The 2022 Scottish local elections were held on 5 May 2022, as part of the 2022 United Kingdom local elections. All 1,226 seats across all 32

Scottish local authorities Local government in Scotland comprises thirty-two local authorities, commonly referred to as councils. Each council provides public services, including education, social care, waste management, libraries and planning. Councils receive the major ...

were up for election and

voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Uni ...

was 44.8%. Compared to the previous elections of 2017, the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

(SNP) gained seats and maintained its position as largest party in local government, winning 36.9% of the seats available.

Scottish Labour Scottish Labour ( gd, Pàrtaidh Làbarach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Labour Pairty; officially the Scottish Labour Party) is a social democratic political party in Scotland. It is an autonomous section of the UK Labour Party. From their peak ...

(winning 22.9% of seats) gained seats, whilst the

Scottish Conservatives The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party ( gd, Pàrtaidh Tòraidheach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Tory an Unionist Pairty), often known simply as the Scottish Conservatives and colloquially as the Scottish Tories, is a centre-right political par ...

(who won 17.5%) lost many seats, being displaced by Scottish Labour as the second-largest party. Independent candidates also lost seats, whilst the

Scottish Liberal Democrats The Scottish Liberal Democrats ( gd, Pàrtaidh Libearal Deamocratach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Leeberal Democrats) is a liberal, federalist political party in Scotland, a part of the United Kingdom Liberal Democrats. The party currently holds 4 ...

and the

Scottish Greens The Scottish Greens (also known as the Scottish Green Party; gd, Pàrtaidh Uaine na h-Alba ; sco, Scots Green Pairtie) are a green political party in Scotland. The party has seven MSPs in the Scottish Parliament as of May 2021. As of the 20 ...

increased their vote share and gained seats across Scotland. At the 2017 election, no council was won by an overall majority of any party. In the 2022 election, the SNP increased its vote share and secured an overall majority on

Dundee City Council Dundee City Council is the local government authority for the City of Dundee. It was created in 1996 under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. History Dundee City became a single-tier council in 1996, under the Local Government et ...

, whilst Labour won overall control of West Dunbartonshire Council. Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross blamed his party's bad results on the

partygate Partygate was a political scandal in the United Kingdom about parties and other gatherings of government and Conservative Party staff held during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when public health restrictions prohibited most gat ...

scandal. The Alba Party and Scottish Family Party ran candidates in around 100 seats each but failed to win any. The Rubbish Party and West Dunbartonshire Community Party held their singular seats, whilst the British Unionist Party gained their first seat from the Conservatives.

Background

The last election was in

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

, which was held five years after the 2012 election, instead of four was changed in order to avoid clashing with the

2016 Scottish Parliament election The 2016 Scottish parliament election was held on Thursday, 5 May 2016 to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the fifth election held since the devolved parliament was established in 1999. It was the first parliamentary electio ...

. Boundaries Scotland have conducted a review of electoral arrangements for six councils under the terms of the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018. The

Scottish Parliament The Scottish Parliament ( gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba ; sco, Scots Pairlament) is the devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Scotland. Located in the Holyrood, Edinburgh, Holyrood area of the capital ...

's Local Government Committee accepted the new boundaries in Na h-Eileanan an Iar,

North Ayrshire North Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Àir a Tuath, ) is one of 32 council areas in Scotland. The council area borders Inverclyde to the north, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire to the northeast, and East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire to the east a ...

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) nort ...

and

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...

, but recommended against approval of the changes in

Argyll and Bute Argyll and Bute ( sco, Argyll an Buit; gd, Earra-Ghàidheal agus Bòd, ) is one of 32 unitary authority council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area. The current lord-lieutenant for Argyll and Bute is Jane Margaret MacLeod (14 July 2020) ...

and

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

Voting system and eligibility to vote

Councillors are elected to represent multi-member wards using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) method, which has been used for all elections to local authorities in Scotland since the 2007 election. Previous to this election, in all votes since 2007, wards have been sized such that either 3 or 4 councillors are elected per ward. However, this election was different. The Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 and the Scottish Elections (Reform) Act 2020 have given Boundaries Scotland increased flexibility to vary the size of wards. Mainland wards may now have between 2 and 5 councillors, and single councillor wards are permitted where such a ward includes an inhabited island. For these elections wards represented by one, two or five councillors will only be contested in the four council areas in which ward boundaries have been redrawn after 2017, namely Na h-Eileanan an Iar, North Ayrshire, Orkney and Shetland. Overall, the 32 local authorities had one one-seat district (Arran), seven two-seat districts and three five-seat districts (North Ayrshire) in addition to the bulk of the members elected in three and four seat districts. All registered electors (

British citizen British nationality law prescribes the conditions under which a person is recognised as being a national of the United Kingdom. The six different classes of British nationality each have varying degrees of civil and political rights, due to t ...

s and all other foreign nationals with leave to remain, including refugees) who are aged 16 or over on polling day are entitled to vote in the local elections. A person who has two homes (such as a university student who has a term-time address and lives at home during holidays) can register to vote at both addresses as long as they are not in the same electoral area, and can vote in the local elections for the two different local councils. Individuals must have been registered to vote by midnight on 18 April 2022. The deadlines to register for a postal vote and

proxy vote Proxy voting is a form of voting whereby a member of a decision-making body may delegate their voting power to a representative, to enable a vote in absence. The representative may be another member of the same body, or external. A person so d ...

were 19 and 26 April 2022, respectively.

