The political make-up of The Highland Council has changed as a result of the resignations of two councillors from the Liberal Democrat Group, Councillor Janet Campbell, Inverness Central and Glynis Sinclair, Culloden and Ardersier.
Miss Campbell has joined the Independent Members' Group and Mrs Sinclair has confirmed she is now non-aligned.
The political make-up is now as follows:-
Independent, 25
Liberal Democrat, 20
Scottish National Party, 17
Labour, 7;
Independent Members' Group, 6
Independent Alliance, 4
Non-aligned, 1.
The ruling Administration group of Highland council is made up of an alliance of the main independent group, the Liberal Democrats and the Labour group. Their total numbers are now 52 out of the council's 80 members. Therefor despite a reduction of 2 from Liberal Democrats the ruling administration still hold a large majority.
Independents in their various groups still make up the largest number of councillors collectively but even if they combined could not on their own make the ruling administration and this has been the case since the last election when the voting system changed. Highland Council previously had a larger number of independent councillors but the new voting system spread the voters preferences to political parties in away not previously possible.
Some Independent councillors believe that many voters did not understand that if they used all of their votes by going through the ballot paper that they might be making it harder in some cases for independent councillors to be elected. Political parties think that they will in the long run dominate Highland council and thus the era of party politics will become more embedded into Highland than it was in the past. Independent councillors hope that voters will think hard about this when they vote under the new system for the second time in May 2012.