Scottish Local Councils, Electoral Wards & Local Councillors – Political Knowledge Atlas (9 Oct 2019)

October 9, 2019

CATEGORIES - Governance & Politics, Local Governance & Politics, Map Post
TAGSs - Local Council Electoral Wards, Local Councillors, Local Councils, New Map, Political Knowledge

There are 1,227 Local Councillors elected to 354 multi (3 or 4)-member Electoral Wards in Scotland’s 32 Local Councils every 5 years. Though these politicians fundamentally affect our lives on a day-to-day basis through enacting their own party’s local policies, and their oversight of bodies delivering essential services at the local level, 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 ‘national local’ political knowledge atlas map of every local councillor in Scotland helps solve that problem.

So building on the base framework of Local Council Electoral Ward knowledge seed branches provided by our first ever Scottish Local Council Electoral Wards General & Geographic Knowledge Atlas (30 Sep 2019), the embedded data fields of general contextual ‘facts & figures’ in the seed branches for each individual electoral ward & the wards as a whole, are now replaced by political knowlede in the form of spreadsheet tables quantifying the number of councillors by party at the ward and whole council level, as well as the overall political control, whilst the attached multiple links to general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources are retained.

The knowledge link sub-branch collections off the individual ward seed branches have been replaced with knowledge seed branches for all the currently elected Local Councillors in each ward, with those that have retired or died since they were last elected retained as sub-branches for reference. As well as their official portrait picture, there are attached links to their official profile page(s) & entry in the register of members interests. Notable changes in circumstance since they were last elected are recorded as a branch note.

Also attached to all seed branches is a variety of index markers that tag them with some of the contextual knowledge and enable dynamic filtering to hide / show map content as well as aid internal navigation.

All knowledge elements are coloured by party when appropriate to complete this first ‘national local’ political knowledge map of Local Councils, Electoral Wards and Local Councillors in Scotland. Like the Local Council and Electoral Ward general atlases before, it establishes 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 make up of Local Councils, Electoral Wards and Elected Local Councillors in the future.

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Part of the 'Governance & Politics' Category

'Lo-Fi' Map

‘Lo-Fi’ – Minimal image content. Those deemed essential for user navigation – logos and thumbnail location maps on Local Council branches – are retained, but all other images have been removed to reduce the file size.

'Mid-Fi' Map

‘Mid-Fi’ – Reduced image content. Useful images, such as logos and ‘thumbnail location maps’, are retained, but the photo’s of all 1,227 councillor have been removed.

View 'Mid-Fi' HTML5 map full screen

View this reduced image content HTML5 knowledge map as a stand-alone webpage in a new browser tab - it may take a few seconds to load, please be patient 🙂

View 'Mid-Fi' HTML5 map full screen

View this reduced image content HTML5 knowledge map as a stand-alone webpage in a new browser tab - it may take a few seconds to load, please be patient 🙂

Download 'Mid-Fi' HTML5 Map [22.7 MB]

For viewing on or offline, in any modern browser, on any device, without additional plugins. You need to be a member to access this download (it's free to join 🙂

Download 'Mid-Fi' MindManager (.mmap) Map [15.5 MB]

For amending, adapting & repurposing in MindManager software. You need to be a Pro Member to access this download.

'Hi-Fi' Map

‘Hi-Fi’ – Full Iimage content. All the images included in the original, full version of the map when created are included. ‘Hi-Fi’ maps are probably best avoided when looking on mobile devices of more limited capacity, but that is not to say that they can’t be, and that they do not work fine once they have loaded. It will just take longer for them to load, say 30s – 2 mins depending on the connection.

View 'Hi-Fi' HTML5 map full screen

View this full image content HTML5 knowledge map as a stand-alone webpage in a new browser tab - it may take a few seconds to load, please be patient 🙂

View 'Hi-Fi' HTML5 map full screen

View this full image content HTML5 knowledge map as a stand-alone webpage in a new browser tab - it may take a few seconds to load, please be patient 🙂

Download 'Hi-Fi' HTML5 Map [50.0 MB]

For viewing on or offline, in any modern browser, on any device, without additional plugins. You need to be a member to access this download (it's free to join 🙂

Download 'Hi-Fi' MindManager (.mmap) Map [36.0 MB

For amending, adapting & repurposing in MindManager software. You need to be a Pro Member to access this download.

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…

2**NOTE – This ‘visually rich’ knowledge map has a large number of ‘seed branches’ which, with their associated embedded images, greatly increases the size of the HMTL file when they are all included. So users on slower internet connections and/or more limited capacity devices such as mobile phones can still work with it, we have removed varying amount of the image content and made the map available as ‘hi-fi’ (no images removed), ‘mid-fi’ (all 1,227 local councillor images removed) and ‘lo-fi’ (all ward location maps removed) versions. All versions can be accessed from the map viewing / download options panel.**

Scottish Local Council Knowledge Seed Branch

Scottish Local Councils 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).

Image: Council Logo & 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’ Council Location Map – The thumbnail map (which has been created by us) shows the council area within Scotland.

Council Logo – Incorporating council logos into map branches makes for swifter navigation and improved user experience.

Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.

ii) Due to the disparate nature of the size of the geographic areas of Scottish Local Councils, locations are not always immediately obvious for the smallest ones. If you zoom in on-screen, all will 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 council body and easy cross-referencing with other data sources, especially GIS databases (though it’s still not without it’s contradictions – see below!).

Council Name – We have taken the names of the Council from their own website, with the proviso that…

The geographic reference in the name comes first for ease of alphabetic referencing, with any of the ‘extra terms’ named below inserted after.
For names in Gaelic we have added an english language translation in square brackets afterwards e.g. Eilean Siar, Comhairle nan [Western Isles, Council of the].

Note(s)
i) The names of some councils can vary between official sources, especially if they include the following terms…

‘The’ – The definite article – should it be filed under ‘T’? In our map ‘The Highland Council’ is listed as ‘Highland Council, The’
‘And’ – Is it ‘Dumfries and Galloway’ as you would say it, or is it ‘Dumfries & Galloway’ as it is written in their logo? In our map it is always listed as ‘Dumfries and Galloway Council’
‘City’ – It’s either ‘City of ….’ or ‘… City’. For example ‘Glasgow City Council’ is usually listed under ‘G’ (as it is on our map), but we have seen it as ‘City of Glasgow’ under ‘C’. ‘The City of Edinburgh Council’ is a double dilemma, but we’ve gone for ‘Edinburgh Council, The City of’, but it’ can be listed under ‘C’ or ‘T’ in some official sources.

