Highland (council area)

This article is about the Highland administrative region in Scotland. For other uses of the name see Highland (disambiguation).

The Highland council area (Roinn na GàidhealtachdGàidhealtachd in Roinn na Gàidhealtachd and Comhairle na Gàidhealtachd (Highland Couincil) is used to translate Highland. In other contexts it is used to translate Scottish Highlands and Gaeldom. in Gaelic) is a local government area in the Scottish Highlands and the largest local government area in Scotland. It shares borders with the council areas of Moray, Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross, and Argyll and Bute. Their councils, and those of Angus and Stirling, also have areas of the Scottish Highlands within their administrative boundaries. The Highland area covers most of the mainland and inner-Hebridean parts of the former counties of Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty, all of Sutherland, Caithness and Nairnshire, and small parts of Argyll and Moray.

The area was created as a two-tier region in 1975, with an elected council for the whole region and, in addition, elected councils for each of eight disricts, Badenoch and Strathspey, Caithness, Inverness, Lochaber, Nairn, Ross and Cromarty, Skye and Lochalsh and Sutherland. In 1996 the District Councils were wound up and their functions were transferred to the new Highland Council. This council maintains area committees named after the old districts.

The Council Area headquarters is located in Inverness with the previous District Council offices retained as outstations.

Politics

Main article Politics of the Highland council area''

Councillors

The council represents 80 wards. Each ward elects one councillor by the first past the post system of election. There are plans, however, to abolish existing wards and to create new larger wards for the next round of elections, with each ward electing three or four councillors by the single transferable vote system. The total number of councillors will remain the same.

The next round of elections is scheduled to be held in 2007.