Commentary on Sections Section 1 – Year of local government elections
5.Under the Act the next two ordinary local government elections will be held in 2012 and 2017. After 2017, ordinary local government elections will revert to taking place every fourth year. The effect of this will be that the local government elections will take place halfway through the term of the Scottish Parliament. Section 1 of the Act does this by amending section 5 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 which contains provision about the timing of local government elections. The Act inserts two new subsections into section 5 of the 1994 Act and repeals subsections (2) and (3) of that section (subsection (2) contains a historical date for local government elections and subsection (3) is the provision that links the date of local government elections to that of the Scottish Parliament elections).
6.Subsection (2) introduces the schedule which contains consequential modifications and repeals.