Council Type – SUA = Scottish Unitary Authority
This applies to all Scottish Local Councils, but it should be seen in a whole-UK context, where there are / were also other types of councils that Knowledge Mappers have also mapped…

‘County Councils (Shires)’ with subordinate ‘District Councils’
‘Metropolitan County Councils’ (now abolished) with subordinate ‘Metropolitan Borough Councils’
‘Unitary Authorities’ and ‘Metropolitan Boroughs’

ISO3166-2 code – ISO 3166-2 is part of the international standard ISO 3166 ‘Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions’. In Scotland the ‘principal subdivisions’ are Local Council Areas, so the ISO 3166-2 code is an additional, internationally recognised, unique identifier for each Local Council.

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

EU NUTS code – The European Union Statistics Agency (Eurostat) maintains a list of ‘Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS)‘ codes for it’s constituent member states (including Scotland as part of the United Kingdom) for statistical reporting & comparison purposes. Each member state has a parent NUTS code, and then there are 3 levels of ‘NUTS code’ for the statistical reporting areas, which in Scotland equate to…

NUTS for member state = United Kingdom = UK
NUTS 1 = Scotland = UKM
NUTS 2 = Regional groupings of Scottish Council Areas…
NUTS 3 = A ‘rag-tag’ mixture with codes covering sub-groupings of neighbouring council areas within the NUTS 2 region, single council areas for ‘large’ councils, and in the case of the ‘super large’ Highland Council area, internal geographic subdivisions along ‘historic county’ lines.

This means…

NUTS 2 ‘regions’ don’t correspond exactly to any other way of subdividing Scotland regionally e.g. Scottish Parliament Electoral Regions (even though the nomenclature may by similar).
NUTS 3 codes are not always unique to individual councils i.e. they cannot be used as unique identifiers.
NUTS 3 codes don’t always follow Local Council Area boundaries e.g. the Island of Arran is part of North Ayrshire Council Area (NUTS 3 = UKM33), but is included in the ‘Highlands and Islands’ (NUTS 3 = UKM63) area for EU statistical reporting purposes.

Embedded Data Fields: Council & Area ‘Facts & Figures’
Single data fields embedded in the seed branch are another unique MindManager feature. They provide quick reference of ‘core’ geodemographic data that provides context and enables meaningful comparison between similar areas, saving the user the time and effort of looking them up in the linked knowledge resources. These are taken from official data stats & profiles like the Scottish Government Statistics Portal or the National Records of Scotland if available, or derived from the OS BoundaryLine dataset by us using GIS software if not (thus making it more readily available in the public domain).

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).

iii) Fields marked with an *asterisk above (in bold with the gear icon in the embedded fields in the branch in the map) are calculated from the values of data fields in sub-branches using MindManager’s unique ‘auto-calculation’ feature.

The data fields embeded in this seed topic are…

BASIC ELECTORAL FACTORS
These are set by statute by the Scottish Government and are used as factors in most of our calculations…

Total Elected Councillors – Electoral Wards are represented by either 3 or 4 councillors, as per the recommendations of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (LGBCS).

Total Electoral Wards – The number of Electoral Wards in a Council Area is taken from the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (LGBCS) website, the body officially tasked with defining electoral wards and their boundaries.
Most (27) Council Area wards conform to the Fifth Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements carried out by the LGBCS, whose final recommendations for the number of councillors and the electoral ward boundaries in each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities was submitted to Scottish Ministers on 26 May 2016 and came into effect for elections held on or after 4th May 2017.
For the 5 Council Areas where the recommendations for the 5th Review were rejected by ministers – for reasons of the new Scottish Islands Act or to maintain links between localities on the ground – the number of councillors and the electoral ward boundaries of the Fourth Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements remain in place. For reference these are…

Argyll and Bute Council
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
Dundee City Council
Scottish Borders Council
Shetland Islands Council

COUNCIL AREA MEASUREMENTS
It is surprisingly difficult to find easily accessible data on the area measurements for Scottish administrative units in the public domain. The Scottish Government Statistics website does have a single area measurement for all the geographic units it reports data on, but this is an ‘aggregated data zones best-fit’ figure (see below for further discussion about why we haven’t used it). There is also the issue that for coastal administrative units the legal boundary maybe extends offshore so a ‘total area measurement’ is strictly accurate but unsuitable as a factor for calculating councillor or population as a whole area density.
Thus we have used the OS BoundaryLine area measurements for all administraive units in this map (see below for further disccusion), but there is a debate to be had around the derivation, publication and use of ‘standard’ geodemographic data such as geographic area by the Scottish public sector.

Area Measurements In The Ordnance Survey BoundaryLine Dataset
The Ordnance Survey’s BoundaryLine dataset is the official source of digital geographic boundaries for all administrative areas in Great Britain for use in Geographic Information System (GIS) software. It is now part of OS’s Open Data, and so is free to download.
As can be seen in the screenshot example below of the Aberdeen City Local Council area, amongst the attibute data attached to each administrative area polygon includes a total area value in hectares (‘Hectares’ field).
However as also can be seen from the screenshot, the legal boundaries of coastal administrative units extends offshore. This seaward limit of the administrative units is known as the ‘Extent Of Realm’ (EOR). In BoundaryLine the alignment of the ‘EOR’ boundary is digitised to the Mean Low Water (springs) (MLWS).
Thus the total area value in the ‘Hectares’ field includes the area of water between the Mean High Water (the usual extend of the ‘land’) and the ‘Extent of Realm’. Fortunately BoundaryLine includes another area value, that for the area of the unit that extends beyond the land – the ‘Non_Inland_Area’ field. This is useful in 2 ways:-

if the value is ‘0’ (zero), it indicates that the unit has no coastal border i.e. it is ‘land-locked’.
by subtracting it from the total area value in the ‘Hectares’ field, we can derive a ‘total land area value’. This is not strictly accurate as the ‘land’ will still include bodies of water like lochs, however at least the calculation of the figure will be the same for all the units.

There is further information available from the OS BoundaryLine product support page.

Scottish Government Statistics Data Zones
Surprisingly there is only one official source of an area size of Scottish Council Area we could find in the public domain, which is the ‘Geography’ dataset of the Scottish Government Statistics website entry for the Council Area (also compiled as a ‘data cube spreadsheet’ table for all geographic areas).
The area figures are derived by aggregating land area values based on 2011 Data Zones on a ‘best fit’ basis i.e. they are aggregated in such a way that best approximates the shape of the boundary of the higher geography. This means that…

results for higher geographies such as Council Areas are always only estimates.
as the boundaries of Data Zones change over time, the size and shape of the ‘best fit’ will also change, thereby leading to different area figure for the higher geography even though its’ boundary hasn’t changed. For example the area figures for the 2001 Data Zones is different to the 2011 Data Zones for some Council Areas.
other geodemographic data derived using areas, such as population density, will be affected.

