Local Government and Transport Committee, 23 Jan 2007

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Official Report 260KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Scottish Local Government Elections Order 2007 (Draft)

I call today's meeting of the Local Government and Transport Committee to order. Before introducing agenda item 1, I welcome to the committee Mark Ballard MSP, who is not a committee member but is here to participate in discussion of our first agenda item. I also welcome committee members.

Item 1 is consideration of the draft Scottish Local Government Elections Order 2007. George Lyon MSP, the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business, is here to speak to the draft order and to move the motion that has been lodged in the name of Tom McCabe. The minister is accompanied by the following officials: Rab Fleming, head of the local governance and licensing division of the Scottish Executive; Russell Bain, head of the local democracy team; and Norman Macleod and Shazia Razzaq, from the office of the solicitor to the Scottish Executive. I welcome the minister and his team.

We will follow the usual practice for dealing with an instrument of this nature. First, the minister will have an opportunity to make some introductory remarks about the aim of the order. We debated two draft orders at a previous meeting, so a number of committee members have a good grasp of the order's contents. After the minister has spoken, I will allow members the opportunity to put to him any questions that they may have, before we move to the formal debate on the order.

I will begin by explaining some of the Scottish local government elections rules that are set out in the draft order, which deals with the conduct of elections for members of local authorities. The order is significant, as it deals with the detailed administrative processes that are involved in running a local government election. At the committee's meeting of 12 December, members had the opportunity to discuss the format of the new ballot paper. However, although the ballot paper is important, only some of the changes included in the rules relate to it.

Essentially, the rules serve two main purposes. First, they provide for the introduction of procedures involved in running a single transferable vote election using e-counting. Secondly, they provide for the introduction of some of the administrative changes to local government elections that were made by the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006 and for the replication of a number of administrative changes to parliamentary elections that were made by the Electoral Administration Act 2006. I hope that it will be helpful if I cover three main areas in my opening remarks: issues already raised on the detail of the rules; wider issues to do with how the process will work in practice; and other legislative points.

I turn first to the issues that were raised by the Subordinate Legislation Committee. The SLC commented specifically on a drafting error in the form of the nomination paper in part IV of schedule 1 to the order. We have advised the SLC that, if the order is approved, we will correct the reference when the next opportunity arises. Although the rules do not require the nomination form to be in exactly the same form as that set out in schedule 1, we will advise returning officers, local authorities, the main political parties and the Electoral Commission that nomination papers that are issued for the purposes of an election should contain the correct reference.

I would like to make a few points specifically about the counting rules, as I am aware that the committee has received some comments about those. The rules are very technical in nature and reflect the preference expressed by the committee when considering the Local Governance (Scotland) Bill by introducing the weighted inclusive Gregory counting method—a subject in which all members are well versed. A number of the comments that we have seen relate to technical aspects of the rules, including queries about how the rules as drafted handle fractional calculation losses, non-transferable votes and integer vote values. All those points are made in relation to the presentation of the overall calculation process. The rules specify that calculations should be carried out to five decimal places, which will provide us with a degree of precision as the count progresses. However, when announcing the overall results, the returning officer will typically use whole numbers. There is no need for the returning officer to use the vote fractions unless they are necessary to show the difference between two candidates with very close vote totals.

It may be useful if I put the rules into the wider context of the overall election and, in particular, what will happen at a count. The most obvious change relates to e-counting. We have carried out an extensive testing schedule on the e-counting system and are confident in its ability to handle the volume and relative complexity of counts on this scale. One of our key tests involved a simulation of the entire count for the Dundee City Council area. A subsequent manual check on one of the simulated ward counts revealed that only six papers out of 5,700 were regarded as showing a different result, which was entirely due to human interpretation of the papers. The difference was in the adjudication of the six papers, rather than in the machines that did the counting.

The elections are combined and, therefore, we will have two ballot boxes, which will be clearly marked as being for the local authority papers and the parliamentary papers. There will be 31 count centres, with Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire currently planning to share a centre. The e-counting system will allow for the combined scanning of the parliamentary and local authority papers with no need for a manual rummage. However, returning officers will have the flexibility to organise their count effectively and to make the best use of the technology. The system will allow returning officers to prioritise the adjudication of particular contests to ensure that the count proceeds quickly and with maximum visibility for the relevant candidates and agents.

