Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
This dataset is the product of three related research projects. The first project (funded by the Leverhulme Trust) examined the impact of devolution on the work of British Members of Parliament (MPs), particularly in Scotland and Wales. The second project (also funded by the Leverhulme Trust) gathered the views of Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and Members of the Welsh Assembly (AMs) about the effectiveness of their institutions in their first five years, and collected information about working patterns. The third and largest project (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)) extended the first two projects and added extra data, making particular reference to the impact of the new devolved institutions on local constituency representation. The previous importance of Scottish and Welsh MPs' constituency roles has been well documented. Devolution meant the arrival of one additional elected representative for each constituency in Scotland and Wales, as well as list members in each region (four in each of five regions in Wales, and seven in each of eight regions in Scotland). This dataset documents the local constituency roles adopted by members of the new institutions, the resultant changes to the local roles of Scottish and Welsh MPs, the local relationships that developed between these different sets of members, and the effectiveness of official rulings and guidance about these relationships. It allows some assessment both of the additional member electoral systems used in Scotland and Wales, and the new multi-tier system of representation in the United Kingdom (UK). Although some data were collected from English MPs in several of the surveys, the focus of the project is specifically on Scotland and Wales, hence the title of this study.
Main Topics:
The questionnaires cover various topics including hours worked, time spent on parliamentary, party and constituency tasks, correspondence and enquiries received from constituents, attitudes to devolved government, political systems and related issues, ideas about the role of MPs, and political representation. Responses to some open-ended questions are also included in the dataset.
Multi-stage stratified random sample
Postal survey
