LOCAL ELECTIONS HANDBOOK 2005 Colin Rallings & Michael Thrasher LOCAL ELECTIONS HANDBOOK 2005 The 2005 Local Election Results Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher with the assistance of Galina Borisyuk, Brian Cheal, Dawn Cole and Lawrence Ware Local Government Chronicle Elections Centre University of Plymouth Local Elections Handbook 2005 © Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers. Published by the Local Government Chronicle Elections Centre, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA ISBN 0 948858 38 9 Distributed by: LGC Information, Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London, NW1 7EJ Table of Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... v Introduction ..................................................................................................... vii Using the Handbook ......................................................................................xvii Aggregate Statistics for Local Authorities ......................................................... 1 County Council Election Results ................................................................... 15 Unitary Council Election Results .................................................................... 91 Tables............................................................................................................. 97 2 Acknowledgements We are grateful, as always, for the response to our requests for information by Returning Officers and Electoral Administrators . There is no doubt that combining elections, as has been done for the last three general elections, improves county council election turnout. It is seldom noted that it also increases the stresses and strains on an already over-stretched local government service. Few appreciate that conducting two elections simultaneously, where the qualifications for voting are different, produces limited economies of scale but lots of administrative headaches. This year was made even more difficult by the media focus on increased postal voting and the potential for electoral fraud. In our view, some of this attention bordered on the irresponsible and imposed additional and uneccessary strains on those ensuring the conduct of a free and fair election. Understandably, there were some occasions after the election was over when our ‘simple request’ for a small piece of missing information appeared to be the proverbial back-breaking piece of straw. For this we can only apologise for our bad timing and hope sincerely that no domestic animal suffered from misdirected frustration. Our thanks also go to the Electoral Commission, which provided support for our collection of data, principally that concerning the numbers voting by post and in person. More electors are taking advantage of the relaxation of rules and choosing to vote by post. Clearly, there remain issues surrounding electoral registration and ballot security that need to be addressed but good policy is invariably evidence based. Policy making in this vital area of our democracy benefits from having the figures available for detailed analysis. We would also like to express our gratitude to David Cowling, Head of BBC Political Research, for sharing his data on the mayoral elections. He gives us data and we print an acknolwedgement; sounds like a fair exchange to us. v We never apologise for telling people that, compared with local elections, the collection and collation of general election data are rather straightforward processes. This year is an excellent example. The UK general election consisted of contests for a mere 646 constituencies. By contrast, there were elections for 2,217 contested wards or divisions. The amount of data for each contest, parliamentary and local, is roughly the same and requires the same level of attention to detail. For this reason we decided that the people that help most in this work should emerge from the shadows and have their names revealed in alphabetical order on the inside cover. Of course, fame always has its price. So, instead of us thanking everyone we can think of, whilst accepting the blame for any errors or ommissions etc., we’d like to break with tradtion and invite Galina, Brian, Dawn and Lawrence to do that instead. Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher October 2005. vi Introduction Local elections in 2005 were held in England for 34 county and 3 unitary councils. These elections were held simultaneously with the UK general election on May 5th. This is the third successive occasion that county and general elections have been held on the same day (1997 and 2001 were the previous two). In four authorities (Doncaster, Hartlepool, North Tyneside and Stoke on Trent) an election was held for mayor whilst one unitary authority, Isle of Wight, also conducted a referendum on the issue of an elected mayor. The referendum was defeated, with 37,097 (56.3%) voting ‘No’ and 28,786 (43.7%) voting ‘Yes’. Details of the four mayoral elections are included below. Boundary changes were implemented for county divisions. Since 1985, all county divisions had been single-member, but these changes saw the introduction of 143 two-member and 3 three-member divisions. The net effect is a decrease in the number of divisions from 2,215 to 2,120. However, the number of county councillors has increased by 54 taking the total of 2,269. There were no boundary changes in the three unitary councils but the irregular electoral cycle means that in only one, Isle of Wight, is the result comparable to 2001. Across England, elections were scheduled for a total of 2,217 divisions (wards in the unitary authorities) and 2,396 seats. It has not proved possible on this occasion to take account of boundary changes when calculating each party’s seat gains and losses. A number of councils changed hands. Northamptonshire was gained from Labour by the Conservative party but in turn it lost Cornwall to the Liberal Democrats. No further councils were exchanged directly between the parties. Six councils (Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Suffolk, Worcestershire and the Isle of Wight) moved from no overall control to Conservative majority administration. The Liberal Democrats gained control of two more counties (Devon and Somerset, from no overall control) whilst Labour lost its overall majority on Stockton-on- Tees council. vii Table 1 provides the broad picture. The absence of urban local authorities means that the Conservative party is particularly favoured in this part of the local electoral cycle. More than four and a half million votes were cast in its favour. Its overall vote share, 39.8%, placed it well ahead of the second-placed Liberal Democrats, 27.6%. However, a comparison with the previous county elections shows the limits of Conservative recovery. In 2001 the party polled 39.9% but in 2005 could only improve on that figure by a meagre one tenth of one percentage point. Although the clear lack of progress at the general election received considerable attention its failure to advance at the local level is symptomatic of a party still struggling to recover its former prominence. Labour’s own vote declined five points in the county elections from 30.4% to a mere 25%. One possible point in mitigation is that it chose to contest a smaller proportion of seats (85.6%) than four years earlier (92%). Votes for Independent candidates were more or less static but there were increases both for the Greens (from 1% in 2001 to 2.3% in 2005) whose candidates challenged in one in four seats, and also for other minor parties (0.8% to 2.3%). The Conservative lead in votes is magnified when the distribution of seats is examined. The party performed better than in 2001, winning a majority of divisions (though it was fractionally short of taking the majority of seats) and winning almost twice as many seats as Labour. For Labour the distribution neatly reflected its vote share but the Liberal Democrat vote was not as efficiently distributed. The party almost won 500 seats but its share of seats, 20.7%, was seven points lower than vote share. Despite attracting more support the Green party won just nine seats overall, a share considerably below its vote. Some measure of Conservative lack of progress is highlighted by the fact that in exactly half of the 34 county councils its vote fell (Conservative optimists would, with justification, point out that in the other half its vote increased!). The largest decrease took place in Nottingham (-3.2%) but in Durham (where Liberal Democrats advanced), Lincolnshire and Suffolk also the party lost support. At the opposite end of the scale the vote increased by almost seven percentage points in Shropshire, due in part to more contestation, while there were notable performances in Buckinghamshire (where an absolute majority voted in favour) and Essex, the latter also swinging in the party’s favour at the general election. Certainly, the electoral system, which works to the party’s disadvantage at general elections, worked in its favour at the county contests. Although only one county’s voters gave the party majority support Conservative councillors have an absolute majority on 23 of the 34 counties. viii 0.0 20 15.7 0 0.0 Wards %Wards Wards %Wards Seats %Seats Seats %Seats contested contested won won contested contested