Current Situation
There are 32 local councils (officially, local authorities) across Scotland, consisting of a total of 1,226 elected councillors. Given the number of councillors, there’s usually a lot more movement in seats in between elections than is the case for parliamentary seats. The chart below shows the current breakdown of councillors per council.
List of current “Others”;
- East Ayrshire, Rubbish Party (Localist)
- North Lanarkshire, British Unionist Party (Constitutionalist)
- West Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire Community Party (Left Localist)
2022 Results
The most recent election to Scottish Councils took place on the 5th of May 2022. Further detail is available on the dedicated 2022 election page. As originally elected the seats were;
Past Results
The following chart shows the seats won at each set of council elections since the current councils were created in the early 90’s – it does not account for any changes that took place in the middle of a term. Parties are displayed in their current vote share order. Note that elections before 2007 used the non-proportional FPTP voting system.
Electoral System
Elections to local councils in Scotland use the partly-proportional Single Transferrable Vote (STV) system. Each council area is divided into a number of wards, elected a handful of councillors – mostly 3 or 4, though changes in the law mean some wards can have as few as 1 or as many as 5 councillors. Voters mark candidates in order of preference 1, 2, 3, etc, and votes are transferred over a number of count stages until all seats have been filled. There’s a full explanation of how that system works on its own page here.
Upcoming By-Elections
Boundaries
The boundaries of Scotland’s 32 local councils, coloured by party winning the most seats at the 2022 elections, are shown in the map below.