Growing pressure on staffing elections, meeting hears
THERE is increasing pressure on staffing elections in Shetland, a council meeting has heard.
Shetland Islands Council’s (SIC) governance and law manager Jan Riise said there is not only pressure on the SIC’s committee services team, which coordinates elections, but also on attracting people to manage polling stations.
He said around 120 staff were drafted in to manage polling stations for the recent Scottish Parliament election in May, many of which were SIC workers.
But Riise suggested at a meeting of the SIC’s policy and resources committee last month that increasing demands on their day jobs is making it more difficult for folk to give up a day to man polling stations.
He said: “If it were not for their support, managing elections would, I would venture to say, impossible”.
Photo: Hans J Marter/Shetland News
Riise added: “The problem that we’ve identified is that as well as the pressure on committee services team, we also have pressure now in attracting the staff across the council that we tend to use.”
He said this is something that needs to be addressed in the future.
The next election in Shetland stands to be for the council in May next year, with Riise saying preparations have already begun.
The meeting heard there is also a project underway aimed at widening access to local government, particularly given that two wards were uncontested last time around in 2022.
The hope is also to attract a greater diversity of candidates.
Lerwick South councillor John Fraser asked if, in this digital age, there was a more efficient way of people voting than folk having to attend a polling station and mark their ballot paper with a pencil in a booth.
Riise responded by saying that these issues have been under consideration for well over 20 years.
He said there is already some technology in place to improve counts, but “in terms of capturing votes of individuals, it is not something that is likely to be seen on the horizon in the near future”.
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