For further information on best-fit for geographies, see National Records of Scotland Geography Policy on Best-fit and Exact-fit.

Council Area Total (sq km) – The area value in the OS BoundaryLine ‘Hectares’ field expressed in square kilomtres.

Council Area Non-Inland (sq km) – The area value in the OS BoundaryLine ‘Non_Inland_Area’ field expressed in square kilomtres. This is the size of the area between the high and low watermarks.

Council Area Inland (sq km)* – The area value left by subtracting the OS BoundaryLine ‘Non_Inland_Area’ field from the ‘Hectares’ field expressed in square kilomtres.
This has been taken by us as a proxy for the total land area of the administrative unit, however in reality it will still include the area of any freshwater bodies like lochs, which can be quite large in some parts of Scotland.

COUNCIL POPULATION FIGURES
Population data for administrative units in Scotland are available from the following sources…

The official census count, carried out every 10 years by the Scottish Government (the last one was in 2011). All the census data can be found on the Scotland’s Census website).
Ongoing official mid-year estimates for most units are published every year on the the statistics.gov.scot website (for convenience all are collected together in a ‘Data cube’).
Other ‘Special Area’ Population Estimates are published in the Population section of the National Records of Scotland website as a downloadable spreadsheet.

Council Population (latest est) – This figure is taken from the ‘Population Key Facts’ section of the Scottish Government Statistics website entry for the Council Area, and is the most up to date ‘official estimate’ of population (also compiled as a ‘data cube spreadsheet’ table for all geographic areas).
From the explanatory notes on the Scottish Government Statistics website…
“Annual publication of mid-year population estimates by age and sex as at 30 June every year, where population for higher geographies is aggregated from the population estimates for 2011 Data Zones.”

Population Density (latest est) (per sp km)* – This has been calculated manually by us by dividing the ‘Council Population (latest est)’ by the ‘Council Area Land (sq km)’ figure we have calculated from BoundarlyLine…

Obviously the fact that ‘land area’ still includes freshwater bodies like lochs has implications when it comes to calculating population density.
Whatever the shortcomings in calculating the absolute value, of as much importance is the change in that value over time (as long as the way of calculating it remains the same).

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.

NAVIGATION (‘NAV’) MARKERS
‘Navigation’ index markers tag the topics 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 – SLCs – Each Local Council 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 – Scottish Local Council Name (Council Type and identifying Codes) eg. East Renfrewshire Council (SUA – GB-ERW – S12000011 – UKM35).

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 council’s borders with it’s neighbours…

SLC – Borders Types – This Marker Group indicates the status of the local authority’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)

SLC – Mutual Borders – This Marker Group indicates which other Scottish Local Council(s) that the selected council shares a mutual border with, as shown on the Ordnance Survey Election Map online viewer.
On mainland Scotland Council 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 councils share a mutual border on a water feature rather than land.
The ‘island councils’ – Orkney & Shetland – 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.

SLC – UK EU-NUTS2 Region – See the EU NUTS code incorporated in the topic text legend entry for further information about NUTS codes in Scotland.
There are 2 ‘parts’ to the marker – NUTS 2 area name (NUTS 2 Code) eg. South Western Scotland Region (UKM3).

SLC – ISO3166-2 code – ISO 3166-2 is part of the international standard ISO 3166 ‘Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions’.
In Scotland ‘the principal subdivisions’ are Local Council Areas, so the ISO 3166-2 code is an additional, internationally recognised, unique identifier for each Local Council.

SLC – ONS Code – The Council’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.

SLC – UK Parliament Constituency – All the UK Parliament Constuencies that overlap with the local council area. There are usually at least 2.
There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Constituency Name (ONS Code) eg. East Renfrewshire (S14000021).

Scottish Parliament Region – Scottish Parliamentary Consituencies are divided into regions, which also have elected members. There are 2 ‘parts’ to the marker -Scottish Parliamentary Constituency Region Name (ONS Code) eg. West Scotland (S17000018).

Scottish Parliament Constituency – All the Scottish Parliament Constuencies that overlap with the local council area. There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Scottish Parliamentary Constituency Name (ONS Code) eg. Eastwood (S16000103).

SLC – Strategic Development Planning Authority – From the ‘Scottish Government Planning Circular 2/2008: statutory guidance on strategic development planning authorities‘…

“Section 2 of the 2006 Act introduced a new section 4(1) into the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 (the 1997 Act) which allowed Ministers to designate groups of planning authorities as strategic development planning authorities (SDPAs), tasked with preparing and reviewing SDPs. Scottish Ministers designated the following four such groupings in the SDPA Designation Orders 2008 which came into force on 25 June 2008…

Glasgow and the Clyde Valley (Clydeplan) – East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow City, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, South Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshiren Councils.
Aberdeen City and Shire – Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils.
TAYPLan – Angus, Dundee City, Fife and Perth & Kinross Councils.
SESPLan – City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Fife, Midlothian, Scottish Borders and West Lothian Councils.

Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.

Scottish Local Councils 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 Local Councils.

The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…

General Information Knowledge Resource Links

Council Website: Home page – The ‘home page’ of the Local Council website. Some are more helpful than others in terms of guiding you through onwards navigation.

Council Website: A-Z page – The ‘A-Z of Services’ page(s) of the Local Council website. Obviously a good starting point to find out about specific areas of interest, however as with all alphabetic indexes, a bit of hunting may be required to find the pages of interest.

Council Website: Councillors directory page – The ‘front page’ of the ‘Councillor’ pages of the Local Council website. As with most other things, there is a variety of ways that Councils choose to organise things…

Structure e.g. all on one page or sub-pages
‘Slicing & dicing’ display options…
- Alphabetically by name
- by Ward – Note the wards may be listed numerically by LGBCS ward number rather than alphabetically (but may not even include the ward number in the listing!).
- by Political Party – Note that some don’t even include the political party affiliation on the’ all councillor’ page, only on the individual councillor page.
Inter-linking e.g. sometimes there is no link to the register of members interests, sometimes there is, sometimes it is included within the page.

Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA): Council Profile – COSLA is the umbrella body for Scottish Local Councils. As well as a profile page for each council, there are also ones listing Council Leaders, Chief Executives, Civic Heads, Political Control and Current Breakdown.