During the count, information will be visible on the number of first-preference votes that each candidate receives. People with an interest will be able to gauge the progress of the count in relation to the scanning of boxes, thus giving a useful indication as to how many of the ballots from each contest have contributed to the progress reports on first-preference votes. The returning officer will also be able to provide information to candidates and agents on the progress of the count, including the number of boxes that have been scanned and that still await processing. The Scotland Office has informed us that similar information will be available for the parliamentary count.

At the conclusion of the count, we expect the returning officer to gather together the candidates and talk them through the STV calculation as it is applied to the votes. When everyone is satisfied with the explanation of the result, the returning officer will declare the names of the candidates elected, the number of first and subsequent-preference votes for each candidate, the number of ballot papers transferred and their transfer values at each stage of the count, the number of votes credited to each candidate at each stage, the number of non-transferable ballot papers at each stage and the number of rejected papers. The announcement of that information at the conclusion of the poll will allow a much more detailed analysis of voting behaviour than ever before.

Looking beyond the count and at the publication of further information, there is a great deal of interest in making as much information public as is possible without compromising the secrecy of the ballot. That issue was raised repeatedly by people from across the political spectrum during the passage of the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Bill. The rules ensure that the electronic count record is securely held by the proper officer for four years. That will allow us to create an appropriate legislative and administrative structure to permit structured access to any further information that is deemed useful.

Before determining the level of detail of information disclosure, we would need to consider all the options and risks that would be associated with further publication of data. I intent to consult other political parties before a final decision is reached on that matter. Our view is that the publication of a complete voting record—even an anonymised record—has the potential to lead to the tracking of individual votes, which would constitute an unacceptable breach of the secrecy of the ballot. Therefore, there is a need to get the balance right between disclosure of information and protecting the secrecy of the ballot. That is why I intend to consult widely with the political parties and agree the appropriate level of information disclosure.

We will shortly introduce additional secondary legislation to deal with specific aspects of the conduct of elections, such as proxy and postal voting. We expect those orders to be laid towards the end of this month for the committee's consideration.

I am happy to try to answer any questions that members may have. I have some colleagues with me who will no doubt provide the finer details on some of the issues that are addressed in the draft order.

Before I open the meeting up to colleagues, I will start off with a couple of questions of my own.

Your final point was on the dissemination of information about the outcome of the election in the form of intelligence for political parties about how the vote was cast across the constituency. As you will be aware, political parties currently do a lot of sampling at counts and gain a lot of intelligence about where the vote is spread across constituencies, wards and so on. That is an important part of the democratic process in this country, but the information is anonymous—it is not about how any individual has voted. Do you expect that the consultation that is being done will be completed in sufficient time for you to get guidance or regulations out in time for this year's elections?

Yes, because the information will be published only after the election. There would need to be a small adjustment to primary legislation and an order laid that would determine how much information would be released after the election.

During the process of the boxes being counted as they go through the machines, we should be able to pick up and monitor the impact that the count from a particular ballot box has had on the overall count for the individual candidate. I suggest that a lot of information will still be available on the night, as will information that has never been available before, such as the transfer of votes between one candidate and another. We will also be able to see how voters vote when they are asked for their second preference because we will have the information about the transfer from first to second votes.

To give confidence in the process, we will all still rely on the good old marking of the ballots as the count is gone through, so some information must be published that will allow people to be confident that their expectation of how the vote should have gone will be validated. That will entail publishing information after the election. It is therefore important that we get cross-party consensus on what relevant information can be made available that will not compromise the secrecy of the ballot by allowing parties to identify how individuals might have cast their vote.

I also want to ask about the electronic vote count. I realise that the answer to this will vary by counting area because each local authority will have a different number of parliamentary seats and council candidates, and different numbers of voters will participate in each area. On the basis of voter turnout from the last election, do you have estimates for when you would expect results to be declared for each of the main counting areas?

I guess that the two biggest count centres will be Glasgow and Lothian. I do not know if we have done any work to identify when the returning officers would expect counts to be completed.

We would expect the first local government election results in the larger areas to be available after the end of the scanning process, which will take about eight or nine hours. If we take that from 10 pm, we would expect that the first results could be available from 7 am.

Would that be only for the two largest areas or would it be common to all areas?

The calculations that have been done show that if the ballot papers are available, all the results will be available at the same time irrespective of the size of the count. The e-counting system has been sized according to the number of ballot papers that will be processed at each count centre.

Is that the same for the parliamentary elections? Would those results have a similar time frame?

