The 2007 Scottish local elections were held on 3 May 2007, the same day as Scottish Parliament elections and

local elections In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct vary ...

in parts of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. All 32 Scottish

councils A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/ shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or nati ...

had all their seats up for election – all Scottish councils are

unitary authorities A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

Background

This was the first election for local government in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

to use the

Single Transferable Vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

(the system is used in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

), as implemented by the

Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004 The Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004 (asp 9) is an Act of the Scottish Parliament which provided, amongst other things, for the election of councillors to the local authorities in Scotland by the single transferable vote system. The Commissi ...

. The new electoral system resulted in most councils being under no overall control.

eCounting fiasco

Scanners supplied by DRS Data Services Limited of

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

, in partnership with Electoral Reform Services (ERS), the trading arm of the

Electoral Reform Society The Electoral Reform Society (ERS) is an independent campaigning organisation based in the United Kingdom which promotes electoral reform. It seeks to replace first-past-the-post voting with proportional representation, advocating the single t ...

, were used to electronically count the paper ballots in both the Scottish council elections and the Scottish Parliament general election. Because of the

fiasco Fiasco may refer to: * a failure or humiliating situation * Fiasco (bottle), a traditional Italian straw-covered wine bottle often associated with Chianti wine Media * ''Fiasco'' (novel), a 1987 science-fiction novel by Stanisław Lem * ''F ...

in 2007 of holding parliamentary (Holyrood) and local elections simultaneously, the following Scottish local elections were held in

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

instead of 2011.

Party performance

The 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 over 180 new seats. The Scottish Greens elected their first-ever councillors, winning eight seats.

Results

, - !colspan=2 style="text-align:center;" , Parties !style="text-align:center;" , First-Preference
Votes !style="text-align:center;" , Votes % !style="text-align:center;" , +/- !style="text-align:center;" , Councillors !style="text-align:center;" , Net
Gain/Loss , - , , 590,085, , 28.1, , −4.5%, , 348, , −161 , - , , 585,885, , 27.9, , +3.8%, , 363, , +182 , - , , 327,591, , 15.6, , +0.5%, , 143, , +21 , - , , 266,693, , 12.7, , −1.8%, , 166, , −9 , - , , 228,894, , 10.9, , +0.8%, , 192, , −38 , - , style="width: 10px" style="background-color:" , , style="text-align: left;" scope="row" , Other , 102,897, , 4.9, , +1.3%, , 10, , +6 , - !colspan=2, Total!!2,099,945!! !! !! 1,222!!

Councils

The notional results in the following table are based on a document that

John Curtice Sir John Kevin Curtice (born 10 December 1953) is a British political scientist who is currently professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and senior research fellow at the National Centre for Social Research. He is particularly in ...

and Stephen Herbert (Professors at the

University of Strathclyde The University of Strathclyde ( gd, Oilthigh Shrath Chluaidh) is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal chart ...

) produced on 3 June 2005, calculating the effect of the introduction of the Single Transferable Vote on the 2003 Scottish Local Elections.

Notes and references

{{United Kingdom local elections, 2007

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

Local elections, Local elections May 2007 events in the United Kingdom