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Meeting of the Parliament 16 March 2011

16 Mar 2011 · S3 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Local Electoral Administration (Scotland) Bill

Tolson, Jim LD Dunfermline West Watch on SPTV

I welcome the opportunity to open the debate for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. As a member of the Local Government and Communities Committee over the past few years, I have taken a great deal of interest in issues relating to local government elections. As a former councillor of 15 years’ experience, I have experienced quite a few elections myself.

This bill forms part of a response to the events of 2007, to which other members have alluded this morning. I share the sentiments of Alex Johnstone: the Scottish Parliament and Scottish local Government elections were, at the end of the day, quite shambolic. With such significant problems to overcome between the previous election and the next, I pay tribute to the significant work that has been done by committee clerks, fellow members of the committee—including David McLetchie, who is no longer on the committee, but sat through many of the deliberations—as well as the minister and his team. With only one minor amendment in today’s stage 3 proceedings, we must be doing something right. Who would have believed that political consensus would break out just a week before Parliament is dissolved?

Prior to the previous local government elections in 2007, I took the opportunity to attend a trial of the new counting and scanning machines. I decided to test the system by removing one of the dummy ballot papers from one of the piles to see whether the system would highlight the anomaly. That caused some unease to the officials of the company giving the demonstration but, as they were determined to show how robust the system was, I was determined to test it. Despite their passing my test, we all know that the operation of their equipment and software was nothing short of shambolic on the night.

Recently, with other members of the Local Government and Communities Committee, I had the opportunity to see a demonstration of the new counting equipment and software. Although I am glad that a new system and software will be used for next year’s election, it could hardly be worse than the last. The demonstration that we recently attended did not give me any real confidence that the system is robust enough. We are being asked now to back a company that has not yet done any significant volume testing of its software and hardware. We are being asked to accept that all will be okay when volume testing is conducted in the autumn and we are being asked to accept that it will be alright on the night. I for one remain very sceptical.

One of the recommendations of the Gould report was to establish a chief returning officer for Scotland. However, the responses to the consultation in 2008 indicated that there was little support for that role. As a result, the Scottish Government is setting up an electoral management board for Scotland. I am grateful to the minister for the answer that he gave me on this matter when we last discussed the bill on 2 February. The Liberal Democrats consider that it would be beneficial for the electoral management board to have wider responsibilities for co-ordinating the administration of other elections in Scotland, particularly given the expertise that it will have in administration of elections.

In summary, the bill is a welcome step in making the electoral arrangements for Scottish local authorities more robust. It presents a much improved system for us. For that reason, the Liberal Democrats will be happy to give it our support at decision time.

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