The SNP again secures the largest number of councillors in Scotland, and gains control of Dundee
Scottish Labour takes control of West Dunbartonshire as it overtakes the Conservatives to become the second largest party
The Liberal Democrats and the Greens both increased their number of councillors
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross blamed partygate after losing more than 60 councillors
The SNP finished with 453 councillors (+22), Labour with 282 (+20), the Tories with 214 (-63), the Liberal Democrats with 87 (+20) and the Greens with 35 (+16). There are 152 Independent councillors
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) elected female councillors for the first time in five years
Alex Salmond’s Alba party failed to secure any councillors
The Single Transferable Vote (STV) election method - in which candidates are ranked - was used in this election
Newly elected councillors will be responsible for running a range of vital services, including bin collections, schools and social care
Labour gains overall control
Scottish Labour has gained overall control of West Dunbartonshire Council.
The party gained four council seats to take 12 of the 22 wards.
The SNP won nine, down one, and the Conservatives lost both their seats.
A Residents Association candidate won the remaining seat
SNP remain largest party
The breakdown in the Stirling Council remains exactly the same as 2017.
The SNP have seven council seats, the Conservatives six and Labour five.
A single Scottish Green and an independent councillor make up the rest of the council.
It was previously run by SNP/Labour partnership.
All independents except for two Scottish Greens
Orkney is the first council in Scotland to declare all its results.
It returned 19 independent councillors and two Scottish Greens, one more than in 2017.
John Ross Scott had been an independent but was elected as a Green along with Kristopher Leask.
The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford has just given his reaction to the results so far.
Mr Blackford says: "At the end of the day, I think the important story from Scotland is the fact the Tories have been rejected. Their vote is down."
Blackford on Scottish elections: Tories have been rejected
Quote MessageWhat really is important today is the voters have sent a message to Boris Johnson. I think really there's two things that count: one is, of course, the cost of living crisis and more needs to be done. The other issue is Partygate and I think that people in Scotland have made it very clear that they want no more of this from Boris Johnson and his Conservatives."
Although we haven't had full council results yet, we're still getting results in from across Scotland. We've seen Scottish Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrats making early gains, with the Conservatives falling back. But remember, it's still early...
Image source, bb
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton
The leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats says he’s hopeful his party has taken a big leap forward at the local elections.
Watching the early results at the EICC in Edinburgh, Alex Cole-Hamilton said “he’s over the moon” the Lib Dems are picking up seats they didn’t know were in play.
Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert
In Scotland, the first preference vote has now been declared for 15% of the wards in Scotland.
It looks as though the Conservatives are going to suffer perhaps an even bigger reverse north of the border than they have experienced in England.
Their share of the vote is currently down by six points, while Labour are up by two points. If this pattern continues then Labour will displace the Conservatives from second place for the first time in a Scottish election since 2016.
Among the pro-independence parties, the SNP are up by 1.5 points and the Greens are up by 2.5 points.
However it should be kept in mind that the SNP did not do particularly well in the 2017 local elections and the party seems to be suffering where the Greens are making a significant advance.
As south of the border, the Liberal Democrats are performing somewhat better than anticipated, with a two point increase in their share of the vote so far.
Jamie McIvor
BBC Scotland News Correspondent
Two CalMac ferries are being built at Port Glasgow's Ferguson shipyard.
Inverclyde is a key council to watch.
The council covers Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow - the home of the Ferguson shipyard.
So far there have been results from two wards in Inverclyde plus a third which was uncontested.
One of Alba’s two councillors has failed to be re-elected.
But the political make-up of the three wards is just as it was in 2017.
Both Labour and the SNP are hopeful they may emerge as the largest party once all the votes are counted.
BBC Scotland will provide extensive coverage of all the results in the local election
We're bringing you all the results from Scotland, with the first results expected before lunchtime.
Journalists will be reporting from around the country as the compositions of the councils become clear.
You can also follow all the results as they come in on Twitter, external.
On TV, Reporting Scotland will have the latest at 13:30, 18:30 and 22:30 on BBC One Scotland.
And The Seven will be on the BBC Scotland channel at 19:00.
On BBC Radio Scotland there'll be in-depth reports and analysis on Lunchtime Live, 12:00-13:30 and Drivetime, 16:00-18:00.
Counting is under way across Scotland with 32 councils to be elected. Here's the latest tally of councillors for each party:
The SNP's Susan Thomson has been elected the Western Isles' first female councillor since 2012.
When islanders last went to the polls in 2017, for the first time in its history no women were elected to the islands' local authority Comhairle nan Eilean Siar.
Since then, workshops and other initiatives have been held to encourage women to stand.
Eight women - one more than in 2017 - put themselves forward as candidates.
Based on results declared so far, only Ms Thomson has been elected while three others have been unsuccessful. She will represent ward two - Uibhist a Deas, Eirisgeigh agus Beinn na Faoghla.
Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert
As in the overnight results in England, the Liberal Democrats might be producing an unexpected increase north of the border.