We guess that the parliamentary election results will start to become available from the larger count centres earlier because they have more constituencies to process. The idea is that all the parliamentary results will be out by 5 or 6 am, but we expect the first results from the larger count centres to be from, say, 2 am onwards.

I want first to ask about the subordinate legislation issue. In your introductory remarks, you mentioned that the error arose in part IV of schedule 1 to the draft order, but in fact it arises in part VI of schedule 1.

I apologise for that; you are right. There was a misprint in my speaking notes.

You said that you would ensure, as far as possible, that nomination papers that are provided for the purposes of an election referred to note 5 rather than note 3. I know that it is not a big issue and that you said that how the information is presented is up to each returning officer, but surely there is no reason why the correct note should not be referred to. I take it that you will flag that up in quite a bald way in the letter that you send. Will you tell us how you intend to do that?

Russell Bain will explain what we will do to ensure that people are fully aware that the reference in form 2 in part VI of schedule 1 should read "see note 5" instead of "see note 3".

We will write to each returning officer and I expect that the issue will be highlighted in the guidance that the Electoral Commission is putting together to cover both elections. We are in regular contact with returning officers. The elections steering group involves representatives from all the main electoral administration organisations. We will ensure that they are clear about the issue and will include a note on it in the newsletter that we produce on the elections. There are a number of ways in which we can address the matter.

My second question is about postal and proxy votes. What information on those that is not in the draft order will be contained in the additional subordinate legislation that you mentioned?

Primarily, the additional orders will deal with how postal and proxy votes are conducted—how the papers are sent out, when they are sent out and when they will need to be sent back. In other words, the orders will cover all the procedural requirements surrounding postal and proxy votes.

It would be useful if the deadline that you mentioned—which I think was the end of this month—was met.

Our intention is to get the draft orders to the committee as quickly as we can so that there is time for proper scrutiny before they are laid.

I want to raise an issue that you did not mention in your introduction—the committee's decision not to favour the grouping together of parties on the ballot paper. Questions were asked about the research that was carried out by your department. Have you had an opportunity to reflect on that research, about which concerns were expressed? Although Mr McCabe did not commit himself, he said that he would consider whether to carry out further research in the short term.

The minister reflected on the committee's concerns and he and I had a discussion about them. Given that the committee came to a view and that we are on quite a tight timescale, we accepted the committee's view and proceeded to lay the order in a form that reflected the result of the committee's vote.

Do you accept that there were flaws in the research? Concerns were raised about the accuracy of the suggestion that the number of candidates on the ballot paper would run into double figures. That was just one of a number of concerns. Is the Executive happy to accept that the research was flawed and that there is no need to carry out any further research? Is that how we go about progressing legislation?

The Executive took heed of the committee's decision. Once the STV election has been held, there will be a complete review of all the issues surrounding it, with a view to identifying whether any issues arose that will need to be addressed for the next time round. Mr McCabe gave an undertaking that he would reflect on the committee's concerns and, in view of the committee's decision, decided that no further research would be undertaken at this time.

I have a technical question. This is an important issue for any other proposals that might be brought before committees. Does the Executive accept that, the next time that a committee recommends that we should go forward with a particular proposal, the Executive will take it forward even if the research is flawed?

In this instance, the Executive asked the committee to come to a view on the proposal. We decided to proceed on the basis of the view that the committee took.

I have two questions, the first of which follows up what Rab Fleming said. I appreciate that we are currently considering the local government elections process, but he mentioned that he expects the parliamentary results to come through at 5 o'clock in the morning. However, I thought that the whole advantage of e-counting is the increased speed of processing. Considering that, at the previous two elections, my result was counted in the traditional method and announced at 5 o'clock in the morning, I had rather hoped that we might make some progress on that. Did Rab Fleming mean that both the constituency and regional list counts would be announced by 5 o'clock? When does he expect the constituency results to be announced?

We expect that they will all be completed at around the same time. Each count centre has been sized to complete the job at the same time. Apart from in the Highlands and Islands, where the time that is involved in transporting the ballot papers to the count centres will cause delays, we expect all the parliamentary processing to be completed by between 5 and 7 in the morning. If a count centre covers, say, five constituencies, people will not need to wait until that time for all five results to be announced. I imagine that the counts will be prioritised and processed in sequence. Therefore, for a centre that deals with five constituencies, I guess that the first results will be due at around 1 or 2 in the morning and the other results will follow between then and 5 or 6 in the morning. However, if a count centre covers one constituency, people will need to wait till 5 or 6 in the morning.

