Power and participation overview

This section looks at voting and how much people feel that they can influence decision-making in their area; at people's views of their local area and their feelings of community cohesion and civic pride; at how much trust people feel in insititutions and in other people; and at access to the internet.

Click here to download the Power and participation infographic.

Around half of people in the West of Scotland felt that 'most people could be trusted'. Institutional trust varied, with lower levels of trust expressed throughout Scotland for the UK Government than for either local councils or Scottish Government.

Just under a quarter of Glaswegians reported that they would not feel very or fairly safe walking in their local area at night. In the most deprived fifth of the city, 88% of people felt that their local area was 'a good place to live' – which rose to 96% in the rest of the city.   

Only 17.9% of Glaswegians felt that they could influence decisions affecting their local authority in 2023. 

In the 2024 general election, voter turnout in Glasgow constituencies ranged between 47% in Glasgow North East and 60.4% in Glasgow South. 

44% of votes were cast for Labour, the party which won every constituency in Glasgow, with 32% going to the SNP and 24% to other parties.

In terms of community cohesion and civic pride, most Glaswegians feel part of the community they live in (65%) and are proud of their local area (65%). Even more people feel proud of the city of Glasgow as a whole (85%).

In 2023, 92% of Glaswegians had access to the internet. 

The data on the Understanding Glasgow website comes from a variety of administrative sources and surveys, and the frequency of updates to these sources varies. The graphs and text on each page should indicate the period to which an indicator refers. In some cases, where more recently published data is not available, we still use older published sources, such as the 2011 Census.