Electoral Regions, Constituencies and Members (MSPs) from the Scottish Government’s Standard Geographic Codes Register – Scotland (Excel spreadsheet) from the Small Area Statistics Reference Documents.
- Seeking out and attaching multiple links to general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources for region and constituency seed branches.
- Creation of embedded electoral results spreadsheet tables from linked resources.
- Attaching appropriate index marker tags, creating new marker groups from the map branches as required.
- Creation of Official Parliamentary, Party/MP Controlled and Externally Controlled knowledge resource links collections branches off of the MSP seed branch, and attaching selected hyperlinks to the seed branch.
Note(s)
i) This map has been a long time coming. In the Knowledge Mappers archive the earliest map of the Scottish Parliament is dated 2005 so it’s always been ‘on our radar’. However several factors have meant that we have basically had to start from scratch again in creating this map…
- subsequent advances in MindManger’s capabilities that we have taken advantage of (indeed honed) for the mapping of electoral areas and their elected members when creating our polical knowledge atlases for Scottish Local Councils, Wards & Councillors and UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies and Members.
- our last map was well before the last election in 2016.
- the Scottish Parliament has changed their website so even for those who were still members, most hyperlinks were not working.
ii) The sudden announcement in late October last year of a UK General Election on the 12th of December 2019 – just over 2 years after the last one, and the 3rd in 4 years – threw ‘the cat amongst the pigeons’ as far as our production schedule was concerned as creating the basic visual knowledge framework from scratch, and then subsequent maps, for the Scottish Constituencies and Members of the UK Parliament suddenly became the urgent priority. This task was very much not helped by the fact that the UK Parliament was in the middle of producing a new website, with both old and new versions (with different URLs and navigation structure) in circulation at the same time. Doh!
iii) The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland – the body tasked with creating and periodically reviewing local government electoral boundaries and, since 2017, Scottish Parliament electoral boundaries, have been not only re-organising their website to reflect both functions but changing their branding and URL altogether since the Scotland The Map project began in 2019. Doh!
Map Facts
Here are some of the ‘fun facts’ 😉 about Scotland’s 59 (out of a total of 650) United Kindom Parliament Constituencies & Members that we have discovered (and embedded!) during the process of creating this map…
Geographic Area (Regn)
Smallest & Largest
Glasgow Region
Highlands and Islands Region
Area Per Councillor (Regn)
Smallest & Largest
Glasgow Region
Highlands and Islands Region
Geographic Area (Cons)
Smallest & Largest
Glasgow Kelvin Consituency
Caithness, Sutherland and Ross Constituency
Political Balance
By Total MPs, Consituency Areas & Constituency Populations
ALL MSP's
(129 MSP's)
MPs - SNP: 61 LDP: 5 Lab: 24 Grn: 6 Con: 13 Oth (Ind): 2
Constituency MSP's
(73 MSP's)
MPs - SNP: 57 LDP: 4 Lab: 3 Grn: 0 Con: 7 Oth (Ind): 2
Majority
Smallest & Largest
Edinburgh Central Consituency [Con]
Aberdeen Donside Constituency [Ind (ex SNP)]
Regional ('List') MSP's
(56 MSP's)
MPs - SNP: 4 LDP: 1 Lab: 21 Grn: 6 Con: 24 Oth (Ind): 0
Gender Balance
All MSPs, Electoral Regions & Constituencies
ALL MSP's
(129 MSP's)
MPs - ALL: 129 Female: 47 Male: 82
Constituency MSP's
(73 MSP's)
MPs - ALL: 73 Female: 28 Male: 45
Regional ('List') MSP's
(56 MSP's)
MPs - ALL: 56 Female: 19 Male: 37
Map Features
We take full advantage of MindManager’s many unique ‘information cartography’ features when creating our unique maps so we can pack in 1000’s of ‘bits’ of knowledge into a single, visually structured, intuitive to navigate document that can be easily shared. Here are the main features of this UK Parliament Scottish Constituencies & Members Polticial Knowledge Atlas (5 Nov 2019) …
Big Map With 100's Of Branches & Links And Capacity For Plenty More
With 2,950 knowledge resource links over 1,763 branches, this map is a useful, contextual knowledge resource in it’s own right, as well as being a visually structured ndex of the best definitive / official / plain old useful knowledge resources available in the public domain about the subject. Thanks to MindManager’s unique capabilities it has plenty of spare capacity for further content to be added in the future.
Main Branches Create Robust Visual Framework For 'Seed Branches'
The 1st & 2nd level branches form the main (‘org-tree’) visual framework within which the map content of interest sits. As everything nests into electoral regions, the 1st level are summary branches for each arranged alphabetically from left to right, with an additional ‘all regions as a whole’ summary branch. The 2nd level sub-branches are summary branches for the regional level results and members, and for the constituencies. There are approximately the same number of MSPs and constituencies in each region so each main branch is of a similar depth.