If a count centre covers three constituencies, will it be expected to count the first constituency, then the second and then the third so that the counting ends at 5 o'clock in the morning?

For e-counting, the important thing is to keep the scanning machines busy. I do not think that it would be a good idea to count the votes of the first, second and third constituencies in such a way that the scanning machines would be idle. From a returning officer's point of view, it makes sense to prioritise the counts by dealing with one constituency and then another constituency and then another constituency.

Clearly, the priority will be to complete the constituency votes first and the regional votes second. The constituency vote will be announced first.

I have a supplementary question on that issue. Like Mike Rumbles, I had anticipated that electronic counting would help returning officers to announce results earlier. The results for many urban constituencies were previously declared between perhaps half past 1 and half past 2. I appreciate that the local government count will be completely different from previous counts, but it seems to me that an electronic count of first-past-the-post constituency votes will take an awful lot longer than a manual count.

The main reason for that is that, historically, a rummage of the ballot boxes had to be carried out to sort out papers that had been put into the wrong box. Returning officers told us that the rummage was not always 100 per cent correct and was a time-consuming process as it involved opening up all the boxes to check that they contained the correct papers. One advantage of e-counting is that the machines can do the rummage. If any local government papers have been put into a parliamentary ballot box, the machine can automatically detect that. To take advantage of that, all the papers for both the parliamentary and local government contests need to be scanned so that we can ensure that all the parliamentary ballot papers are in the parliamentary ballot box and not in the wrong box. The count will take longer because we are doing it that way.

The adjudication process will then determine which count is announced first.

Sylvia Jackson also has a supplementary question on this point. I will let Mike Rumbles ask his second question after that.

Originally, Rab Fleming said that everybody would hear their results between 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock in the morning. He then said that a count centre that deals with only one constituency might announce the result at half past 1 or 2. Which is it? If a count centre deals with only one constituency, will people hear a result at half past 1 or not?

All the results will be completed at around 5 or 6 in the morning. Count centres that deal with more constituencies will be able to announce results at some time between the close of polls and 5 or 6 in the morning on a graduated basis. Count centres that deal with only one constituency will need to wait for that whole period before all the papers are processed and the result can be announced.

So no first-past-the-post candidates will know their results until between 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock in the morning.

No. At count centres that deal with multiple constituencies, I expect returning officers to prioritise counts so that results are not all completed at the same time. If four constituencies were being counted from 10 pm to 5 or 6 in the morning, I would expect them to be concentrated on one at a time, so the first result might be available at 1 or 2 in the morning.

I am sorry—I am still not clear about that. When we have one counting centre and one constituency, why will we have to wait until 5 o'clock in the morning? Rather than having five lots of papers, that centre will have only one lot of papers for the parliamentary and local authority elections.

I may be able to help with the answer. If I have understood the position, the number of machines has been scoped on the basis of the number of ballot papers that must be processed.

Okay—fair enough.

I thought that the point of e-counting was to speed the process, yet what you say suggests that the point of e-counting is not to speed the process but to make the count easier for officials. I see no timescale advantage.

We are talking primarily about the local government election, for which e-counting will speed the process by a factor of 10. If we used manual counting for the STV system, it would take days rather than hours.

I understand that—I was commenting on parliamentary elections.

Overall, the counts for all the elections will be completed by the very early morning, whereas even now, we are usually into Friday before all the local government counts have been taken. In the overall envelope, some parliamentary results will be later, because of the need to scan all the papers first. That will slow the process leading to the announcement slightly, which always concerns candidates, who want the result to be announced as soon as possible.

It sounds as if I can still expect a result at 5 o'clock in the morning. I thought that changing the system would be good news.

Mr McCabe will be equally disappointed, because his result has usually been the first to be announced.

For the local government count, you said that as each box came in, the results would be shown on a flowing basis on a public display board. As the counts appear on that board, it will be obvious to local authority candidates whether they have been elected, because they will see candidates reaching their quota. Is that the case?

That is correct.

No, because the quota is not determined until the number of valid ballot papers is known and it will not be possible to determine that until the end.

People will have a good idea, though.

I have no doubt that they will have an indication, but we are not dealing with an exact science and an imaginary line. People will have a reasonable idea, but the subsequent transfer of votes means that it will not always be possible to say after a consideration of first preferences who has been elected. If two of the three candidates with the most votes have reached the quota, they will definitely be elected, but if the third person with the most first-preference votes has not reached the quota by that stage, there is no guarantee that the subsequent transfers will push them over the quota.

