Next Local Government Elections

saltire shield'The spin doctors are in danger of spinning us out of power for our new Scottish parliament and in our local councils which remained loyal during the dark days of Thatcher and Major.'
Scottish Labour Party Treasurer, Bob Thomson, 23 rd March 1998.		Lion Rampant

Unitary Council Elections 1999

The next elections for the 29 mainland councils and the 3 island authorities will be held on Thursday 6 th May 1999. This is a historic day as voters will also be electing members to the first Scottish Parliament in 292 years and the turnout for the local elections is expected to be dramatically up on 1995.

Unlike the Scottish Assembly and European Parliament elections, there are no plans to use a system of proportional representation. The old 'first past the post' system will be retained for the present.

The present ward boundaries were based on the old Westminster constituencies as the parliamentary boundary commission had not finalised its review when local government was re-organised in 1995. There are likely to be boundary changes implimented before the 1999 election, with the number of wards being cut by 26 from 1246 to 1220. In some areas, the boundary changes will be radical - Glasgow Council may see its wards reduced in number from 83 to 79, while Perth & Kinross could see a large increase from 32 wards to 41.

Return to home page
RAINBOW