Results

, - style="background-color:#E9E9E9; ! scope="col" colspan="2" rowspan=2 , Party ! scope="col" colspan="3" , First-preference votes ! scope="col" colspan="2" , Councils ! scope="col" colspan="2" , 2017 seats ! scope="col" colspan="3" , 2022 seats , - ! scope="col" , Count ! scope="col" , Of total (%) ! scope="col" , Change ! scope="col" , Count ! scope="col" , Change ! scope="col" , Count ! scope="col" , Of total (%) ! scope="col" , Count ! scope="col" , Of total (%) ! scope="col" , Change , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , No overall control , colspan=3 , 27 , style="background-color:#ffe8e8;", 2 , colspan=2 , colspan=3 , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , SNP , 633,252 , 34.1% , 1.8% , 1 , style="background-color:#dfd;", 1 , 431 , 37.0% , 453 , 35.1% , style="background-color:#dfd;", 22 , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Labour , 403,243 , 21.7% , 1.6% , 1 , style="background-color:#dfd;", 1 , 262 , 21.4% , 281 , 23.1% , style="background-color:#dfd;", 19 , - , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" ,

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization ...

, 364,824 , 19.6% , 5.7% , 0 , , 276 , 22.5% , 214 , 17.5% , style="background-color:#ffe8e8", 62 , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Liberal Democrats , 159,815 , 8.6% , 1.7% , 0 , , 67 , 5.5% , 87 , 7.1% , style="background-color:#dfd;", 20 , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Independents , 156,815 , 8.4% , 2.0% , 3 , , 168 , 14.1% , 152 , 12.2% , style="background-color:#ffe8e8;", 15 , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" ,

Green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a c ...

, 110,791 , 6.0% , 1.9% , 0 , , 19 , 1.6% , 35 , 2.9% , style="background-color:#dfd", 16 , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" ,

Alba ''Alba'' ( , ) is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is also, in English language historiography, used to refer to the polity of Picts and Scots united in the ninth century as the Kingdom of Alba, until it developed into the Kingdom ...

, 12,335 , 0.7% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Scottish Family , 6,857 , 0.4% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , West Dunbartonshire Community , 1,462 , 0.1% , , 0 , , , , 1 , 0.1% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Scottish Socialist , 1,058 , 0.1% , 0.1% , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , TUSC , 1,022 , 0.1% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , British Unionist , 859 , 0.1% , , 0 , , , , 1 , 0.1% , style=background-color:#dfd, 1 , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Rubbish , 787 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , 1 , 0.1% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Independence for Scotland , 742 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" ,

Libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's enc ...

, 698 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Freedom Alliance , 555 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Volt UK , 421 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Socialist Labour , 381 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , UKIP , 372 , 0.0% , 0.2% , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Women's Equality , 228 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" ,

Social Democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

, 222 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" ,

Sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person ...

, 154 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" ,

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

, 119 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Pensioner's , 75 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" ,

Vanguard The vanguard (also called the advance guard) is the leading part of an advancing military formation. It has a number of functions, including seeking out the enemy and securing ground in advance of the main force. History The vanguard derives f ...

, 74 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" ,

Workers The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic regi ...

, 61 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - , style="background-color:", , style="text-align:left;" , Scottish Eco-Federalist , 24 , 0.0% , , 0 , , , , , 0.0% , , - class=sortbottom style="background-color:#E9E9E9; font-weight:bold;" ! colspan="2" style="text-align:left;" , Total , 1,889,658 , 100.0 , ±0.0 , 32 , , 1,223 , 1,227 , 1,227 , 100.00 ,

Councils

2022 results

The table below shows the number of seats won by each party. Note that three seats (one in Shetland, two in the Outer Hebrides) remain vacant as there were fewer candidates than seats available in some wards. Parties with coloured cells are part of governing coalitions or are the council administration. The party of the council leader is bold and marked with an asterisk (*).

2017 results

The table shows the number of councillors won by each party in the 2017 Scottish local elections.

Previous composition

This table shows the composition of councils directly prior to the 2022 election. Note that some seats are currently vacant and will not be filled before the election. Included in the Green totals are two councillors who have publicly joined the party since the election (denoted by ^†), but continue to sit as independents.

Opinion polling

Notes

References

External links

Scotland council elections 2022: A really simple guide

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. {{2022 United Kingdom local elections

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2022 United Kingdom local elections