The 2007 Scottish local elections were held on 3 May 2007, the same day as Scottish Parliament elections and local elections in parts of England. All 32 Scottish councils had all their seats up for election – all Scottish councils are unitary authorities.

New electoral system 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. Under the Act, council seats were allocated in ward contests of one, two, three, four or five seats in each. The voter had the right to mark as many or as few preferences as desired.Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2004/9#commentary-key-53e67b85f1d842e29cb79d9ad959f7ae accessed December 24, 2025

All in all, 1222 seats were filled using more than 350 separate wards.

The use of Scotland's 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.

eCounting fiasco 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.

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.

Party performance 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.2007 Scottish Local Elections

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" | 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:"| | style="text-align:left;" |No overall control | colspan=3 | 27 | style="background-color:#dfd;"| 20 | colspan=2 | colspan=3

| 590,085 | 28.1 | 4.5% | 2 | | colspan=2 | 348 | 28.5% | style="background-color:#ffe8e8;"| 161

| 585,885 | 27.9 | 3.8% | 1 | | colspan=2 | 363 | 29.7% | style="background-color:#dfd;"| 182

| 327,591 | 15.6 | 0.5% | 2 | | colspan=2 | 143 | 11.7% | style="background-color:#dfd;"| 21

| 266,693 | 12.7 | 1.8% | 0 | | colspan=2 | 166 | 13.6% | style="background-color:#ffe8e8;"| 9

| 228,894 | 10.9 | 0.8% | 0 | | colspan=2 | 192 | 15.7% | 38 |- | style="width: 10px" style="background-color:" | | style="text-align: left;" scope="row" | Other | 102,897 | 4.9 | 1.3% | 0 | | colspan=2 | 10 | 0.8% | 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 | | 1,222 | 1,222 | 1,222 | 100.00

Councils

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.

Council 2003 result Notional control(based on 2003 results) 2007 result Details Aberdeen City (LD + Con)NOC (LD + SNP)Details Aberdeenshire (LD + Ind)NOC (LD + Con)Details Angus NOC (Ind + Con + LD + Lab)DetailsArgyll and Bute Independent (Ind + SNP)Details Clackmannanshire NOC (Lab minority)Details Dumfries and Galloway (Lab minority)NOC (Con + LD)Details Dundee City (Lab + LD+ Con)NOC (Lab + LD+ Con)Details East Ayrshire Labour (SNP minority)Details East Dunbartonshire (LD minority)NOC (Lab + Con)Details East Lothian NOC (SNP + LD)Details East Renfrewshire (Lab + LD)NOC (Lab + LD + Ind + Con)Details City of Edinburgh (Lab minority)NOC (LD + SNP)Details Falkirk (SNP + Ind + Con)NOC (Lab + Ind + Con)Details Fife (Lab minority)NOC (LD + SNP)Details Glasgow City Labour DetailsHighland Independent (Ind + SNP)Details Inverclyde NOC (Lab minority)Details Midlothian NOC (Lab minority)DetailsMoray Independent (Ind + Con)DetailsNa h-Eileanan Siar Independent Details North Ayrshire Labour (Lab minority)Details North Lanarkshire Labour DetailsOrkney Independent Details Perth and Kinross (SNP + LD + Ind)NOC (SNP + LD)Details Renfrewshire NOC (SNP + LD)Details Scottish Borders (Ind + Con)NOC (Ind + Con + LD)DetailsShetland Independent Details South Ayrshire (Con minority)NOC (Con minority)Details South Lanarkshire Labour (Lab minority)Details Stirling (Lab minority)NOC (Lab minority)Details West Dunbartonshire Labour (SNP + Ind)Details West Lothian NOC (SNP + Ind)Details

Notes

References