The more the councillor link or the constituency link is always.... In the political culture in Scotland, elected members see themselves as the representatives of the people and as dealing with local issues, much more than in other cultures where you go to an official of the local government body or whatever. They fulfill that through the desire to have a constituency, and that's why they used DMS in 1999. It was really important to keep the councillor link, the member link. STV for local government was a political compromise to have three or four member multi-member wards. It reduced the level of proportionality, but it also meant that you didn't have huge electorates and that there was a possibility of people being able to understand who their elected representatives were. Whether the average Scot understands that they actually have eight MSPs representing them in the Scottish Parliament, I'm not sure that's the case. But certainly they will know who their local member is. Of course, the most active regional members will ensure or concentrate on getting themselves into the local newspaper.
On August 31st, 2016. See this statement in context.