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.

Background

This 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 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 Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Ki ...

. 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, 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 * '' ...

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 gath ...

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 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 The 2003 Scottish local elections were held on 1 May 2003, the same day as 2003 Scottish Parliament election, Scottish Parliament elections and 2003 United Kingdom local elections#English council elections, local elections in parts of England. Al ...

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 Benazir Bhutto ...

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