Ahead of the Scottish Parliament election, hustings events are a great opportunity to hear from candidates as well as ask them key questions about their priorities and plans. Churches can play a crucial role in helping people decide who to vote for by hosting these events and building relationships with candidates.
If you are thinking about holding a hustings event, you will need to follow some rules. We’ve provided some key information that aims to help you understand these rules and provide helpful information to plan a hustings. You can read the Electoral Commission’s full hustings guide here.
What is a hustings?
A hustings is an open meeting usually held in the run up to an election. It’s a chance for voters to meet the candidates who want to represent them in local or national politics such as parliament. The candidates generally answer a series of questions that give people the chance to hear their views on a range of issues that will affect them and their community.
Why should churches hold hustings?
Often at the heart of the community, churches are in a prime position to host a hustings. Candidates are grateful for the opportunity to address their would-be constituents. And voters are keen to hear directly from their candidates.
Holding a hustings enables churches to help voters in their community engage effectively with their political representatives and address the sense of disconnect many voters feel with the political process.
Promoting the hustings
Hustings are a great opportunity to demonstrate church unity, so we would encourage you to organise your event in conjunction with other local churches. If your constituency/region covers a large geographical area it might be a good idea to collaborate with churches in other areas to organise a few hustings.
Send a press release to your local papers, TV and radio stations to tell them about your event. Only do this once the details are finalised.
Make use of community notice boards, church websites and social media.
After the event send a follow up press release (even if local media don’t attend) along with key quotes from the candidates and photos.
Preparing for the hustings
Send a formal invitation to the candidates including date, time, and venue.
You could decide to invite candidates for your individual constituency, or candidates from parties who are on the regional list. To find candidates and your constituency/region, see this page on the Electoral Commission website.
Venue
Choose a location that is central to the constituency and easy to find.
Make sure it’s big enough to comfortably accommodate your expected audience, but doesn’t look uninviting if sparsely filled.
Ensure that it is accessible and inclusive for disabled people, and explore whether British Sign Language provision is possible for the event. For support, advice and information, contact one of our brilliant member organisations, Through the Roof.
Set-up
Seat the candidates and the host on a raised platform if possible.
Make sure the room is well lit and appropriately heated.
Supply microphones for each candidate as well as a couple of roving microphones for questions from the audience.
Host
An ideal host would have experience chairing discussions, ability to think on their feet, control a lively crowd and treat audience members and candidates firmly but fairly. A local TV presenter or similar notable local figure might be willing to chair.
Choose someone familiar with key political issues so they can push for clarification and challenge the answers given if they think they are inaccurate or dishonest.
The Scotland team at the Evangelical Alliance may be able to help provide a chair. Please email them at scotland@eauk.org if you are looking for a speaker for an election event or hustings chair.
Volunteers
A few stewards to greet guests and direct them to their seats, serve refreshments and hand out roving microphones.
An operator for the sound system.
Security
Sometimes specific groups may try to disrupt the meeting to make their voice heard. Therefore you may choose to have some extra stewards for security.
Notify your local police station ahead of your hustings so that they are aware that the event is taking place.
Running the hustings
The format of the evening is entirely up to you. The hustings needs to be long enough to cover a range of topics, but short enough to ensure that the audience’s attention is maintained. Between one and a half and two hours would be a suitable length.
Planning the event
Create a running order for the event so you know roughly how much time each section will take so that you don’t run over time.
Let the candidates know the format of the evening, for example whether or not they will need an opening statement as well as who will be hosting the event.
Opening the event
Have the organiser or local church leader welcome the audience, open in prayer, briefly reflect on the importance of voting and introduce the host. They can also thank the host and candidates at the end and close in prayer.
Have the host explain the format of the evening and the rules for asking questions.
Inviting candidates to listen before they speak
While hustings are primarily for candidates to answer questions and present their views, it is also an opportunity for churches to inform candidates of the work they are doing in the community.
Consider preparing one or two short stories of what churches or Christian projects have done and the transformation they have delivered.
Introductory statements by the candidates
This can be helpful for people who aren’t familiar with the candidates. However, they can take up quite a lot of time so if you decide to include this make sure candidates are given a tight time frame.
Questions and answers
There are a range of possible approaches to organising the topics of discussion for hustings, here are four broad categories:
The questions could be determined before the event, perhaps by the church leaders and others who are organising it.
The audience could be asked to submit questions as they arrive with a team ready to sort through and agree topics for discussion.
Questions can be taken through online platforms such as Slido. This enables the organising team to both structure the topics and choose the most useful questions.
Questions can be taken from the floor without prior consideration.
We would recommend having questions submitted either in advance, at the start or online so a basic structure can be given around the issues people want covered. Supplementary questions can then either be taken from audience members raising their hands or through further questions submitted through an online platform.
After the event
Write to the candidates thanking them for taking part in the hustings.
Send a press release with photos to your local media.
Report on the event on websites and social media, in church newsletters, etc
After the election, be proactive in developing and maintaining relationships with your MSPs.
Legal information
For information and advice for churches as charities, please see OSCR’s guidance and feel free to contact them here.
NOTE: Charities must not support or oppose a specific political party, individual candidates or particular groups of candidates. This doesn’t prevent them from supporting or opposing specific policies. See the Electoral Commission’s guidance on inviting candidates and feel free to contact them.
Good practice recommendations:
Give objective reasons why you haven’t invited particular candidates. Be prepared to explain your reasons to candidates who you haven’t invited.
Objective reasons may include local prominence, the number of elected representatives at local level or recent election results in the area.
They do not include subjective reasons such as your views of the policies of a candidate or their party.
Make sure the candidates you invite represent a reasonable variety of views, from different parts of the political spectrum.
Be transparent in your publicity for the meeting, about who is arranging and funding the event and the reasons you are holding it.
Allow each candidate attending a fair chance to answer questions, and where appropriate, a reasonable opportunity to respond to points made against them by other candidates.
Inform the audience at the hustings of candidates standing who were not invited or were not able to attend.
If you do not invite all the candidates and are not able to provide objective reasons for the selection, then the hustings could be categorised as a ‘selective hustings’. This is problematic for churches and charities because it is then counted as an electoral contribution to the parties that did attend, which is not allowed for charitable organisations.
If you have any further questions, feel free to get in touch with us at scotland@eauk.org