Okay—that is understood. When all the first-preference votes have been counted, will the returning officer announce that X has reached the quota and is elected and that second-preference votes will now be considered?

The rules provide for the stages of the count. When a candidate reaches the quota, the returning officer will deem them to be elected. The process that we envisage and which we expect from having talked to returning officers is that they will gather the candidates together and talk them through the calculation stage by stage, so that candidates are assured that it was not simply a matter of pressing a button and receiving the result. Returning officers will explain to candidates that they received X number of votes at the first stage, say which candidate was elected and explain that when the second-stage calculation was done, another candidate was elected. Returning officers will want to talk candidates through that before any public declaration of the election results. If they wish, they will also be able to run through the stages as they declare the result.

I apologise for being late, convener. I did not realise that the committee was starting so early. I have two questions about the ballot paper. First, is the ballot paper that we have before us done and dusted?

If we agree the proposal that is before the committee today, it will go before the Parliament tomorrow. If the ballot paper as proposed is approved by the Parliament, it will become the final version. The decision is one for the Parliament.

So we have 24 hours before the ballot paper is approved by the Parliament.

Secondly, according to the order, beside the names of the independent candidates—there are two on the ballot paper—is the word "emblem". Will independent candidates in the local government elections be able to have an emblem by which to distinguish themselves?

No, there will be no emblem against the name of independent candidates.

Why not?

As far as I am aware, the primary legislation does not allow that.

Do we know that the primary legislation absolutely forbids it?

As I recall, the matter was discussed during the passage of the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Bill.

Yes.

And the decision was no.

And there is no way that that can be challenged other than in the courts?

Outside of primary legislation, the matter would have to be decided in the courts.

Okay.

As a supplementary to Margo MacDonald's question, would it be possible for an independent candidate to register themselves as a political party and therefore have an emblem?

Yes.

But let us suppose that an independent candidate does not want to register as a political party.

They will not get an emblem.

But I have decided on my emblem. It is going to be a battle-axe. [Laughter.]

Very appropriate.

Are you standing in the local elections, Margo?

Why not? I will do anything to get elected. Sorry, convener.

Were you referring to the local government elections, Margo?

Yes. If we are talking about democratic principles, I assume that the same principle will apply to the Scottish Parliament elections. I want to find out whether the matter was established. If the minister is telling me that it is in primary legislation, I assume that the only thing that I can do now is seek an interim interdict.

Well—

The minister is laughing nervously.

Do you want to respond further to the point, minister?

I will write to Margo MacDonald to clarify the matter.

How will I get the letter? Will you send it electronically?

I will ensure that it is delivered to you forthwith.

I am not sure how late in the process someone can apply for an interdict.

Most of the questions have focused on how soon we will get the results in the Scottish Parliament elections, both for individual constituency and list members. When do you envisage that most of the local government election counts will be finalised and the results made available?

As Rab Fleming explained, the machines will be used to count the ballot papers in both elections. Once all the information has been gathered, adjudications will be made on each election: first, the constituency first-past-the-post vote will be declared, then the regional vote, and finally the local government count. The announcement of results will be determined by the speed of the adjudication process. If the end time for the Scottish Parliament election is 5 am, the result will be made available as soon after 5 am as possible, once the adjudication is complete. I imagine that we will have the results within a couple of hours—let us say by 7 o'clock.

We have said that returning officers will have to announce the local government results as soon as is practicable after they have announced the Scottish Parliament results. I guess that when they do that will depend on whether a returning officer wants their staff to have a break between the announcement of the Scottish Parliament results and the finalisation of the local government results. The results should be available from about 6 am onwards. However, the time by which all of them will be announced is a matter for individual returning officers.

So we could have a situation in which the local returning officer decides that his staff need a rest and the count goes on late into Friday or even to Monday.

The count—by which I mean the papers going through the machines—should be finished before breakfast time. The adjudications have to happen after that. The member is right: adjudications could still be happening at some time on the Friday. The outcome will depend on when individual returning officers schedule that part of the process.

By adjudications, you mean when there is indecision about where the cross or the 1, 2 or 3 have been placed.

We mean disputed ballot papers.

On the back of Maureen Watt's point, there is bound to be a break for staff.

That is a big question, because we know that staff get tired. Although I presume we will not need as many staff, there is a real concern among returning officers about how the new process will work and how long they can keep staff continually working. Is it possible that results will be declared not the next day but much later?

