The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland has recommended that a further 5 councillors are elected to represent the City of Edinburgh.
At present there are 58 councillors paid anything from £16,000 upwards, but this means the city’s population is underrepresented, according to the Commission.
The recommendation is that there will be 17 wards as there are at the moment but the number of representatives will be redistributed. In future 12 will have 4 councillors and 5 will have 3 elected representatives.
The electorate is estimated to rise by 11,000 from those counted in September 2013. Almond is one of those where one extra councillor will be introduced. South Queensferry is a growing town, and the new housing at Kirkliston in the past few years have increased the population there.
Ronnie Hinds, Chair of the Commission, said:
“Today we have submitted to Scottish Ministers our recommendations for electoral arrangements which we believe are in the interests of effective and convenient local government across Scotland. These recommendations set out the number of councillors for each council area and the boundaries of the wards they will represent.
We are grateful to councils and to the public who responded to our consultations over the last two years. Their input has been invaluable in shaping our proposals and while we must take account of our obligations under the legislation and consider the interests of the whole council area, we have been able to take on board many of the views expressed.
The legislation which governs our reviews places equality of representation at the heart of what we do and we have delivered a set of recommendations that significantly improves electoral parity across Scotland and so provides for fairer local democracy and more effective local government .”
The Local Government Boundary Commission is an independent, non-political body which reviews and recommends how many councillors should represent the electorate in each area, and how big the area should be.
This is the first time since 1998 that councillor numbers have been changed.
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