Rebecca Evans, Minister for Finance and Local Government
Today I am launching a consultation on draft rules which set out how elections should be run if a principal council decides that it wishes to use the Single Transferable Voting (STV) system.
The Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 gave principal councils in Wales the option to choose between ‘first past the post’ and STV systems for principal council elections. The same Act requires the Welsh Ministers to ensure there are rules for the conduct of a principal council election using STV.
All 22 principal councils in Wales will continue to use the first past the post system unless they decide to change in accordance with the procedure set out in the 2021 Act. The council would need to pass a resolution before 15 November in the year that is three years before the next ordinary election is due to be held. To change the system for the next local government elections in 2027 this would be before 15 November 2024.
The Local Elections (Principal Areas) (Wales) Rules 2021 set out how elections to principal councils must be conducted. They do not yet make provision for the conduct of elections where the STV system is in use. To address this and to support councils to make an informed choice about changing the system of voting which they use, we have prepared draft rules, the Local Elections (Principal Areas) (Single Transferable Vote) (Wales) Rules 2023, which set out how a local government election would operate using STV.
The consultation will run for a period of eight weeks commencing 10 February and I look forward to hearing from interested parties prior to formally making these additional rules.