THE Scottish Parliament has presented a major opportunity to improve the ways in which ordinary people are represented. One of the ways in which many involved with the setting up of the Scottish Parliament have tried to achieve this has been to work actively to improve the level of representation of women.

Despite the contingent of over 100 women elected to Westminster in May 1997, the proportion of women in the UK Parliament was still under 20%. Of Scotland's MPs just over 16% were women. At the council elections of 1995, the situation was a little better. Just over 22% of councillors elected that year were women.

This is under many of the Scandinavian countries and elsewhere in Europe, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. In all of these cases the level of women's representation is above 20% and in some it is over 30%. The highest is Sweden, where in 1994 a shade over 40% of members elected to their legislature were women. The challenge to the political parties in Scotland has been how to improve that level of representation in a devolved Parliament sitting in Edinburgh.

The most recent initiatives on improving women's representation have come in the last 10 years and in particular as an accompaniment to the deliberations of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. A specific Women's Issues Group was set up in order to examine ways of improving representation for women in any future Scottish Parliament.

In fact, the whole process of debate surrounding the constitutional question opened up debate on the wider questions of representation and allowed women across different political parties a forum in which to address the problem.

The response of the political parties was mixed. The Labour party adopted a 50:50 policy to try to actively influence the number of women representatives. On the other hand both the Liberal Democrats and the SNP opposed structural mechanisms to achieve gender balance, preferring a more promotional approach. The Conservatives' opposition to constitutional reform resulted in no specific measures being proposed by that party although it did express support for the goal of increasing women's representation.

The Women's Issues group within the Convention recommended that women's representation would be aided by making the workings of a Scottish Parliament more manageable in terms of the times it sat and its procedures. In addition it called for a Ministry for Women to be set up within a Scottish administration.

The subsequent Convention report published in 1990 laid down the commitment to gender equality and set out plans to examine issues surrounding the workings of any parliament. However, in the final Convention report of 1994, the adoption of a compulsory or statutory mechanism for gender equality was rejected. Instead parties were asked to work towards the achievement of 40% plus representation of women within five years. This disappointed many who had worked for a stronger statement of intent.

As a response to the Convention's report, an alternative scheme was put forward for the first elections to a Scottish Parliament ensuring an equal number of men and women candidates and a realistic distribution of those candidates in winnable seats. This ''Electoral Contract'' was subsequently backed by both Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

What then can women expect in terms of representation on May 6? The parties of the Scottish Constitutional Convention have worked to adopt gender balance in a more active manner than the SNP and the Conservatives. Our System Three poll gives a good indication of the likely make up of female representatives.

On May 6 the total number of women returned to the Scottish Parliament may be over 50. This would represent around 40% of the total of 129, making it on a par with the Swedish legislature and certainly propelling it to the top of the women's representation league.

Largely responsible for this would be the Labour Party which may return more women than men in its representation. Present calculations suggest an almost exact 50:50 balances of Labour MSPs. The Liberal Democrats have attempted to follow the same principles but they are likely to find only one in six of their representatives is a woman. The SNP, despite not adopting a formal procedure to ensure gender balance, will also be near to achieving a 50:50 balance. The Conservatives, however, may only return one or two women out of the dozen or so representatives they are likely to have.

As voters go to the polls on May 6 women in Scottish politics will have a greater say in decision making than ever before. It will change the face of Scottish politics, that is no doubt and may lead to an ever increasing level of participation of women in public life at all levels.

*Malcolm Dickson is a lecturer in Politics at Strathclyde University