Politics of the Highland council area

council areas of Scotland

The politics of the Highland council area in

of Scotland.

Highland Council

The Highland Council

Council area Highland
Administrative headquarters	Inverness
Control	Highland Independent coalition
Council leader	Raymond Bremner (SNP) Wick and East Caithness
Convener	Bill Lobban ( Ind.) Badenoch and Strathspey
Council website www.highland.gov.uk

The Highland Council (Comhairle na Gaidhealtachd in Gaelic) comprises 21 wards, each electing three or four councillors by the single transferable vote system, which creates a form of proportional representation.^[1][2] The total number of councillors is 74,^[2] and the main meeting place and main offices are in Glenurquhart Road, Inverness.^[3]

Current administration

The

councillors plus 4 independent members who were not part of the ruling group.

Councillor Andrew Jarvie resigned from the Conservatives to stand as a Unionist in December 2022^[5] but actually stood as Non-aligned.

Scottish Liberal Democrat Councillor Sarah Rawlings resigned in 2023 due to ill health. Maureen Ross was elected in her place in September 2023^[6] and joined the Highland Independent Group.

Councillor Patrick Logue resigned from the Conservatives to stand as Non-aligned in October 2023.

Councillors Duncan Macpherson, Maxine Smith, Andrew Jarvie, Matthew Reiss, and Jim McGillivray formed the Highland Alliance in late October 2023^[7] led by the first two named.

Highland Council political representation ^[8]

Party		2022 Election	As of December 2023
	Scottish National Party	22	22
	Conservative	10	8
	Liberal Democrat	15	14
	Labour	2	2
	Scottish Greens	4	4
	Highland Independent Group	17	18
	Independent	1	0
	Sutherland Independent Group	1	0
	Caithness Independent Group	1	0
	Inverness Independent Group	1	0
	Non-aligned	0	1
	Highland Alliance	0	5
	Vacant	0	0

2017 elections

The

member.

Subsequently, there have been nine by-elections and seven defections on the council. Following the by-elections, the independent administration have gained two, held one, and lost two councillors. Two councillors have also defected from the group, both currently sit with the Conservative group. The SNP have gained two, held one, and lost one councillor in by-elections, and an additional five councillors have resigned from the group. Of these five, one has since returned to the SNP group, three have formed a working group "Highland Matters" together with the sole Scottish Green member of the council,^[10] and the fifth remains unaligned to any group on the council. The Conservatives have lost two seats to by-elections, while they gained two from the aforementioned independent defections. The Liberal Democrats have won three and lost two councillors to by-elections. Finally, independent Cllr Ben Thompson for Caol and Mallaig resigned within six months prior to the scheduled date of the 2022 Highland Council election. Consequently, his vacancy will not be filled by a by-election.^[11]

2012 elections

The

2007 elections

After the 2007 election, the Independent Group, led by

2007 council election

, an administration had then been formed by the Independent Group and the SNP, but collapsed when the SNP withdrew from the coalition. After the collapse, a second independent group was formed, called the Independent Members Group.

From August 2008, the council had been ruled by a coalition of the Independent Group and

In February 2010, a third independent group was formed, when four councillors left the Independent Group and created the Independent Alliance Group. Since then groups and parties have been represented as follows:[16]

The Liberal Democrat Michael Foxley had become the new council Convener by 23 December 2010.^[17][18]

History

The first elections to the Highland Council were in 1995, when the

, but the next council election has been delayed for a year, until 2012, to end this coincidence, making the current council term one of five years instead of four.

The new council was created to replace a

, and were abolished in 1996. Until 2007, the new council maintained decentralised management and committee structures which related to former district boundaries, except this arrangement was compromised by changes to ward boundaries in 1999, so that committees ceased to represent exactly the areas for which they were making decisions. Current management and committee structures, involving three corporate management areas and related committees, were created at the same time as the introduction of multi-member wards and single transferable vote elections in 2007.

The

, to create the current 22 multi-member wards, each electing three or four councillors by the single transferable vote system, but still electing a total of 80 councillors.

The eight older management areas, created when district councils were abolished in 1996, were also groups of wards, and each management area had an

, had the names of earlier counties but have very different boundaries.

