A real person reads these
Ask me anything
What happens when you send it
- It is read by a person, not a queue. No ticket numbers and no automated replies.
- You will get an answer, usually within a few days. Corrections and press deadlines jump the queue.
- Your email is used to reply to you and nothing else. It is not added to any list.
- No question here is too basic. Plenty of people who work in this field cannot explain the difference between an MP and an MSP either.
If you need help this week
Please do not wait for me. This site explains the figures — it cannot give benefits, debt or legal advice, and a reply in a few days is no use if something is happening on Friday. The services below do this properly and they are free.
Free, and this is what they do
Where to get real help
- advice.scot
Advice Direct Scotland: benefits entitlement checks, money, energy bills and consumer problems. Free, national, and Scottish Government funded. BSL users can contact them directly.
- Citizens Advice Scotland
Help in person at a local bureau, including benefit applications, appeals, debt and employment problems.
- Shelter Scotland
Housing and homelessness, including if you have been asked to leave or have nowhere to stay tonight.
You can also write to your MP and MSP about a problem of your own. Constituency casework is a real part of their job and it is free.
No mystery about it
Who you are writing to
Scotland Counted is written and published by Graeme, who runs Strathmark Consulting in Edinburgh — independent AI and digital advisory for engineering, manufacturing and specialist technical businesses, working internationally.
That work runs on evidence before commitment, no vendor agenda, and decisions that stay with the client rather than the adviser. This site is built the same way, and for the same reason: every source is named, every method is published, and every correction is logged where you can see it.
A site making claims about councils and elected members should say who is behind it and who pays for it, so you can weigh what you are reading.
Figures, not spin
Every number here is taken from the body that published it — the Scottish Government, the ONS, DWP records, or named academic work — and is never adjusted, reframed or cherry-picked to make a point land harder. Where the site sets out what would change things, the options are costed, attributed to whoever proposed them, and marked with who actually has the power to do them.
It will never tell you who to vote for. Every party in Scotland comes off badly somewhere in this data, and the site publishes those figures the same way regardless of who is in charge.
Who pays for this
Nobody, and that is on purpose. Having nothing to declare is simpler than declaring it.
- No donations. If you were thinking of offering, thank you — and the answer is still no.
- No advertising, ever. Nothing is sponsored, no space is for sale, and nobody has paid to appear here.
- No party, no candidate. Not affiliated with, funded by or working for any party or campaign group.
If any of that ever changes it will be written here first, before you have to find out some other way.