Tessera

Note: I am on holiday from now until the 19th of October! I will not be able to report on the results of the three by-elections due whilst I'm away, or on any polling that comes out in that time. If things could otherwise be as quiet and boring a possible, I'd take that as a personal favour.

New article: Local Government reform done for the wrong reasons will be a disaster There is a kernel of positivity in the Scottish Government's plans, but let's be frank: if they fully get their way, they will destroy local democracy entirely. Yes, it's that bad.

Local Government reform done for the wrong reasons will be a disaster

There is a kernel of positivity in the Scottish Government's plans, but let's be frank: if they fully get their way, they will destroy local democracy entirely. Yes, it's that bad.

ballotbox.scot

Ballot Box Scotland@ballotbox.scot · 3w ago

This by the way is why it is moronic in the extreme for this to be starting from a position of "we must cut costs" and thus an absolute refusal to institute two tiers independent of one another, rather than starting from "how we do we improve local democracy" and then accepting that entails £££

We can't have 3-4 ward councillors doing aspects of governance currently done by a whole council, that's simply too few and has very limited scope for fair, democratic representation, but if we had 9+ (per my NM Lite proposals) the regional councils are far, far too big.

The suggested scope of this is actually pretty good - scale of regions fits my New Municipalism Lite model, "community" level the OG version - but I am very concerned by the idea of double-jobbing the same people as regional and local councillors www.gov.scot/publications...

Public sector reform: proposal

Scottish Government proposal for reform of local governance

gov.scot

Scottish Labour leadership election result: Michael Marra (North East Scotland): 4266 (63.2%) Joe Fagan (South Scotland): 2485 (36.8%)

With just weeks to go before the seat could just lie vacant until May's elections, we're unfortunately still racking up the by-elections following the death of sitting councillors. In Dumfries and Galloway, Annandale East and Eskdale Labour councillor, Archie Dryburgh, has sadly just passed.

Council Pays Tribute to Councillor Archie Dryburgh MBE | Dumfries and Galloway Council

Dumfries and Galloway Council is deeply saddened by the death of Councillor Archie Dryburgh MBE, a much-respected colleague who devoted many years of his life to public service and to the communities ...

dumfriesandgalloway.gov.uk

By-Election Result: Avondale and Stonehouse A relatively close contest saw the SNP triumph over Labour and Reform positioned for a councillor next May, over crashing Conservatives and a poor Green result.

By-Election Result: Avondale and Stonehouse

A relatively close contest saw the SNP triumph over Labour and Reform positioned for a councillor next May, over crashing Conservatives and a poor Green result.

ballotbox.scot

Avondale and Stonehouse (S. Lan) BE, 1st prefs (vs 2022): SNP: 1025 (27.6%, -0.8) LAB: 743 (20%, +0.2) RUK: 727 (19.6%, new) CON: 393 (10.6%, -10) LD: 357 (9.6%, new) GRN: 303 (8.2%, +1.8) IND: 107 (2.9%, new) Your: 45 (1.2%, new) ADF: 12 (0.3%, new) (Non-returns 24.8%) SNP elected stage 9.

By-election today for South Lanarkshire's Avondale and Stonehouse; tossup between the SNP and Labour in my view. Also features a special guest star candidate in one of the people who beat me in 2017, without which, Ballot Box Scotland would never have come to be!

By-Election Preview: Avondale and Stonehouse (South Lanarkshire) 17th of September 2026

An Independent-caused vacancy is likely to come down to an SNP-Labour contest, as Reform are unlikely to be as strong as they were next door.

ballotbox.scot

Ballot Box Scotland@ballotbox.scot · 2mo ago

By-election set for the 29th of October. I'm back for that one! Philand was easily the most popular candidate (beats SNP by 15% in a head-to-head), so this one's a tough call, not least as lots of his votes would have transferred to Donnie MacMillan, who lost in 2022 and also died earlier this year.

And another late term by-election due in sad circumstances following the death of Mid Argyll Independent councillor (and Argyll and Bute Provost) Douglas Philand

Once again asking why, in the year 2026, Scotland had an election for which every result was publicly "oooh, mystery box! secret! can't tell you what happened except at the overall constituency level!" and then most of our neighbours are just like "hello here's a livemap" www.svt.se/datajournali...

Here it is: the Lite version of my New Municipalism project. There's an opportunity for local government reform that nobody expected, but it needs to be genuinely local and democratic. Informal and thus unaccountable regionalisation and mergers won't cut it. newmunicipalism.ballotbox.scot/lite

NM Lite – New Municipalism Scotland

When I’ve published successive versions of New Municipalism, it’s always been with the understanding that I was presenting a somewhat utopian vision with little prospect of implementation. Wholesale…

newmunicipalism.ballotbox.scot

Isn't that lovely, and so informative, wow, truly an Adequately Designed For Its Purpose map of the 2026 Holyrood election results, perfect for an MSP office, for a talking point in the living room, or even to really get chat going in the barber shop!

The most important part of any project is picking nice colours (I mean I picked these two years ago for the previous New Municipalism release, but I'm enjoying them again as I beaver away on my opportunity-seizing NM Lite report)

Love to get home from a long day of doing policy work in the office to, err, do different policy work at home... aiming to write this whole thing up by the end of the weekend, for those interested - and if you are interested, raise it with your MSPs, in the context of Public Service Reform activity!