National Records of Scotland: Council Area Profile – These official statistical profiles bring together data on population, births, deaths, life expectancy, migration, marriages, civil partnerships, households and dwellings.

Scottish Government Statistics Portal: Council Area – This is the Council Area section on the geostatistical atlas section of the statistics.gov.scot website. As well as key facts, the data about the Council Area 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

Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation: SIMD16 Council Area Profile – SIMD is the official tool for finding the most deprived areas in Scotland. SIMD identifies small area concentrations of multiple deprivation across all of Scotland in a consistent way. It allows effective targeting of policies and funding where the aim is to wholly or partly tackle or take account of area concentrations of multiple deprivation.
This analysis report gives an overview of deprived and less deprived areas in the council area, and show the most deprived areas in more detail. It includes a large number of maps as well as charts.
This is one of several SIMD online resources available:-

Wikipedia: Article on the geographic area administered by the council – Wikipedia has a wealth of information about the geographic area covered by Council Areas & wards, if not the actual Council itself, and the results of all local council elections down to ward level going back a considerable period of time.
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.

Wikipedia: Separate article on the Council, or ‘local governance’ sub-section of article on geographic area – Wikipedia has a wealth of information about the geographic area covered by Council Areas & wards, if not the actual Council itself, and the results of all local council elections down to ward level going back a considerable period of time.

Geographic Information Knowledge Resource Links

Council Website: Map page(s) (if present) – The variety and quality of map resources published by Scottish Local Councils is very varied….

Downloadable PDF files
Online digital mapping system, where boundaries can be viewed along with other ‘layers’ of map data about the Council Area (though unfortunately such is the technical setup of these that links to views of specific things are not provided and cannot be created without a considerable amount of effort).

Gazetteer for Scotland: Index of Entries In Council Area – The Gazetteer for Scotland is a vast geographical encyclopaedia, featuring details of towns, villages, bens and glens from the Scottish Borders to the Northern Isles. The first comprehensive gazetteer produced for Scotland since 1885, it includes tourist attractions, industries and historical sites, together with histories of family names and clans, biographies of famous Scots and descriptions of historical events associated with Scotland. The network of connections between all of these entries make this gazetteer unique. We have included the text of Groome’s 19th Century Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland to provide a historical perspective on many of the places we describe.

Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland: Council Area Overview Map 2017 [PDF] – The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (LGBCS) helpfully publish GIS produced, ward 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.
There will be

an overview map of the whole Council Area showing where all the wards are relative to each other,
Individual ward maps

National Map Library of Scotland Boundaries (1840’s, 1960’s & 2017) Map Viewer: Council Area – The map viewer shows the boundaries of parishes, counties and unitary authorities in Scotland, ca. 1840s to the present.
Zoom in and hover over any location or click on the map to view the County, Parish, or Unitary Authority covering the place you have clicked on.
Read further information on the specific boundaries shown, the history of parishes, legislation, and cartographic information sources on boundaries.

Note(s)
i) Once you have ‘entered’ any of the National Library of Scotland map viewers using these links you can toggle between them using the links at the top of the page and the map area will stay centred on the location.

Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation Online Map: View centred on Council Area – SIMD is the official tool for finding the most deprived areas in Scotland. SIMD identifies small area concentrations of multiple deprivation across all of Scotland in a consistent way. It allows effective targeting of policies and funding where the aim is to wholly or partly tackle or take account of area concentrations of multiple deprivation.
This is one of several SIMD online resources available:-

Wikipedia: Lists of articles about places in the Council Area – Wikipedia has a wealth of articles about geographic places, be they settlements (villages, towns & cities), or area features like regions, states, countries, national parks etc. Sometimes the editors compile a list of all the related articles on a single page and call it ‘Listsof places in…’, so they become a ‘gazetteer‘ in geogrphic information parlance. Fortunately there is one such list for every Local Council Area in Scotland.

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 is usually a great ‘jumping off point’ to discover new knowledge resources, often the source information for the article itself.

All Electoral Wards Political Seed Branch

All Local Council Electoral Wards 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…

Image: Thumbnail boundary overview 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’ Ward Overview Map – This is a low resolution screenshot of the official ward overview map for the Council Area, available as a PDF on the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (LGBCS) website, the body officially tasked with defining electoral wards and their boundaries. The maps show the boundaries against an Ordnance Survey basemap, (the PDF’s can be easily printed at A4 size if required).

Note(s)
i) The link to the actual PDF map is included in the multiple hyperlinks attached to the branch.

ii) Though the image quality has been reduced to minimise the file size, the detail should still be legible if you zoom in on it.

iii) The 4th and 5th electoral Review maps have different styles so it is easy to see to tell which boundaries apply at a glance.

Text: Title & Council 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.

Title

Council 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 Council name wherever expedient so users can more easily keep track of what they’re looking at.

Note: Council Political Event 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.

Council Political Events Log – If there have been any events – usually initiated by one or more councillors – that have caused a change in the political circumstances in the ward, 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’)…

the suspension of councillor by their party or the council itself, preventing them from participating in normal council democratic processes.
a change of allegiance by a councillor – they may resign from their party and sit as an independent, or even “cross the floor” and join another party.
the resignation / death of one or more councillors, triggering a by-election (usually in a few weeks), that may or may not be won by another party!

Note(s)
i) It has proved impossible to find single ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in council’s across Scotland. It is also surprisingly difficult to find information at individual council level, let alone individual wards…

the only place in a council website where you will find any mention of by-elections (if at all) is in the ‘Elections’ section, where a notification of an impending by election notice may be posted. However the reason why a by-election will be required – the resignation / death of a sitting councillor – will not be mentioned. There certainly will be no mention of anything in the ‘Councillors’ section, the profile of the councillor involved will just disappear without notice, to be replaced by another after the by-election.
The Electoral Management Board for Scotland (EMB) has the official log of Local Council by-elections, but it doesn’t list the subsequent result, only links to the council website, and then it may not be to a specific page about the election, or contain the actual results.

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. More specifically it’s the ‘changes since the last election’ subsection of the Wikipedia page dedicated to the local council’s results for a specific election. 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: Current Total Councillors By Party and Type & Composition of Overall Politicl Control
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, embedded 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 the data is correctly structured, embedded spreadsheets can be toggled between the Table View and a Chart View. However this feature is only available in the MindManager map. Whatever view is set there at the point of export, is the one that will appear in the HTML version.

ii) Like Embedded Data Fields, Embedded Spreadsheets can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner.

Current Total Councillors By Party and Type & Composition of Overall Politicl Control – This embedded spreadsheet shows the total number of elected councillors for each political party currently serving on the council, colour coded as appropriate.
There is a colour coded bar below and a description of the overall political control of the council (as listed on Wikipedia).

