2007 Scottish local elections

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 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.{{cite web|url=https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/stv-scotland/|title=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|last=Clark|first=Alistair|date=28 March 2011|publisher=London School of Economics|accessdate=19 February 2023}}

Scanners 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.{{cite journal |last1=Lock |first1=Russell |last2=Storer |first2=Tim |last3=Harvey |first3=Natalie |last4=Hughes |first4=Conrad |last5=Sommerville |first5=Ian |date=2008 |editor-last=Kor |editor-first=Ah‐Lian |title=Observations of the Scottish elections 2007 |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/17506160810876185/full/html |journal=Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy |language=en |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=104–118 |doi=10.1108/17506160810876185 |s2cid=12455813 |issn=1750-6166|accessdate=19 February 2023}}{{cite news|url=https://www.businessweekly.co.uk/news/consultancy-and-services/919-drs-e-counts-tripled-first-half-profits|title=DRS 'e-counts' tripled first half profits|author=Staff Reporter|date=13 September 2007|work=Business Weekly|accessdate=19 February 2023}}

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.

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 up over 180 new seats. The Scottish Greens elected their first-ever councillors, winning eight seats.{{cite web|url=https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2007/05/scottish-pr-elections-herald-coalition-politics|title=Scottish PR elections herald coalition politics|date=10 May 2007|website=Public Finance}}[https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2007-Scottish-local-elections.pdf 2007 Scottish Local Elections]

File:Scottish local elections 2007.svg

{{election table

| title=Summary of the May 2007 Scottish council election results

| sortable=yes

}}

|- 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" | 2003 seats

! scope="col" colspan="3" | 2007 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:{{party color|No Overall Control}}"|

| style="text-align:left;" |No overall control

| colspan=3 {{n/a}}

| 27

| style="background-color:#dfd;"| {{increase}}20

| colspan=2 {{n/a}}

| colspan=3 {{n/a}}

|-

| {{Party name with colour|Scottish Labour}}

| 590,085

| 28.1

| {{decrease}}4.5%

| 2

| {{nochange}}

| colspan=2 {{n/a}}

| 348

| 28.5%

| style="background-color:#ffe8e8;"| {{decrease}}161

|-

| {{Party name with colour|Scottish National Party}}

| 585,885

| 27.9

| {{increase}}3.8%

| 1

| {{nochange}}

| colspan=2 {{n/a}}

| 363

| 29.7%

| style="background-color:#dfd;"| {{increase}}182

|-

| {{Party name with colour|Scottish Conservatives}}

| 327,591

| 15.6

| {{increase}}0.5%

| 2

| {{nochange}}

| colspan=2 {{n/a}}

| 143

| 11.7%

| style="background-color:#dfd;"| {{increase}}21

|-

| {{Party name with colour|Scottish Liberal Democrats}}

| 266,693

| 12.7

| {{decrease}}1.8%

| 0

| {{nochange}}

| colspan=2 {{n/a}}

| 166

| 13.6%

| style="background-color:#ffe8e8;"| {{decrease}}9

|-

| {{Party name with colour|Independent politician}}

| 228,894

| 10.9

| {{increase}}0.8%

| 0

| {{nochange}}

| colspan=2 {{n/a}}

| 192{{efn|193 according to the [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2007/local_councils/html/region_161.stm BBC website]}}

| 15.7%

| {{decrease}}38

|-

| style="width: 10px" style="background-color:{{party color|Other}}" |

| style="text-align: left;" scope="row" | Other

| 102,897

| 4.9

| {{increase}}1.3%

| 0

| {{nochange}}

| colspan=2 {{n/a}}

| 10{{efn|8 Scottish Greens, 1 Scottish Socialist and 1 Solidarity councillor. Separate vote figures not found}}

| 0.8%

| {{increase}}6

|-

|- class=sortbottom style="background-color:#E9E9E9; font-weight:bold;"

! colspan="2" style="text-align:left;" | Total

| 2,099,945

| 100.0

| ±0.0

| 32

| {{nochange}}

| 1,222

| 1,222

| 1,222

| 100.00

| {{nochange}}

|}

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.{{cite web |url=http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/research/briefings-05/SB05-31.pdf |title=STV IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS: MODELLING THE 2003 RESULT |date=3 June 2005 |access-date=6 June 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080911044554/http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/research/briefings-05/SB05-31.pdf |archive-date=11 September 2008}}

{{Notelist|40em}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Scottish elections}}

{{United Kingdom local elections, 2007}}

2007

Category:2007 in Scotland

Category:May 2007 in the United Kingdom