It will happen some time on the Friday.

Have you issued guidelines on the number of counting agents that political parties will be allowed? There will be no ballot box sampling as in the past, so will the same number of counting agents be allowed into the counts?

We have not issued guidelines on that. The rules specify that each candidate is entitled to the same number of agents. That will be for the returning officer to decide, based on the size of the counts, for example. I imagine that they will want to examine that carefully with all the candidates and agents in the run-up to the election. As you say, the process will be different this time round, but the rules are clear that no candidate should have more agents than any other.

My final question is for the minister. You said at stage 3 of the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Bill that secondary legislation would be issued by the end of October. We are now near the end of January. There is considerable anger and angst among returning officers about the lateness of the legislation. Do you accept that you have put excessive pressure on returning officers in the run-up to the local government elections?

No. It has been important to get matters right; quite a number of changes are being made. We liaised closely with returning officers in the process, so I do not accept what you say.

Rab Fleming spoke about the counting of the council votes, how it will all take place at the same time and the screens that will be available for the first-preference votes. Is there potential for the Scottish Parliament votes to be displayed on those screens too? Will the results of the council elections be displayed on the screens anyway?

The progress of the parliamentary count will be displayed in a similar manner—charts will indicate the number of votes for each candidate in each contest in a similar display. As regards the local government results, all the papers will have to be scanned first and then all the dubious papers will be adjudicated before any results can be processed. Local government results will not be declared until all the scanning and adjudication are complete. Only then will we calculate the quota, which is the key for calculating who gets elected under the STV system.

There is potential, however, for parties to predict the vote, because they will have an idea of turnout on the day. I take it that the bar chart will show the number of first-preference votes that have been cast.

It will show the relative votes between the candidates; it will not show numbers of votes.

If I understood the previous explanation, as the count progresses, tallies will be kept for first-preference votes. Will they be absolute tallies or bar charts?

Bar charts.

So there will not be numbers.

The bar charts will show relativity.

So you need to know how high the bar is and there needs to be a scale on the left-hand side, for example, that says 507 votes to 50. Why do we need a bar chart? As first-preference votes are counted, why cannot there be a little column clocking up the votes to show that Mr A already has 523 votes and Mr B has 300? Why do we need a bar chart? Why can we not just have the numbers? I do not think that any of the political parties are interested in the bar chart—they are interested in the numbers. The visual presentation of the information will be absurd and meaningless unless there is a scale against the bar.

I undertake to get back to you on that point. I suspect that what you suggest is possible.

I can see the value of the visual presentation of a bar, as long as it is accompanied by a number.

The commitment has always been to make available as much information as possible, so that there is confidence that the counting of each box coincides with the work that political parties do in estimating where the votes are going. I will find out whether what you suggest is possible.

In that context, how is it envisaged that the count will be conducted? Will it be that, first, the returning officer or senior official in charge of the section will decide that the ballot papers from a certain polling station or district will be counted; secondly—chung, chung, chung—the ballot papers will be scanned; and thirdly, there will be a pause so that we can look at the bar charts and assess the situation before moving on to the papers from the next polling station? Is that what is envisaged?

The pauses might be less definitive than you would like, because it will be a continuous process. However, as long as someone is quick enough to note that the ballot papers from a certain polling station are in the system and then check the chart to see what difference they have made, it will be possible roughly to gauge the progress as each batch of papers is processed.

So it will be clear that the first batch of papers comes from one place and the second batch comes from another, accepting that there will not be a perfect split, pause and restart.

It will also be within the gift and power of the returning officer to announce that information. If political parties request that, there is nothing to prevent it. It will be at his discretion to say that boxes from polling station X are going into the system so that everybody knows.

That takes us back to Maureen Watt's point about the numbers of agents that will be allowed on behalf of each candidate. Although they will not be able to attempt a manual count as they did previously, there will still be a lot of information to gather. There will also be a lot of adjudication work, which will require agents to have delegates. The adjudication work will be done on a screen, with the adjudicators on one side and the agent or their representative on the other side, deciding whether a vote is a valid 1-2, for example. There will still be a fair amount of work on behalf of each candidate to ensure that they collect and deal with the information that is coming in.

How will the counting of postal votes fit in? Given that the postal votes will have been gathered by the day of the count, will they be the first votes to be pushed through machines, with the returning officer announcing that when it happens?