Note(s)
i) Local Councillors are elected in all Scottish Local Councils at the same time, every 5 years, using a single Transferable Vote proportional representation system. The results of these ‘national’ local council elections are documented in several sources. However…

It is often the case that no single political party wins a clear majority of councillors (in some Council Areas all councillors are independent of political parties e.g. Orkney Islands Council). There is therefore a period of time of ‘internal wrangling’ after the election before a controlling executive group – a coalition between 2 or more parties, a minority administration of the largest party, or even a combination of both – is established. In other words, the results of the local council election do not necessarily immediately indicate who will have overall political control of the council.
Other than Wikipedia, we could not find a single source documenting the overall political control of all the Scottish Local Councils. This is one of the driving forces behind creating this map. Though you would have thought this was a fundamental part of the way Local Council operates, often there is little mention of it on the Council’s website, other than a list of councillors by party and their formal appointments on committees or cabinet.
Similarly there is no single source of the incidence AND results of subsequent Scottish Local Council by-elections caused by the resignation or death of a sitting councillor.

ii) The number of councillors for each party in the table may be different to those elected at the last Scottish Council Election due to the death / resignation of a councillor(s) triggering a by-elections that may be subsequently won by another party, or just a change of allegiance by a sitting councillor – they may resign from their party and sit as an indepemdent, or even cross the floor” and join another party.

iii) The Electoral Management Board for Scotland (EMB) has the official log of Local Council by-elections, but it doesn’t list the subsequent result, only links to the council website, and then it may not be to a specific page about the election, or contain the actual results.

iv) On the list of current councillors on Local Council websites, there is usually nothing to indicate that…

there is a current vacancy due to the resignation or death of a sitting councillor
a councillor has been elected in a by election

Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.

All Local Council Electoral Wards 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.

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.

iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all Local Councils.

The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…

General Knowledge Resource Links

Structure e.g. all on one page or sub-pages
‘Slicing & dicing’ display options…
- Alphabetically by name
- by Ward – Note the wards may be listed numerically by LGBCS ward number rather than alphabetically (but may not even include the ward number in the listing!).
- by Political Party – Note that some don’t even include the political party affiliation on the’ all councillor’ page, only on the individual councillor page.
Inter-linking e.g. sometimes there is no link to the register of members interests, sometimes there is, sometimes it is included within the page.

Geographic Knowledge Resource Links

Council Website: Map page(s) (if present) – The variety and quality of map resources published by Scottish Local Councils in regard to their Electoral Wards is very varied….

Downloadable ‘static’ PDF files showin gthe ward boiundary.
Online digital mapping system, where boundaries can be viewed along with other ‘layers’ of map data about the Council Area (though unfortunately such is the technical setup of these that links to views of specific things are not provided and cannot be created without a considerable amount of effort).
No extra resources but links to the Local Government Boundary Commission Ward Maps on their website.
No geographic info at all :-(.

Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland Latest Electoral Review of the Council Ward Boundaries & the Number of Councillors – The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (LGBCS) is the body officially tasked with defining electoral ward boundaries and the number councillors to be elected to them, and continuing to review these arrangements on a regular basis…

Note(s)
i) Most Council Area wards conform to the 5th Electoral Review carried out by the LGBCS, whose final recommendations for the number of councillors and the electoral ward boundaries in each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities was submitted to Scottish Ministers on 26 May 2016 and came into effect for elections held on or after 4th May 2017.

ii) For those Council Areas where the recommendations for the 5th Review were rejected by ministers, the number of councillors and the electoral ward boundaries of the 4th Review remain in place. For reference these are…

Argyll and Bute Council
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar [Council of the Western Isles]
Dundee City Council
Scottish Borders Council
Shetland Islands Council

an overview map of the whole Council Area showing where all the wards are relative to each other,
Individual ward maps

Electoral Knowledge Resource Links

Council Website: ‘Election’ pages – Local Councils are responsible for facilitating voting in ALL elections and referendums, local or national, so all council websites have a section on ‘Elections’…

These cover all the elections the council organises. We have only included the pages relevant to the local council ones.
These may or may not include the actual results of the election.
Where results are covered, they may not include the full results at ward level of all stages of the single transferable vote counting i.e. you can’t actually rely on the level of detail found in the other sources of local council election results to be present on the actual council website!

Denis Mollison Scottish Council Election May 2017: Summary of Election Results for Council Area – Denis is Professor of Applied Probability (Emeritus) at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. Through his own website he has published the full results of the 2017 and 2012 Scottish Local Council elections at council and ward level (including all the counting stages of the Single Transferable Vote proportional representation system used).

Wikipedia: Summary article of 2017 Scottish Council Election Results for Council Area – Wikipedia has the results of all local council elections down to ward level going back a considerable period of time and is the best single place to get an overview of the changes in political composition of local councils over time.

Wikipedia: Article sub-section summarising changes to councillor composition since the last election – As well as obvious by-elections, if present this section can also include incidences of councillors resigning from their party (by force or voluntarily, permanently or temporarily), often to sit as ‘independents’, thereby altering the political composition of the council from that which was elected.

Individual Electoral Ward Political Seed Branch

Individual Local Council Electoral Wards 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)’)

ROUNDED RECTANGLE = mixed coastal & land borders

HEXAGON = all land borders (ie. ‘land-locked’)

Note(s)
i) Assignment of shapes to geographic area seed branches is controlled by MindManager’s unique Smart Rule feature using the ‘SLC WARD – Borders Types’ tag (eqivelant to thematic mapping in GIS).

Image: Thumbnail Ward 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’ Ward Location Map – This thumbnail map (which has been created by us) locates the ward relative to the other wards in the council area, but without a background basemap.

Note(s)
i) All images are optimised to reduce the file size.

Text: Ward 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.

Ward Name – This is taken from the council’s website. However as is commonly the case with administrative areas, there are some discrepancies in the names used between official sources, making it difficult to know exactly which one is ‘correct’. This is especially true when…

several geographic localities are grouped together to form the name of the ward (there are 2 approaches – forward slash vs punctuation).
the LGBCS assigned ward number is used in the listing.

