Election costs reach almost £40m

A large portion of the money went to the firm responsible for the machines

The bill for last year's Scottish elections is more than double the previous one, with the cost reaching almost £40m.

SNP MSP Keith Brown said that in total the 2007 Holyrood and local government elections had cost £39.26m.

Mr Brown said almost £9m of the money spent on the 2007 polls had gone to DRS, the company which provided the electronic counting machines.

He said the cost of elections in 2003 had been £17.15m.

There were 146,099 parliamentary ballot papers rejected in last May's Holyrood vote, and a report later found that voters were treated as an "afterthought".

Mr Brown, the MSP for Ochil, is a former deputy returning officer and also a member of the Association of Electoral Administrators.

He said he obtained the information through parliamentary questions and queries to local councils under the Freedom of Information Act.

Running two elections on the same day using these two different systems was always likely to incur larger costs, as all those involved well know Scotland Office spokesman

He said: "The amount spent on the last elections was astounding and it is only now finally coming to light."

Mr Brown said the Holyrood administration had spent almost £5m on the 2007 elections, while the Scotland Office estimated its costs at £19m.

He also claimed local authorities across Scotland spent £15.4m.

Mr Brown claimed Douglas Alexander, the then secretary of state for Scotland, and the previous Scottish Executive had "tripped themselves up in their rush to change rules and regulations at the last minute and the taxpayer has ended up having to pick up the tab".

He said: "The Scotland Office down in London spends all its time telling the Scottish people we can't be trusted to run our own affairs.

"I think the mess they made with these elections is just another example of how they should get their own house in order and that responsibility for running elections in Scotland should be transferred from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament."

A Scotland Office spokesman said: "Much of this spending relates to the introduction of electronic counting, which was only brought in to cope with the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system being used for the local government elections."

He added: "The Scotland Office is only responsible for the Scottish Parliament elections, not the local government elections.

"The decision to move to STV was made by the Scottish Parliament, not the Scotland Office, but we agreed to combine the elections on the same day and incurred the costs of doing so in order to avoid two different counting systems.

"Running two elections on the same day using these two different systems was always likely to incur larger costs, as all those involved well know."