Attitudes towards Scotland’s Constitutional Future

Authors: John Curtice, Rachel Ormston

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Summary

Since the advent of devolution in 1999, ScotCen Social Research’s Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey has been charting the views of people in Scotland on how well they think they are being governed at present and how they would like to be governed in future. As a result this high quality annual survey now provides the richest and longest running series of data on attitudes towards Scotland’s constitutional future. Results from the 2012 SSA have now been released (24th January), the first reading to be taken by the survey since the independence debate stepped up a gear as the UK and Scottish Governments argued about how the referendum on independence should be conducted.

Introduction

In this briefing we outline some of the key findings from the 2012 survey. We address three key questions:

• How well does Scotland think it is being governed at present?

• What are attitudes to and expectations of independence?

• What demand is there for more devolution short of leaving the Union?