Scotland’s councillors get back to work as the dust settles on elections

All change: The votes are in and counted and Scotland's new councils are taking shape.

Scotland’s councillors have returned to work as new provosts and council leaders are sworn in.

The dust has settled on the May 3 elections and the picture of local government has changed. The SNP has taken majority control of Dundee and Angus councils while Labour has regained majorities on Renfrewshire and Glasgow.

At the national level, the two main parties were the big winners. The Nationalists came first in terms of votes, share, and seats but Labour also held onto or won back councils that had been top targets for Alex Salmond. The SNP gained 61 seats to take its total to 424 while Labour went up 46 to 394.

It was a bad night for the Tories and a disaster for the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives lost almost 20% of their councillors, going down 28 to 115. The Lib Dems plummeted 95 seats to 71 and won less than seven percent of the vote. The Greens emerged with 14 seats, up six on their previous tally.

The outcome in most of the country’s local authorities has been more prosaic than the winner-takes-all results of national elections, with rival parties forced into surprising coalitions. Some well-known faces have also emerged from the results.

Former Dunfermline FC manager Jim Leishman has been appointed provost of Fife. Mr Leishman was elected as a councillor on May 3 and belongs to the Labour group on the council. In North Ayrshire, SNP councillor Joan Sturgeon, mother of Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, also became a provost.

The shock result of the election was Labour’s comeback in Glasgow. The party lost its majority on the authority after sitting councillors, angry at their de-selection, broke away to form a rival faction, Glasgow First.

The SNP had been widely tipped to emerge as the largest group in the city chambers but when the votes were counted not only had they failed to win but Labour had clawed back its majority. Gordon Matheson, in charge of Glasgow’s 44 Labour councillors, remains Leader while SNP group boss Allison Hunter fell on her sword and was replaced by Councillor Graeme Hendry.

Labour also came out on top in Edinburgh but failed to take a majority of seats, securing 20 to the SNP’s 18. It brought to an end the Lib Dem-SNP administration that attracted controversy with its handling of the trams project. Council leader Jenny Dawe lost her seat altogether. Labour leader Andrew Burns and Nationalist chief Steve Cardownie struck a deal to run the council in coalition. They signed the pact in early May.

Voters in Aberdeen have a coalition of a different hue after Labour and the Conservatives teamed up with independents to run the city. The new administration replaces the outgoing Lib Dem-SNP pact.

Dundee had been in the hands of a minority SNP group before the elections but it was a prime target for Alex Salmond’s party to consolidate its advances and show they could win in traditional Labour heartlands. They passed the test handily by winning a majority and their group chief Ken Guild is expected to remain council leader when the vote on the position is held on Monday.

A disappointment for the SNP was their failure to make significant headway on the island councils which have traditionally been controlled by local independents. Argyll and Bute, Na h-Eileanan Siar, Orkney, and Shetland stayed in the hands of independents.

The nature of the single transferable vote, which makes majority control difficult to achieve, has forced bitter rivals to become unlikely bedfellows. Labour and the Tories have teamed up to run Aberdeen City, East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, Falkirk, and Stirling. Elsewhere, the Nationalists and the Conservatives have signed coalition deals in Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire, and Perth and Kinross. Even Labour and the SNP managed to set aside their differences, working together in Edinburgh and Highland.

More About Local elections 2012

Related articles

People who read this story also read