As illustrated by East Lothian Council…

Ward Name As Listed In Order On The East Lothian Council Website	Ward Name As Listed In Order On The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland Website
01 Musselburgh	1 Musselburgh
02 Preston / Seton / Gosford	2 Preston, Seton and Gosford
03 Tranent / Macmerry	3 Tranent, Wallyford and Macmerry
04 North Berwick Coastal	4 North Berwick Coastal
05 Haddington and Lammermuir	5 Haddington and Lammermuir
06 Dunbar and East Linton	6 Dunbar and East Linton

These illustrate the following issues with…

Some local councils list the wards alphabetically, whilst others do it numerically by LGBCS number (sometimes they don’t show the number in the listing). The LGBCS always list them numerically.
Even within one Local Council (East Lothian) both forward slashes and punctuation are used in the ward names.
The LGBCS is inconsistent and uses forward slashes for some Local Council Areas, and punctuation for others.
Sometimes the name on the LGBCS website mirrors exactly the names used by the council, sometimes it doesn’t e.g. ’03 Tranent / Macmerry’ vs ‘3 Tranent, Wallyford and Macmerry’

LGBCS Ward Number – This is an internal reference ward number (from ‘1’ to however many wards there are in the Council Area), which seems to have been arbitarily assigned by the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (LGBCS), the body officially tasked with defining electoral wards and their boundaries).
It is used by the LGBCS extensively…

Wards are listed in numerical rather than alphabetic order on the LGBCS website.
The ward number is incorporated into the file names of the ward maps.

And on council websites…

the ward number is often included in the ward listings.
wards may even be listed numerically rather than alphabetically (with no explanation of why the wards are numbered in this apparently arbitrary way!)

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

Note: Ward 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.

Ward Political Events Log – If there have been any events – usually initiated by one or more councillors – that have caused a change in the political circumstances in the ward, 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’)…

the suspension of councillor by their party or the council itself, preventing them from participating in normal council democratic processes.
a change of allegiance by a councillor – they may resign from their party and sit as an independent, or even “cross the floor” and join another party.
the resignation / death of one or more councillors, triggering a by-election (usually in a few weeks), that may or may not be won by another party!

the only place in a council website where you will find any mention of by-elections (if at all) is in the ‘Elections’ section, where a notification of an impending by election notice may be posted. However the reason why a by-election will be required – the resignation / death of a sitting councillor – will not be mentioned. There certainly will be no mention of anything in the ‘Councillors’ section, the profile of the councillor involved will just disappear without notice, to be replaced by another after the by-election.
The Electoral Management Board for Scotland (EMB) has the official log of Local Council by-elections, but it doesn’t list the subsequent result, only links to the council website, and then it may not be to a specific page about the election, or contain the actual results.

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: Current Ward Councillors 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.

Current Councillors By Party – Similar formatted to the table embedded in the ‘All Electoral Wards Political Seed Branch’, this shows the total number of elected councillors for each political party currently serving on the ward, colour coded as appropriate.

Note(s)
i) The number of councillors for each party in the table may be different to those elected at the last Scottish Council Election due to the death / resignation of a councillor(s) triggering a by-elections that may be subsequently won by another party, or just a change of allegiance by a sitting councillor – they may resign from their party and sit as an indepemdent, or even cross the floor” and join another party. Such goings on will hopefully be recorded in the branch note.

ii) The Electoral Management Board for Scotland (EMB) has the official log of Local Council by-elections, but it doesn’t list the subsequent result, only links to the council website, and then it may not be to a specific page about the election, or contain the actual results.

iii) On the list of current councillors on Local Council websites, there is usually nothing to indicate that…

there is a current vacancy due to the resignation or death of a sitting councillor
a councillor has been elected in a by election

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.

NAV – SLC Wards – Each Local Council Ward 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 – Electoral Ward Name (Identifying Codes) eg. Barrhead, Liboside and Uplawmoor (Ward 1 – GB-ERW – S13002914).

GEO Borders
The nature of the council’s borders with it’s neighbours…

SLC WARD – Borders Types – As per the topic shape, this Marker Group indicates the physical geography of the local authority’s borders with all of it’s equivalent neighbours, in respect to the ocean.
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)

GEO Unique Identifying Codes
Within the topic 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.

SLC WARD – ONS Code – As per the code incorporated into the branch text.

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’ that share the same geographic space in whole or in part. 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.

SLC WARD – UK Parliament Constituency – All the UK Parliament Constuencies that overlap with the Local Council Electoral Ward. There are 2 ‘parts’ to this marker – Constituency Name (ONS Code) eg. East Renfrewshire (S14000021).

Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.

Individual Local Council Electoral Wards Knowledge Seed Branch

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.

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.

iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all Local Councils.

The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…

General Knowledge Resource Links

Council Website: ‘Councillors by Ward’ page – This may be a separate page for each ward, or the subsection of a single page, or just the general ‘Councillors’ page if there’s no listing by ward.

Council Website: Ward Profile – Very occasionally councils produce their own ward profiles, combining information from different official statistical sources and their own comment to provide a deeper understanding.

Scottish Government Statistics Portal: Individual electoral ward profile – This is the Ward section on the geostatistical atlas section of the statistics.gov.scot website. As well as key facts, the data about the individual Ward is grouped as…

Population
Children
Education
Training
Housing
Health
Community
Crime
Justice

Geographic Knowledge Resource Links

Council Website: Map page(s) (if present) – The variety and quality of map resources published by Scottish Local Councils in regard to their Electoral Wards is very varied….

Downloadable ‘static’ PDF files showing the ward boiundary.
Online digital mapping system, where boundaries can be viewed along with other ‘layers’ of map data about the Council Area (though unfortunately such is the technical setup of these that links to views of specific things are not provided and cannot be created without a considerable amount of effort).
No extra resources but links to the Local Government Boundary Commission Ward Maps on their website.
No geographic info at all :-(.

Argyll and Bute Council
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar [Council of the Western Isles]
Dundee City Council
Scottish Borders Council
Shetland Islands Council

an overview map of the whole Council Area showing where all the wards are relative to each other,
Individual ward maps

Note(s)
i) The 4th and 5th electoral Review maps have different styles so it is easy to see to tell which boundaries apply at a glance.

Electoral Knowledge Resource Links

These cover all the elections the council organises. We have only included the pages relevant to the local council ones.
These may or may not include the actual results of the election.
Where results are covered, they may not include the full results at ward level of all stages of the single transferable vote counting i.e. you can’t actually rely on the level of detail found in the other sources of local council election results to be present on the actual council website!

Denis Mollison Scottish Council Election May 2017: Summary of Election Results for Individual Electoral Ward – Denis is Professor of Applied Probability (Emeritus) at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. Through his own website he has published the full results of the 2017 and 2012 Scottish Local Council elections at council and ward level (including all the counting stages of the Single Transferable Vote proportional representation system used).

