The 2007 Scottish local elections were held on 3 May 2007, the same day as Scottish Parliament elections and local elections in parts of England. All 32 Scottish councils had all their seats up for election – all Scottish councils are unitary authorities.
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All 1,222 seats to Scottish councils | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 52.8% ( 3.2%)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Council controls post elections | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.svg) Colours denote the party with the most seats | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.svg) Colours denote the party with largest share of first preference votes by ward | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Background
editThis was the first election for local government in Great Britain to use the Single Transferable Vote (the system is used in Northern Ireland), as implemented by the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004. The new electoral system resulted in most councils being under no overall control, a situation in which no single political group achieves a majority of seats.[2]
eCounting fiasco
editScanners supplied by DRS Data Services Limited of Milton Keynes, in partnership with Electoral Reform Services (ERS), the trading arm of the Electoral Reform Society, were used to electronically count the paper ballots in both the Scottish council elections and the Scottish Parliament general election.[3][4]
Because of the fiasco in 2007 of holding parliamentary (Holyrood) and local elections simultaneously, the following Scottish local elections were held in 2012 instead of 2011.
Party performance
editThe Labour party lost control of all but two of its councils, Glasgow and North Lanarkshire, but received the largest number of votes, while the SNP were the main beneficiaries of the new voting system, picking up over 180 new seats. The Scottish Greens elected their first-ever councillors, winning eight seats.[5][6]
Results
edit
| Party | First-preference votes | Councils | 2003 seats | 2007 seats | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Of total (%) | Change | Count | Change | Count | Of total (%) | Count | Of total (%) | Change | ||
| No overall control | — | 27 | 20
|
— | — | ||||||
| Labour | 590,085 | 28.1 |  4.5%
|
2 | 
|
— | 348 | 28.5% | 161
| ||
| SNP | 585,885 | 27.9 | 3.8%
|
1 |
|
— | 363 | 29.7% | 182
| ||
| Conservative | 327,591 | 15.6 | 0.5%
|
2 |
|
— | 143 | 11.7% | 21
| ||
| Liberal Democrats | 266,693 | 12.7 | 1.8%
|
0 |
|
— | 166 | 13.6% | 9
| ||
| Independent | 228,894 | 10.9 | 0.8%
|
0 |
|
— | 192[a] | 15.7% | 38
| ||
| Other | 102,897 | 4.9 | 1.3%
|
0 |
|
— | 10[b] | 0.8% | 6
| ||
| Total | 2,099,945 | 100.0 | ±0.0 | 32 |
|
1,222 | 1,222 | 1,222 | 100.00 |
| |
Councils
editThe notional results in the following table are based on a document that John Curtice and Stephen Herbert (Professors at the University of Strathclyde) produced on 3 June 2005, calculating the effect of the introduction of the Single Transferable Vote on the 2003 Scottish local elections.[7]
Notes
edit- ^ 193 according to the BBC website
- ^ 8 Scottish Greens, 1 Scottish Socialist and 1 Solidarity councillor. Separate vote figures not found
- ^ Labour minority control. The council was previously run by a coalition of Scottish Liberal Democrats, Independents and the SNP.
- ^ Liberal Democrats lack a majority (LD: 12 councillors; opposition: 12 councillors
- ^ Labour lacked a majority after by-election loss to the SNP (Lab: 29 councillors; opposition: 29 councillors)
- ^ Labour minority administration
- ^ Conservative control, on a cut of the cards (Con: 15 councillors; opposition: 15 councillors)
- ^ Labour lacked a majority after by-election loss to the SNP (Lab: 11 councillors; opposition: 11 councillors)
References
edit- ^ "SPICe Briefing: Local government elections 2012" (PDF). SPICe. 8 June 2012. p. 11.
- ^ Clark, Alistair (28 March 2011). "STV in Scotland shows us that voters can adapt to preferential voting systems – but political parties may take longer to fully grasp the new system". London School of Economics. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
- ^ Lock, Russell; Storer, Tim; Harvey, Natalie; Hughes, Conrad; Sommerville, Ian (2008). Kor, Ah‐Lian (ed.). "Observations of the Scottish elections 2007". Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy. 2 (2): 104–118. doi:10.1108/17506160810876185. ISSN 1750-6166. S2CID 12455813. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
- ^ Staff Reporter (13 September 2007). "DRS 'e-counts' tripled first half profits". Business Weekly. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
- ^ "Scottish PR elections herald coalition politics". Public Finance. 10 May 2007.
- ^ 2007 Scottish Local Elections
- ^ "STV IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS: MODELLING THE 2003 RESULT" (PDF). 3 June 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 September 2008. Retrieved 6 June 2016.