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Scottish voters see the Scottish Parliament as more modern, approachable and trustworthy than the UK Parliament in Westminster However, Scottish voters still lack knowledge and understanding of the activities of the Scottish Parliament, believing that Westminster has the 'final say' on issues. Only 27% of Scots think that the Parliament has more influence on the way that Scotland is managed than Westminster. These were the findings of a GfK NOP Social Research study conducted on behalf of the Electoral Commission in April 2006. GfK NOP Social Research carried out deliberative focus groups and a survey of over 1000 Scots in order to explore attitudes to the Scottish Parliament, and towards voting in the 2007 Scottish elections. The introduction of the smoking ban in Scotland has had a very positive impact on perceptions of the parliament, with focus group participants seeing it as a bold and decisive move. 66% percent of Scots believe that the parliament should have more powers, with more than half agreeing strongly. However, the findings suggest a lack of knowledge about the current activities of the parliament. When asked whether the parliament could change the basic rate of income tax in Scotland - which it can - 56% got it wrong, while 7% did not know. On the topic of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) and Additional Member System (AMS) voting systems to be used in the 2007 Scottish Elections, focus group participants felt that they would prefer to know how to place a vote and were less concerned with how the votes are counted.
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