Wikipedia: Summary article of 2017 Scottish Council Election Results for Council Area #Individual Ward – Wikipedia has the results of all local council elections down to ward level going back a considerable period of time and is the best single place to get an overview of the changes in political composition of local councils over time. The results for each ward are usually a sub-section within the page.

Local Councillor Political Knowledge Seed Branch

Local Councillor 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 councillor’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 Councillor’s webpage.

Text: Name, Political Party Affiliation and Ward & Council 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 individual councillor’s webpage. Names are prefixed with the term ‘Cllr’ so that the reason why they are listed is unequivocal…

Note(s)
i) If the Councillor’s name is listed as ‘Sandy’ rather than ‘Alexander’, then that’s what their called in this map.

ii) Many councillors 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’ 🙂

Party Affiliation – Designation of party affiliation is as per the branch fill colour.

[REASON FOR DEPARTURE] – If this is present on the councillor branch, it indicates the reason why they are now no longer a serving councillor despite being elected at the last Scottish Council Election. Possible reasons are…

[DECEASED] – councillor has died
[RESIGNED] – councillor 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 councillor’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-councillor’s topic will become a subtopic of the replacement councillor (though the hyperlink will probably no longer work as council’s usually remove the councillor’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

Ward & Council – 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 councillor circumstances…

they are now no longer a councillor. The reasons why will also be shown in [SQUARE BRACKETS]
they were elected at a by-election. Most council websites do not indicate this on their councillor’s pages.
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 sub-section of the main Wikipedia article on 2017 Scottish Council Election Results for the Council Area summarising changes to councillor composition since the last election.

Note: Councillor 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.

Councillor Political Events Log – If there have been any events – usually initiated by one or more councillors – that have caused a change in the political circumstances in their 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) It has proved impossible to find single ‘official’ sources of information about changes to the political circumstances in Local Councils, Wards or Councillors across Scotland. It is also surprisingly difficult to find information at individual council level, let alone individual wards…

the only place in a council website where you will find any mention of by-elections (if at all) is in the ‘Elections’ section, where a notification of an impending by election notice may be posted. However the reason why a by-election will be required – the resignation / death of a sitting councillor – will not be mentioned. There certainly will be no mention of anything in the ‘Councillors’ section, the profile of the councillor involved will just disappear without notice, to be replaced by another after the by-election.
The Electoral Management Board for Scotland (EMB) has the official log of Local Council by-elections, but it doesn’t list the subsequent result, only links to the council website, and then it may not be to a specific page about the election, or contain the actual results.

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).

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.

Gender – This is not recorded on Councillor listings (for obvious reasons), so we have assigned this attribute manually ourselves. Thus any errors are ours, for which we apologise in advance ;-).

Political Affiliation – As per the branch fill and text.

Electoral Status – Given that we are going to record councillors over time in subsequent maps, and there may be a time lag between a councillor resigning and their replacement being elected at a by-election, there is an obvious need to keep track of the status of individual councillors. Possible tags….

Council Election – Councillor still serving since elected at last Scottish Local Election
By-Election – Councillor elected at a subsequent by-election
DECEASED – Councillor has died
RESIGNED – Councillor has resigned
REFUSED TO TAKE OFFICE – Candidate was successfully elected, but declined to take up their position

Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.

Local Councillor Political Knowledge Knowledge Seed Branch

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.

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.

iii) Not all of the resources below will exist for all Local Councils.

The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch…

Council Website: Individual Councillors Page – This page will generally include contact details, times of constituency surgeries etc., however in some council websites these are found on different webpages.

Register of Councillors Interests – All councillors are obliged to submit these upon election, and to update them if changes in personal circumstances dictate it. However how the register entry for individual councillors is made publicly accessible varies between councils…

Available only as a downloadable PDF file, which may be one document for all councillors, or separate documents for individuals.
Incorporated within the Councillor’s individual page, but not in a way that is linkable to e.g. as a ‘tabbed section’ within the page.
A separate webpage with it’s own URL.

This map is the only place as far as we know where the register of interests for ALL Scottish Local Councillors can be accessed with a few clicks.

E-mail Address – As taken from the Councillors webpage so that you can e-mail them just by clicking on the hyperlink.

Note(s)
i) On some council websites no e-mail address is given and users are directed to fill in an online contact form.

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…

**NOTE – There are no knowledge link collection sub-branches in this map at the moment, only multiple hyperlinks on seed branches. With 1,227 councillors in Scotland, every potential additional link ‘type’ will added 1,227 more branches to the map. Aftr embedded images, additional branches are the next biggest factor affecting map handling performance. We will however experiment in future editions**

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 Local Councils, Electoral Wards & Local Councillors – Political Knowledge Atlas (9 Oct 2019)

Version – 1.0

Links to knowledge resources – 6,322

Map Branches – 1,922

File Sizes – [‘Hi-Fi’] HTML5 – 50.0 MB; MindManager (.mmap) – 36.0 MB | [‘Mid-Fi’] HTML5 – 22.7 MB; MindManager (.mmap) – 15.5 MB | [‘Lo-Fi’] HTML5 – 10.8 MB; MindManager (.mmap) – 6.6 MB

Basemap Framework – Scottish Local Council Electoral Wards – General & Geographic Knowledge Atlas (30 Sep 2019) (v1.0)

Actions – The main work done in making this version of the map was…

Initial creation of knowledge seed branch framework of local councillors as additions to the Local Council Electoral Wards mainbranch framework.
Seeking out and attaching multiple links to councillors official profile pages & entry in the register of members interests, as well as changes since they were last elected.
Deprecating image content to produce maps versions with reduced overall file size.

Note(s)
i) Given the reasonably constant ‘churn’ of local councillors due to illness, death and party shenanigans, it’s our intention to update this map every 3 to 4 months. The precise timing though is dependant on the actual dates of the local by-elections, which tend to come in clumps.

ii) The large number of ‘seed branches’ – 1,227 councillors, 354 wards & 32 local councils – with their associated embedded images, greatly increases the file size of this map as it is. Thus for this first attempt we will not add the additional overhead of collections of sub-branch links to local councillors knowledge resources but instead keep them solely as attached multiple links.

iii) So users on slower internet connections and/or more limited capacity devices such as mobile phones can still work with it, we have removed some/all of the image content and made the map available as ‘lo-fi’ (all images removed), ‘mid-fi’ (all 1,227 local councillor images removed) and ‘hi-fi’ (no images removed) versions. All are available to view/download.