Visually Rich 'General Knowledge Seed' Branch For Each Of The 73 Scottish Parliament Constituencies
The 2nd level branches are political ‘knowledge seed points’ for individual United Kingdom Parliament constituencies. They contain the name & official constituency identifier codes in variably formatted (‘rich’) text, and a thumbnail location map image to aid user navigation and provide spatial context. This is supplemented by the variation in topic shape, which indicates the status of the borders with neighbouring electoral wards – all coastlal (ie. island), mixed or all land (ie. landlocked). There is also a table of the results by party for the most recent (half dozen or so) General Elections & by-elections, coloured by party, as well as multiple hyperlinks to public domain general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources about the constituency. The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.
Embedded Spreadsheet Contains All Election Results For The Region and Constituency So Far
Data features embedded within seed branches – like spreadsheets, charts & data fields (another unique MindManager feature) – provide another ‘channel’ of knowlegde that adds context to the more detailed knowledge contained in the public domain resources linked to in the map. The embedded spreadsheets are a table of the results by party for all the Scottish General Elections & by-elections in the constituency, coloured by party, showing the results for each party candidate, the turnout, and the majority of the winning candidate are also recorded (Regional results show votes and number of MSPs elected). The colouring by party gives a simple ‘at a glance’ recent electoral history of the constituency, whilst the attached multiple hyperlinks to electoral knowledge resources will provide more detail as required. The full list of data embedded within this seed topic is given in the map summary above.
Visually Rich 'General Knowledge Seed' Branch For Each Of The 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs)
The 3rd level branches are ‘knowledge seed points’ for individual members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), coloured by their political party allegiance. They contain the members name suffixed by ‘MSP’ and their party allegiance in brackets, as well as a thumbnail of their official portrait picture. Their constituency names are also included to make it easier to keep track of ‘who’s who and where’s where’ when many MSP branches are open on screen at one time. Embedded data fields show the MP’s majorities when elected for the constituency. There are also multiple hyperlinks to public domain knowledge resources about the MSP, including their official register of interests. The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.
Embedded Data Fields Show MSP's Previous Electoral Victories
Data features embedded within seed branches – like spreadsheets, charts & data fields (another unique MindManager feature) – provide another ‘channel’ of knowlegde that adds context to the more detailed knowledge contained in the public domain resources linked to in the map. The data fields embedded in the MSP seed topic show their previous electoral victories in the mixed member proportional representation (MMP) system – in a ‘first past the post’ constituency or ‘on the list’ in one of the additional member regions. The full list of data embedded within this seed topic is given in the map summary above.
Attached Multiple Hyperlinks To Public Domain Knowledge Resources
Seed Branches have multiple hyperlinks attached to them (yet another unique feature of MindManager maps), which link to the best definitive / official / plain old useful knowledge resources available in the public domain about the subject. The ‘definable link text’ gives clarty as to the resource being linked to (which can be very variable if left to the default). As well as increasing the amount of knowledge that can be ‘squeezed’ into a map without increasing the ‘visual clutter’ of additional branches, it means these links can be retained if the seed branches are used in other maps, or this map is re-purposed. The full list of multiple knowledge resource hyperlinks attached to the seed topics in this map is given in the map summary above.
Index Marker Tag Groups Enable 'Geo Intelligent' & Other Map Filtering
Branches in the map may be tagged with one or more ‘index markers’ from one or more ‘marker groups’. These enable intelligent map filtering and quick navigation. Many of the tags are ‘geographic’ in nature such that branches are tagged with ‘where’ they are – eg. administrative or electoral areas. This gives the map in-built ‘spatial intelligence’ and the ability to be ‘geo-filtered’. (MindManager software users can copy and paste any of the marker groups in any other maps). The full list of index marker tags attached to the seed topics in this map is given in the map summary above.
Sub-Branch Collections Of Single Links To Public Domain Knowledge Resources
The Scottish Parliament Members (MSPs) sub-branch link collections – each with a single hyperlink to official / definitive / at least practical & useful online knowledge resources – are grouped into related collections for ‘Official Parliamentary’, ‘Official Party/MSP Controlled’ and ‘Externally Controlled’ knowledge resources. These are starting points for knowledge discovery and subsequent more detailed (‘desktop’) research. (MindManager software users have the advantage of being able to add to these branches as they go). The full list of links in the sub-branch collections attached to this seed branch is given in the map summary above.
Map Legend Branch Describes Each Topic 'Type' With Links To Further Information
Every map needs to have a legend that explains the cartographic structure, colours and symbology used. The ‘Map Legend’ branch describes the sub-components of each ‘type’ of map branch, with links to further knowledge resources where necessary.
'Contributing Online Knowledge-bases Branch' With Links To Further Information
We hunt down and assess many official / definitive / at least practical & useful online knowledge resources in the process of creating our maps. The ‘Contributing Online Knowledge-bases’ branch has links to all the ones that are actually linked to in the main map content, as well as some others that are a good source of general knowledge about the subject. It is a frustrating fact of life that some resources are organised better than others, and not all are ‘linkable to’ at the individual ‘building block’ level and so can’t be included in seed branches.
'Voter Help For Scottish Elections Branch' With Links To Useful Resources
The ‘Voter Help For Scottish Elections’ branch has links to useful links to help you registering to vote, find out which Local Council Electoral Ward, Scottish Parliament Constituency & Region or UK Parliament Constituency you live in, notice of any upcoming elections in your area and where to vote in them, and what the voting record for your incumbent MP’s or MSP’s.