Yes. They will be ready to go. No ballot boxes will require to be collected for postal votes, so they will be counted first.

So the postal votes will get the count off to a quick start.

Yes.

Good.

I have three questions. The first is on your point about the publication of information. I agree that there should be no possible breach of confidentiality about how someone votes. My understanding is that, in elections to the Dáil in the Republic of Ireland, results have been published in effect as an Excel spreadsheet, which means that people can see the results and how each ballot paper was numbered but they cannot see the actual ballot paper. Would that be an acceptable way of presenting the information for sociologists, psephologists and political parties?

I can honestly say that I have not come to a view on that. We are looking at a number of options, and I stated my intention at the beginning to consult on them. Clearly, we must get the balance right between full disclosure, which might lead to people being able to identify how individuals cast their votes, and ensuring that enough information is published to give confidence that the electronic counting is underpinned by reality. I have not come to a firm view, so we will publish various options for consultation.

Do you have any idea of the timetable for publishing those options?

I hope that we will get the consultation out quickly, because it is important that we start to engage in the matter. The final conclusions may be shaped by practical experience during the count, so there is a question as to whether we will conclude before the count or leave the final conclusions until we have all experienced an STV election and an e-counting system working.

My second question concerns by-elections. What will happen in a by-election for a single member in which, because of a large number of non-transferable votes, it is impossible for any candidate to reach the quota that is set out in the rules? I hope that there will be no by-elections for a while after the election, but has the issue been discussed?

We still envisage the same process being gone through. At the end of all the transfers, the candidate for whom the most votes had been cast would be elected. That is a fair and logical way to reach the result.

Would that be allowed under the proposed rules?

Yes.

You indicated that the calculations will be done to five decimal places. That will mean that fractional votes beyond those five decimal places will, in effect, disappear from the system. How will those disappearing fractional votes be recorded and presented?

They are implicit in the calculation and will be calculated as part of the non-transferable votes, so they will be recorded.

Those are all the questions, so we will now move to the formal debate. I invite the minister to move the motion in the name of Tom McCabe. It is at his discretion whether to make any further comments at this stage. I will give him an opportunity to respond to any points that members make.

On the basis that we have had a good exchange on the questions that members have raised, I will move the motion without further comment.

I move,

That the Local Government and Transport Committee recommends that the draft Scottish Local Government Elections Order 2007 be approved.

Do any members wish to participate in the debate?

Since the beginning of the process to introduce legislation, the amount of effort that the Scottish Executive has put into giving us information and advancing this complex issue has been remarkable, as has the level of understanding that has been reached, considering the complexity of the process. The order has been difficult to pull together, but we have arrived at an order that will allow the process of change to take place to best effect.

However, unnecessary complexity is being introduced because, as the Scottish Executive's own research showed, there is a much simpler way of producing the ballot paper. Organisations such as Help the Aged Scotland said that it would help the people whom they represent to have that simpler system, and it is disappointing that members of the committee ignored that information for their own party interest. I will not throw the baby out with the bathwater and oppose the order because the wishes of Help the Aged and other organisations that represent large sections of the public have been ignored. We must accept that, overall, the order is appropriate and will allow us to have an election in May that will arrive at the outcome that the electorate chooses.

The order is a remarkable achievement for modern democracy and 21st century Scotland. We are now switching to a system of fair votes of which almost every political party round the table is in favour. It has taken a long time to achieve that and, subject to the votes in the committee today and in the Parliament on Thursday, we will achieve the landmark of being the second part of the United Kingdom to have the STV system.

As Mike Rumbles said, this has been a long process. When we started the debate on e-counting, it looked as if it would not be possible at the forthcoming election, so we have moved a long way in making it a reality. From what the minister says, it seems that he has tried to strike the right balance between the process being machine driven and making it as transparent as possible. In that context, Mark Ballard's questions were useful. There has been good progress.

However, I am worried about the implementation. Although we have made strides, we will be hampered by the lack of machines. In regions that contain only one constituency, such as mine, we will still have to wait until 5 o'clock in the morning—or whenever—for the result. That is an issue.

The committee made a democratic decision on what it wanted and we have to go with that. I am not convinced that the research was flawed, but it would have been useful to know a bit more, as Paul Martin said, and for further research to have been undertaken. Also, I reiterate Michael McMahon's point: the evidence from Help the Aged states that the system in the previous proposal would have been easier for people to understand. However, I will go along with the democratic decision.