The management areas were:

	1996 to 1999	1999 to 2007
Badenoch and Strathspey	consisting of 5 wards	with 5 related wards
Caithness	consisting of 8 wards	with 10 related wards
Inverness	consisting of 20 wards	with 23 related wards
Lochaber	consisting of 8 wards	with 8 related wards
Nairn	consisting of 5 wards	with 4 related wards
Ross and Cromarty	consisting of 13 wards	with 18 related wards
Skye and Lochalsh	consisting of 6 wards	with 6 related wards
Sutherland	consisting of 7 wards	with 6 related wards

Between 2007 and 2017, the 22 wards were divided between three corporate management areas, and each of these was subdivided to create a total of 16 ward management areas.[19] Some wards were grouped into larger areas for ward management purposes, and one ward was divided between two different ward management areas. Therefore, the number of ward management areas was less than the number of wards.

The corporate management areas were named as (1) Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, (2) Inverness, Nairn, and Badenoch and Strathspey, and (3) Ross, Skye and Lochaber. Two of these names are also those of

, and one name is very similar to the name of another Westminster constituency, but constituency and corporate management area boundaries are different.

Corporate management areas were represented, for some purposes, by their own committees. Also, there was an Inverness city management area covering seven of the nine wards (and thus four of the six ward management areas) of the Inverness, Nairn, and Badenoch and Strathspey corporate management area, with the city area being represented by a city committee.

Public forums are held at ward level, and there are also private ward-level meetings of councillors.

The numbers of wards in each corporate management area, and the number of councillors representing them, were as follows:

Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross	7 wards electing 23 councillors
Inverness, Nairn and Badenoch and Strathspey	9 wards electing 34 councillors
Ross, Skye and Lochaber	6 wards electing 23 councillors

For lists of wards and details of how they are grouped into corporate and ward management areas, see:

• Highland Council wards created in 2007

In 2017, following the 5th Boundary Review, the management areas were abolished and the council area was divided into just the council wards.^[20] For the latest available wards see:

• Highland Council Wards in 2017

For lists of wards see:

• Highland Council wards 1995 to 1999
• Highland Council wards 1999 to 2007
• 2007 to 2017 wards
• Highland Council Wards in 2017

Westminster and Holyrood

The council area is covered by three

.

All the constituencies are entirely within the council area, but the Highlands and Islands electoral region includes also five other constituencies, covering the

council areas.

Since the creation of the unitary Highland council area, in 1996, the Westminster constituencies have been altered twice, in 1997 and 2005. Neither the Holyrood constituencies nor the Holyrood electoral region have been altered since their creation in 1999.

Westminster

As a geographic area the Highland council area is the largest in

have considered ways of addressing the area's apparent over representation, by reducing the number of constituencies to two, or by creating constituencies straddling boundaries with other council areas, but to date, for various geographic and cultural reasons, none of these proposals has been reflected in actual boundary changes.

1996 to 1997

The boundaries of one constituency had been established since the 1918 general election, the other two since the 1983 general election. There were no parliamentary elections during the 1996 to 1997 period.

List of constituencies:

Caithness and Sutherland

Ross, Cromarty and Skye

Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber

1997 to 2005

All of the council area's constituencies were altered for the 1997 general election. The same constituencies were used in the 2001 general election.

List of constituencies:

Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross

Ross, Skye and Inverness West

Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber

2005 to present

All of the council area's constituencies were altered for the 2005 general election.^[21] One, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, carries forward the name of a constituency created in 1997. This new constituency is slightly larger than the earlier constituency.

List of constituencies and current members of parliament:

Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross Ross, Skye and Lochaber Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey

Jamie Stone, Liberal Democrats Ian Blackford, SNP Drew Hendry, SNP

Holyrood

The Holyrood constituencies were created for the 1999 Scottish Parliament election, with the names and boundaries of then existing Westminster constituencies. The same Scottish Parliament constituencies were used in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election and the 2007 Scottish Parliament election. There was a Boundary Commission which changed all the constituencies for the 2011 Scottish Parliament election.

List of constituencies and current Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs):

Caithness, Sutherland and Ross Inverness and Nairn Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch

Maree Todd, Scottish National Party Fergus Ewing, Scottish National Party[22] Kate Forbes, Scottish National Party

In addition to these three constituency MSPs, the Highland council area, as part of the Highlands and Islands electoral region, is represented by seven additional members:

4

Donald Cameron, Edward Mountain and Jamie Halcro Johnston

1 Labour MSPs - Rhoda Grant

1

Scottish Green Party MSP - Ariane Burgess

1 Scottish National Party MSP - Emma Roddick

See also

• Politics of Aberdeen
• Politics of Dundee
• Politics of Edinburgh
• Politics of Glasgow
• Politics of Scotland

References

External links

• "Independents in talks on joint election campaign". The Scotsman. 9 September 2006. Retrieved 11 October 2015.

57°28′25″N 4°14′04″W / 57.47362°N 4.23446°W / 57.47362; -4.23446