What 1,226 Council Seats Reveal About Scotland

Modern Scot assembled the current official details of every serving councillor across Scotland’s 32 local authorities. The country has 1,226 council seats: 1,221 were occupied on 4 August 2026 and five were empty.

Modern Scot data feature | Verified 5 August 2026

A spreadsheet of councillors ought to be one of the least romantic topics in Scotland. It contains no mist, no ruined castle and no stag standing moodily beside a loch. Yet when all 32 councils are placed together, the list becomes an unexpectedly vivid portrait of the country: urban and island, partisan and stubbornly local, orderly in theory and gloriously untidy in practice.

The completed Modern Scot directory records 1,221 serving councillors in 355 wards. The full table, however, consists of 1,226 seats. Five chairs were empty on the verification date, giving Scotland a council-seat occupancy rate of 99.6 per cent.

What The Numbers Reveal

Scotland’s local government is rarely governed by outright command. Twenty-eight of its 32 councils have no single party or grouping holding a majority of the occupied seats. The SNP is the largest force nationally, with 413 councillors, but Dundee is the only council in which a national party holds an outright majority.

Being the largest group is therefore very different from being in control. In Dumfries and Galloway, Highland and Edinburgh, the leading group occupies only about a quarter of the available seats. Budgets, administrations and local policies depend upon negotiation, agreements and support extending beyond the largest party.

Scotland also has a formidable local political bloc. Some 237 councillors sit outside the six principal national parties, including 188 Independents and 49 members of local groups or those recorded without a national-party affiliation. That total is only 22 fewer than Labour’s entire council representation.

The figures reveal 32 separate political settlements rather than one uniform national map: heavily independent island councils, closely divided urban chambers, one-member island wards and large multi-member constituencies. Scottish local politics is plural, intensely geographical and almost everywhere dependent upon compromise.

Five Empty Chairs

The vacant seats were spread across four councils. Edinburgh had two; Highland, South Lanarkshire and Stirling had one each.

Edinburgh’s two vacancies followed the resignations of Simita Kumar and Kate Campbell after their election to the Scottish Parliament. Both wards will vote on 3 September 2026.

South Lanarkshire’s Avondale and Stonehouse by-election, following the death of Councillor Margaret Cooper, is scheduled for 17 September. Highland officially lists a vacant post in Wick and East Caithness, while Stirling’s Forth and Endrick vacancy followed the death of Councillor Paul Henke.

The National Shape

Among the occupied seats, the SNP is comfortably the largest force, with 413 councillors, or 33.8 per cent of serving members.

Labour follows with 259, while 188 councillors use the straightforward label Independent. The Conservatives have 170, the Liberal Democrats 86, the Greens 33 and Reform UK 23.

A further 49 councillors sit under named local groups, unaffiliated descriptions or smaller parties. When those 49 are combined with the 188 plain Independents, Scotland has 237 serving councillors outside the six principal national parties.

That local and unaffiliated bloc is smaller than Labour by only 22 seats and larger than the entire Conservative group by 67.

The SNP has 154 more councillors than Labour, but numerical leadership should not be mistaken for untroubled command. Scotland’s councils are built for negotiation.

Of the 32 authorities, 28 have no single party or grouping holding more than half of the occupied seats.

Only Four Rooms Have A Majority

Only four council chambers contain a group with an outright majority of the occupied seats.

Three are island authorities dominated by Independents. Orkney has 19 Independents among 21 councillors, Shetland has 18 among 23, and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar has 21 among 29.

The only national-party majority is in Dundee, where the SNP holds 15 of the city’s 29 seats.

Elsewhere, the largest group may be large without being remotely sovereign. The SNP is the sole largest group in 20 councils and shares first place with Independents in Argyll and Bute.

Labour is the largest group in four councils, the Conservatives in three and Independents in four, with Argyll and Bute again providing the tie.

Dumfries and Galloway is the chamber in which nobody can plausibly enter wearing a crown. Its largest group is the SNP with 11 of 43 councillors, only 25.6 per cent.

Highland follows closely, where 19 SNP members make up 26 per cent of the 73 occupied seats. Edinburgh’s largest group has 16 of 61 occupied seats.

Dumfries and Galloway has the greatest variety, with councillors sitting under nine different labels. Highland and Argyll and Bute each contain eight.

The Islands Decline To Behave

The island councils remain the clearest evidence that local Scotland does not always accept the party labels offered to it.

In Shetland, 21 of 23 councillors sit outside the six main national parties when Independents and those recorded with no party affiliation are counted together. In Orkney the figure is 19 of 21, and in the Western Isles it is 21 of 29.

The mainland is not entirely obedient either. South Ayrshire has 13 councillors outside the six main parties, Highland has 28 and Argyll and Bute has 12.

The Highland total includes 18 members listed as Highland Independent and eight as Highland Alliance, reminders that even the word Independent may hold different meanings in Scotland.

Arran: Scotland’s Loneliest Ward

Then there is Arran.

The North Ayrshire island is Scotland’s sole one-member ward. Its solitude is deliberate, not a vacancy.

Arran has one councillor because the electoral arrangements provide one seat; it is constitutionally lonely rather than abandoned.

Seven wards are designed to elect two councillors, all in the island authorities. Nine wards had only two serving councillors on 4 August because Avondale and Stonehouse and Forth and Endrick were each carrying an empty third seat.

The more devious vacancies were in Edinburgh and Highland.

Southside/Newington, Portobello/Craigmillar and Wick and East Caithness each had three serving councillors, but each is a four-member ward. In a national list containing 180 properly constituted three-member wards, an empty fourth chair can hide in plain sight.

At full complement, Scotland’s 355 wards comprise one one-member ward, seven two-member wards, 180 three-member wards, 164 four-member wards and three five-member wards.

Those three five-member wards are all in North Ayrshire:

Garnock Valley, North Coast, and Saltcoats and Stevenston.

The Largest And Smallest Rooms

Measured by statutory seats, Glasgow has Scotland’s largest council chamber with 85.

North Lanarkshire follows with 77, Fife with 75, Highland with 74 and Aberdeenshire with 70. South Lanarkshire has 64 seats and Edinburgh 63.

At the other end, Clackmannanshire, East Renfrewshire and Midlothian each have 18 seats.

The John Party

Political labels are not the only possible means of arranging Scotland’s occupied seats.

There are 45 serving councillors whose first name is John. Were they to form a disciplined John caucus, it would be larger than the entire Green group of 33 and nearly twice the size of Reform UK’s 23.

There are also 31 Davids, 19 Andrews, 19 Jims, 18 Ians and 16 Jameses.

Campbell is the most common surname, appearing 11 times, followed by Cameron and Smith with ten each.

There are three councillors called James Adams: two Conservatives and one Labour, distributed across Aberdeenshire, East Ayrshire and Glasgow.

Scotland has also elected two David Aitchisons, two David Wilsons, two Elaine McDougalls, two Gary Robinsons and two Stephen Currans.

What The Spreadsheet Ultimately Shows

The directory does not reveal a Scotland divided neatly into national party colours. It shows a country in which the SNP is the largest local force but usually lacks a majority; Labour remains substantial; Conservatives and Liberal Democrats retain distinct geographical bases; and Independents continue to dominate in communities where reputation and locality carry more weight.