In response to Mike Rumbles's point about the prioritisation of STV, I assure him that, in constituencies such as the one that I represent, the Gregory method and a number of other issues that relate to proportional representation are not a priority. I can think of a number of other priorities.

The arguments were well rehearsed in the debate that we had at the end of last year, and I do not intend to reiterate the points that were made then. I confirm that I will not support the motion in the minister's name today.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak, convener. First, I pay tribute to the Executive for the amount of work that it has done. I appreciate that it has not been easy to reconcile the completely valid opinions on either side of the debate, which we heard briefly today.

However, my concern is that independents still play a part in local government. That is the matter that we are addressing at the moment. Experienced independent councillors, who have given much to our democratic system, are concerned that they will be at a disadvantage on the ballot paper. I suggested to the Electoral Commission that, if we must have the daft system of emblems and so on, there could be photographs of independent candidates. That is all that independents are—they are only the personalities involved.

I do not know whether it is still possible, but I was not being facetious when I said that, if there was no other way of gaining a few days to consider the matter, I would consider an interim interdict. I regret having to say that, but it is a serious matter.

The order deals with a wide range of issues. I share my colleagues' views on the ballot paper. It is disappointing that the Scottish Executive did not accept the outcome of its own research. I will not oppose the order because of that single issue, but I urge whoever forms the Scottish Executive after the election to carry out more detailed research on the matter. Ballot papers should be designed not for the convenience of political parties but for the convenience of the public. They should help people to cast their votes in the way that they wish.

My only other point—again, it will not cause me to vote against the order—is that the timeframes that have been mentioned for the declaration of results are disappointing. I had hoped that, under an electronic counting system, we would have a far swifter declaration of outcomes. Again, I ask the minister to consider whether it is possible to put more resources into the system in order to improve it. If that is not possible, we have to consider what we can do to truncate the process further. Having people hanging around until five, six or seven o'clock in the morning is pretty unsatisfactory, not only for the political parties but for the council staff and volunteers who take part in the counting process. We should be trying for a more efficient method of counting our election results than the one that it appears we are going to have in May.

Having said all that, I will support the order. Minister, do you want to respond to the issues that have been raised?

I understand that there are views on both sides of the argument with regard to the ballot papers. It is useful to point out that the only other area in the UK that operates an STV system uses the type of ballot paper that the committee eventually decided on. That is an important precedent. However, I realise that it is impossible to square the different views in the argument. That is why we asked the committee to come to a view on it, and I am grateful that it did.

Sylvia Jackson mentioned the need to get the balance right with regard to the amount of information that we provide. One of the key themes in the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006 and the process of developing the orders to underpin the election has been the concern that there is a need for people to have confidence in the new processes and the new electronic counting system. It is important that people can see that the result bears some resemblance to a candidate's expectation of where their vote lies, in relation to which they will have done a lot of work. That has been the main driving force in ensuring that we give candidates, agents and political parties maximum access to the information during the count process. The last bit of the process is to decide what is published after the election to try to underpin that without calling into doubt the confidentiality of those who turn up—hopefully in large numbers—to vote in the elections.

I take on board Margo MacDonald's point—although I disagree with it—and will confirm that the prohibition is in the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006. That might save her having to waste her money on an unnecessary interdict.

I thank the committee for its work and for the constructive way in which it has engaged with the process since the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Bill was lodged. It has been a long process and, by and large, we have worked on a cross-party basis. I thank the committee for its help in ensuring that we get an election process that will work properly on 3 May 2007.

The question is, that motion S2M-5341, in the name of Tom McCabe, be agreed to. Are we agreed?

No.

There will be a division.

For

Ewing, Fergus (Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber) (SNP)
Jackson, Dr Sylvia (Stirling) (Lab)
McLetchie, David (Edinburgh Pentlands) (Con)
McMahon, Michael (Hamilton North and Bellshill) (Lab)
Muldoon, Bristow (Livingston) (Lab)
Rumbles, Mike (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)
Watt, Ms Maureen (North East Scotland) (SNP)

Against

Martin, Paul (Glasgow Springburn) (Lab)

The result of the division is: For 7, Against 1, Abstentions 0.

Motion agreed to.

That the Local Government and Transport Committee recommends that the draft Scottish Local Government Elections Order 2007 be approved.

That result will be reported to Parliament when the issue is debated in the chamber.

I thank the officials who accompanied the minister for this agenda item. We will have a brief suspension while his team changes over.

Meeting suspended.

On resuming—