Politics of the Highland council area
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
| Highland council area Shown as one of the council areas of Scotland |
Politics in the Highland council area, Scotland, are evident in the deliberations and decisions of the Highland Council, in elections to the council, and in elections to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster) and the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood). In the European Parliament the area is within the Scotland constituency, which covers all of the 32 council areas of Scotland.
Contents |
[edit] Highland Council
| Council area Highland |
|
| Administrative headquarters | Inverness |
|---|---|
| Control | No party control Convener: Alison Magee |
| Council website http://www.highland.gov.uk/ |
|
The main offices of the Highland Council (Comhairle na Gaidhealtachd) are in Inverness. Administration is via area managers covering areas similar to committee areas.
The council was created as unitary council area in 1996, but the first council election was not until 1999. Prior to the 1999 election the council had consisted of councillors elected to the earlier regional council which covered the same Highland area.
Elections to the council are held on a four-year cycle, all wards being contestable at each election. Council membership consists of 80 councillors.
Until April 2007 all wards are single-member wards, each electing one councillor by the first past the post system of election. In 2007 boundaries will be redrawn to create 22 larger wards, each electing three or four councillors by the single transferable vote system of election. The total number of councillors will remain the same. The single transferable vote system, with muli-member wards, is designed to produce a form of proportional representation. The council has decided to group the new wards into three operational areas, known in some contexts as East Highland, Mid and West Highland, and North Highland and, in others, as Inverness Nairn and Badenoch and Strathspey, Ross Skye and Lochaber, and Caithness Sutherland and Easter Ross. The latter names are also those of Westminster (House of Commons) constituencies, but boundaries differ.
Existing wards are grouped into eight areas. Councillors elected from a particular area become members of the relevant area committee. The committee areas are similar to the areas of the districts which were abolished in 1996, when the region became a unitary council area, and eight areas similar to the committee areas are used in the management of council services.
Four of the districts, Caithness, Nairn, Sutherland and Ross and Cromarty, were similar to earlier local government counties. Unlike the county, the Ross and Cromarty district excluded the Isle of Lewis, which is also outside the Highland council area.
Committee areas, as defined in 1999, vary in size from four wards to 23 wards:
|
|
For lists of wards see:
[edit] Political composition
The council consists, currently, of:
- 53 independent councillors
- 13 Liberal Democrat councillors
- 7 Labour Party councillors
- 6 Scottish National Party councillors.
One seat is currently vacant.
The council converner is Alison L Magee, independent councillor for the Sutherland Central ward, in the Sutherland committee area.
[edit] Westminster and Holyrood
The council area is covered by three constituencies of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster) and three constituencies of the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood). The Scottish Parliament constituencies are also components of that parliament's Highlands and Islands electoral region.
All the constituencies are entirely within the council area, but the Highlands and Islands electoral region includes also five other constituencies, covering the Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles (Na h-Eileanan Siar) council areas and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray council areas.
Since the creation of the unitary Highland council area, in 1996, the Westminster constituencies have been altered twice, in 1997 and 2005. The Holyrood constituencies have not been altered since their creation in 1999.
[edit] Westminster
As a geographic area the Highland council area is the largest in Scotland. Working solely on the basis of the size of its electorate, however, it would qualify for just 2.3 Westminster seats. Boundary reviews 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.
[edit] 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:
[edit] 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
[edit] 2005 to present
All of the council area's constituencies were altered for the 2005 general election. 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 MPs (members of parliament):
|
[edit] Holyrood
The Holyrood constituencies were created for the 1999 Scottish Parliament election, with names and boundaries of then existing Westminster constituencies. The same Scottish Parliament constituencies were used in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election.
List of constituencies and current MSPs (members of the Scottish Parliament):
|
As a whole, including MSPs elected by constituencies in the Highland council area, the Highlands and Islands electoral region is represented by:
- 5 Liberal Democrat MSPs (all first past the post constituency MSPs)
- 4 Scottish National Party MSPs (two constituency MSPs and two additional members)
- 3 Labour MSPs (one constituency MSP and two additional mermbers)
- 2 Conservative MSPs (both additional members)
- 1 Green MSP (an additional member)