Summary
• Local government in Scotland is hugely oversized compared to the European average. Denmark, with a comparable population in half the area, has 98 local councils.
• Yet at the same time, existing local councils are too small for meaningful strategic service design and delivery. Returning to the Danish example, it also has 4 regional councils.
• Local government is an essential component of a healthy democracy. In designing local government structures, the core considerations should be how best to represent local communities and where governing powers best lie. Designing primarily to achieve administrative cost savings will inevitably lead to poor outcomes.
• There is an opportunity arising from the 2026 Programme for Government to undertake meaningful reform, but the signals from the Scottish Government are concerningly hostile to genuine local governance and democratic oversight.
• No reform to the structure of local government, including the proposals in this paper, can be successful without accompanying fundamental reform to an outdated, unfair, and thoroughly unfit for purpose system of local taxation.

• Scotland should return to the general model of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, but balanced towards slightly more local district councils, and taking into account demographic and technological changes in the decades since.
• In designing such a system, insofar as is possible and practical, consideration should be given to how to strengthen existing and historic local identities and connections.
• The example proposals set out in this paper consist of:
o 85 District Councils, which would deal with the most local issues such as leisure, parks, refuse collection, and some aspects of housing.
o 8 Regional Councils covering those 85 Districts, which would deal with more strategic issues such as health, social care, education and transport.
o 3 Single Authority Councils, covering Scotland’s highly distinctive Islands communities, which would exercise the functions of both District and Regional councils.
• Regardless of legal administrative boundaries, all local government bodies should be allowed and enabled to jointly develop and deliver services where they wish, allowing cost savings to arise from back-office functions without removing democratic oversight.

Something I was working on anyway for these purposes, since it's not helpful just to moan, was a re-jigging of my New Municipalism project proposals for a return to a Region-and-District model. Left are those originals, which are pretty maximalist. Right is a pared down, more realistic version.

By-Election Preview: Midstocket and Rosemount (Aberdeen) 8th of October 2026 The sad passing of a long serving SNP councillor sets up a fierce contest with Labour, where the Conservatives could bar the latter's way, and which the Greens will also be watching closely.

By-Election Preview: Midstocket and Rosemount (Aberdeen) 8th of October 2026

The sad passing of a long serving SNP councillor sets up a fierce contest with Labour, where the Conservatives could bar the latter's way, and which the Greens will also be watching closely.

ballotbox.scot

The Holyrood 6 plus two independents for the Midstocket and Rosemount by-election, including regular Aberdeen candidate Simon McLean who I am only realising in hindsight was perhaps surprisingly absent in George Street and Harbour - loves an Aberdeen by-election this lad.

Infographic with by-election details. Candidates are Green Lauren Bird, SNP Jeff Diack, Conservative Freddie John, Independent Simon McLean, Reform UK John McLeod, Independent Kusum Singal, Lib Dem Sandy Stephen, Labour Willie Young

Vacating is SNP, 2022 winner is SNP, runner-up Labour, margin of 1.9%. Cause is the death of Bill Cormie (SNP). By-election is on the 8th of October. Prediction is SNP - Labour tossup.

Midstocket and Rosemount was just 1.9% between the SNP and Labour after transfers in 2022; I don't see any other party being a viable winner. With both parties struggling, by-election dynamics might favour Labour, but that requires them to make the top 2. If not, SNP may yet win. So, a tossup.

Chart of first preferences in 2022. In percentage terms, SNP 37.8, Conservative 24.5, Labour 21.5, Green 9.3, Lib Dem 7.0

Ballot Box Scotland@ballotbox.scot · 2mo ago

Whup, had missed the date for this one - it's due up on the 8th of October. I will still be on holiday, so I won't be able to report on results when they come in!

By-election also upcoming for Aberdeen's Midstocket and Rosemount ward, following the death of SNP councillor Bill Cormie, who'd been serving since 2007.

By-Election Result analysis: Portobello and Craigmillar The Greens win only their second ever by-election, and having done so, alarm bells should be ringing for the SNP in the capital.

By-Election Result: Portobello and Craigmillar

The Greens win only their second ever by-election, and having done so, alarm bells should be ringing for the SNP in the capital.

ballotbox.scot

*banging head against the desk* We already have obscenely few! Denmark has 98! Norway has... 369? Finland is similar to Norway! Slovakia has over *2000*! Why are we in the UK so utterly, utterly hostile to local democracy? "We want efficiency savings" is peak cost of everything, value of nothing!

Chris McCall@dennynews.bsky.social · last mo.

Swinney also confirmed he wants to see the number of councils reduced. But again, there's little detail on what that means. Meanwhile, Scots will be asked to vote in May to elect councillors across 32 local authorities - some of which may no longer exist in a few years.

Four months on from the election I should probably make a move on updating my living room decor...

By-Election Result analysis: Southside and Newington Labour strengthen their hold with a best-ever result for any party in this ward, the Greens improving but not enough for this ward.

By-Election Result: Southside and Newington

Labour strengthen their hold with a best-ever result for any party in this ward, the Greens improving but not enough for this ward.

ballotbox.scot

Edinburgh's by-elections were particularly strong examples of how different the demographics of postal vs in person voters are: e.g. in Portobello and Craigmillar, the Greens' in person share almost doubled from 19.5% to 37.8%, but their postal share only went up from 10.7% to 13.0%