THE SNP is starting a drive to have more women councillors elected to the City Chambers next year.

The party wants to increase its rate of just under 25% across Scotland and has agreed new selection procedures.

In Glasgow the situation is worse where just six of 29 councillors are women, which group leader Susan Aitken described as “terrible”.

The party has councillors in each of the 21 council wards but only five wards have female SNP representatives. In Langside the party’s two councillors are women, group leader, Susan Aitken and Anna Richardson.

The others are Mhairi Hunter in Southside Central, Eva Bolander in Anderston, Jennifer Dunn in East centre and Josephine Docherty in Newlands/Auldburn.

There will be some women only shortlists and open shortlists in certain wards but no sitting male councillors will be deselected to make way for women.

Ms Aitken said because of the number of sitting male councillors it is unlikely a 50-50 balance will be achieved this time.

The said: Sitting male councillors won’t be punted to make way for a woman. I’m not trying to turf out experienced men to make way for women.”

But moves are afoot to get more women to come forward as potential candidates including “talent spotting” among the membership and information and training days.

Ms Aitken said: “There will be a good number of new SNP candidates which gives us an opportunity to improve the gender balance. It’s terrible just now I am open about that. Generally it is extremely poor and we are trying to fix that.”

The mechanism was agreed at SNP’s National Council and will require both women-only and open shortlists in seats where the party is standing more candidates than sitting councillors.

In a ward where the party has one sitting councillor and stands two candidates, at least one of the candidates will be required to be a woman.

SNP Business Convenor, Derek Mackay, said: “Ahead of next year’s council elections the SNP are determined to put forward our strongest ever team of local candidates.

“Part of this is ensuring that our candidates across the country reflect the communities they live in. Women have been underrepresented in politics for too long and we want council chambers to reflect communities. These election are now set to be transformative.”

Labour currently has 13 women out of its 42 Glasgow councillors.