Councillors to be cut?

Plans to cut the number of Councillors goes out to public consultation

A public consultation starts today on plans to cut the number of councillors in Scotland.

The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland has been discussing the move with authorities since February last year.

And its plans are due to be implemented by March 2016.

Fife has 78 councillors for over 283-thousand voters - and the commission wants to cut that number by three.

Ronnie Hinds, Chair of the Commission, said:

“Consultation is a vital part of our work and having completed our consultation with councils, and amended a number of our proposals in the light of these, we now want to hear from local residents, community groups and organisations.

We have a statutory obligation to conduct reviews and we are required to ensure that the number of electors per councillor in each ward in a council area is as nearly as may be the same - but subject to that we also need to take account of local ties and the public are best placed to tell us about these.

We look forward to positive engagement with communities across Scotland over the next 12 weeks and have today launched our consultation portal which will allow people to see our proposals and submit their comments to us online including suggested revisions to the maps setting out ward boundaries. Paper copies of our proposals are available at display points across council areas.”