Map Facts

Here are some of the ‘fun facts’ 😉 about Scotland’s 1,227 Local Councillors that we have discovered (and embedded!) during the process of creating this map…

Density by Geography

Smallest & Largest

sq km per councillor

Hillhead Ward [Glasgow City Council]

sq km per councillor

North, West and Central Sutherland Ward [Highland Council]

Population (2018 Est)

Smallest & Largest

people

Lerwick North Ward [Shetland Islands Council]

people

Southside/Newington Ward [City of Edinburgh Council]

Density by Population

Smallest & Largest

people per councillor

An Taobh Siar agus Nis Ward [Comhairle nan Eilean Siar]

people per councillor

Southside/Newington Ward [City of Edinburgh Council]

Gender Balance

All Councillors, Worst & Best

All Councillors

(362 out of 1,227 Female Councillors)

Councillors - Female: 362 Male: 865

Least Balanced

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar

Councillors - Female: 0 Male: 31

Most Balanced

Glasgow City Council

Councillors - Female: 30 Male: 55

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 Scottish Local Councils, Electoral Wards & Local Councillors Political Knowledge Atlas (9 Oct 2019) …

Big Map With 1000's Of Branches & Links And Capacity For Plenty More

With 6,429 knowledge resource links over 2,010 branches, this map is a useful, contextual knowledge resource in it’s own right, as well as being a visually structured index of the best definitive / official / plain old useful knowledge resources available in the public domain about the political makeup of Scotland’s 1,227 Local Councillors, 354 Electoral Wards and 32 Local Councils. 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 level branches form the main (‘org-tree’) visual framework within which the map content of interest sits. It is a simple ‘A – Z’ layout, with the 32 Scottish Local Councils arranged alphabetically in 5 columns of approximately equal sizes to pack as much in to a ‘single screen view’ as possible.

Visually Rich 'Knowledge Seed' Branch For Every Scottish Local Council

The 2nd level branches are ‘knowledge seed points’ for each Scottish Local Council, to which links to public domain knowledge resources about them are attached. Visually rich & information dense, they contain the name & official area identifier codes in variably formatted (‘rich’) text – a unique MindManager featue. Visually the combined logo & thumbnail location map image aids user navigation and provides spatial context, whilst the variation in topic shape indicates the status of the borders with neighbouring councils – all coastlal (ie. island), mixed or all land (ie. landlocked). The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.

Visually Rich Electoral Wards, Local Councillors & Political Control 'Seed Branches'

The 3rd level branches are ‘knowledge seed points’ for the political make up of the Local Council, both in terms of wards – there is a good quality thumbnail image (ie. still readable & usable when zoomed in) of the official Local Government Boundary Commission ward overview map to provide spatial context – whilst a table shows the current total local councillors by party, coloured by party. The political control of the council is also shown – be it an overall majority rule by one party group, a minority administration or a coalition between 2 or more party groups (including ‘independent’ councillors). There are also multiple hyperlinks to public domain general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources about the council wards as a whole. The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.

Visually Rich 'Poilitical Knowledge Seed' Branch For Each Of Scotland's 334 Electoral Wards

The 4th level branches are political ‘knowledge seed points’ for individual electoral wards. As for the ‘Local Council’, they are a visually rich mixture of embedded and attached knowledge. They contain the name & official ward 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 showing the current total local councillors by party, coloured by party, as well as multiple hyperlinks to public domain general, geographic & electoral knowledge resources about the ward. The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.

*An asterisk indicates noteworthy happenings in the ward since the last Local Council Election – such as the resignation / death of a councillor and the subsequent by-election to elect their successor – which are recorded in the attached topic note.

Visually Rich 'Political Knowledge Seed' Branch For Each Of Scotland's 1,227 Currently Elected Local Councillors

The 5th level branches are ‘knowledge seed points’ for individual Local Councillors, coloured by their poitical party allegiance. They contain the councillors name prefixed by ‘Cllr’ and suffixed by their party allegiance in brackets, as well as a thumbnail of their official portrait picture. Their ward and council names are also included to make it easier to keep track of ‘who’s who and where’s where’ when many councillor branches are open on screen at one time. There are also multiple hyperlinks to public domainl knowledge resources about the councillor. This is currently limited to their official councillor page, which will contain a variable amount of useful information depending on the individual council. There is also a link to their official register of interests if it is not contained within their main page. The full list of knowledge embedded within, and attached to, this seed topic is given in the map summary above.

*An asterisk indicates noteworthy changes in circumstances of the local councillor since the last Local Council Election, which are recorded in the attached topic note. This could be losing the support of their party, on a temporary or permamnent basis, or their resignation or death. If they are no longer a councillor the reason why will be shown in [square brackets] and all the text will be in italics. Eventually they will be moved to become a sub-branch of their successor once the by-election has taken place.

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 all 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 all the seed topics in this map is given in the map summary above.

Embedded Data Elements Provide Additional Contextual Knowledge

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. Just like in a normal spreadsheet, some of the data field values may be ‘auto-calculated’ from the others using formulae, creating data not found elsewhere in the public domain. They can also be used to ‘conditionally format’ the map eg. colouring the branches based on a particular data value (the equivelant of ‘thematic mapping’ in GIS).

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.

Built-in Topic Styles Enable Quick Visual Reformatting

The visual formatting of all the map elements is controlled via our structured system of topic styles, which makes for easier alteration ‘on the hoof’ and therefore quicker map building. (MindManager software users can change the appearance of the whole map with just a few clicks eg. to match their own ‘in-house’ style & branding.)

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Nicolaus Copernicus

16th Century Mathematician & Astronomer

Tae ken that we ken whit we ken, and tae ken that we dinnae ken whit we dinnae ken, that's whit it's aw aboot, ye ken?

Rab C. Nesbitt

Contemporary Scottish Philosopher

And whilst we're aboot it, tae ken where the hell ye get haud of whit ye need to ken, when ye need to ken it, if ye dinnae ken it awready?

Rab C. Nesbitt

Contemporary Scottish Philosopher

These knowledge maps show the 'national local' building blocks of Scotland as they exist today, but they can also be used to strategically think about what could be in the future, and operationally plan the delivery of what will be tomorrow.

Angus McDonald

Scotland The Map Project Director and Knowledge Mappers Founder & CEO

Do not only go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Philosopher and Transcendentalist

The task is, not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.

Erwin Schrodinger

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist & Cat Owner (Part-time)

A map is the greatest of all epic poems. It's lines and colours show the realisation of great dreams.

Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor

'Father of Photo-Journalism' & 1st Full-Time Editor Of National Geographic Magazine

Comments

We are continually striving to improve our Scottish knowlegde maps and value your feedback, suggestions & comments.

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