So far, their vote is up on average by a couple of points in the wards they fought this time and last time. This might at least help the party to retain some of the bastions of local strength on which it is particularly reliant north of the border.
There are so far two key patterns of note in the variation in Conservative performance in Scoltand. The Conservative vote is falling more heavily in wards where they were previously strongest.
This means the party is at risk of suffering a particularly sharp decline in seats.
In the first seven wards that have been declared in which an Alba candidate stood the party has averaged 1.5% of the first preference vote.
It looks as though Alex Salmond's party is going to make as little impression in these elections as it did 12 months ago.
Image source, Getty ImagesNicola Sturgeon joined Susan Aitken on the election campaign
In a significant result in Glasgow, the SNP's Susan Aiken has been beaten to first place by the Greens.
The former leader of Glasgow City Council was re-elected in Langside but she was overtaken by Green candidate Holly Bruce on first preference votes.
The Langside result: Two SNP, one Scottish Green, one Labour councillor elected.
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With results coming in from wards across Scotland, it's worthwhile having a glance at the rest of the UK to see what is happening there.
From Fraser McMillan, research associate, University of Glasgow
The Conservatives did very well in Scotland in the 2017 local elections, nearly doubling their share of first preference votes over 2012 to 25% and becoming the largest party in four local authorities. Weeks later they achieved their best Scottish Westminster general election result in a generation.
That high watermark, achieved under the leadership of Ruth Davidson, might exaggerate the scale of the Conservatives’ local losses today. Early results suggest the party could be set to lose much or all of the ground they gained five years ago.
Current leader Douglas Ross has been quick to point the finger at Partygate and voter apathy. But he has received criticism for walking back his call for Boris Johnson to resign over the scandal.
Scottish Election Study survey data from the time of the 2021 Holyrood election suggests that Conservative-leaning voters were much more likely to “lend” a constituency vote to Labour than vice versa to block the SNP. It’s not out of the question that Labour could have brought some of these voters into their camp yesterday.
Image source, bbcThe Scottish Greens have won their first ever seat in the Scottish Borders.
Neil Mackinnon has been elected in the Galashiels and District ward.
The SNP’s Fay Sinclair took the most first preference votes in the ward, with the Conservatives’ Euan Jardine and the Lib Dems’ Hannah Steel, who is the granddaughter of former Liberal leader, MP and Scottish Parliament presiding offer David Steel, also elected.
The Scottish Greens also increased their vote share in the two other wards declared so far in the Scottish Borders: Tweeddale East and Tweeddale West.
Former first minister and ex-SNP leader Alex Salmond has been spotted at the count in Aberdeen, where he is supporting candidates of the Alba party.
He set up the independence-supporting party ahead of the last Holyrood elections, but it failed to win any seats.
More than 100 Alba candidates were expected to run in this year's Scottish council elections, including some who had defected from other parties mid-term.
The first declaration in Aberdeen came from the Bridge of Don ward, with the SNP's Alison Alphonse and Jessica Mennie elected alongside Labour's Nurual Hoque Ali and Conservative Sarah Cross.
Image source, Comhairle nan Eilean SiarA photograph taken after 2017's election of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar's successful candidates
There has been a lot of attention on the results in the Western Isles.
When islanders last went to the polls in 2017, for the first time in its history no women were elected to the islands' local authority Comhairle nan Eilean Siar.
Since then, workshops and other initiatives have been held to encourage women to stand.
Eight women - one more than in 2017 - put themselves forward as candidates.
So far, with three results declared, two of them - Annie Macdonald and Dorothy Morrison - have been unsuccessful.
Seven men have been elected.
From Fraser McMillan, research associate, University of Glasgow
If you voted yesterday you’ll remember numbering candidates 1, 2, 3 and so on rather than leaving the usual X on the ballot paper. Since 2007 the Scottish local elections have been conducted using a system called Single Transferrable Vote, a form of ranked choice voting.
This is designed to provide more proportional representation than the First Past the Post system used in earlier years. However, because councils are composed of a number of smaller wards which usually return just three or four councillors, the overall results in each area sometimes don’t reflect first preferences very well.
Inverclyde is a good example from the last council election in 2017. In this authority, the SNP won more first preferences than Labour with 33% vs. 27%. But the individual ward results left Labour with eight seats to the SNP’s seven. The Conservatives also felt hard done by as they picked up just two of 22 total seats with an 18% share of first preferences.
In Inverclyde this time around, Labour have struggled to find candidates for a number of wards, so the SNP will be disappointed if they can’t translate their expected lead in first preferences into seats.
Glenn Campbell
BBC Scotland Political Editor
Image source, Getty ImagesBoris Johnson and Douglas Ross may have to manage their own expectations
There’s a spin war going on even before we have many results.
A Scottish Conservative source has briefed that the party is braced for heavy losses and that Boris Johnson and Partygate are to blame.
However, the former Tory MSP Adam Tomkins has described this as “nonsense”, arguing that Scottish party leader Douglas Ross must own any setback.
He’s criticised Mr Ross for flip-flopping over whether or not the PM should resign.
A party source has hit back pointing out that the Tories are also losing ground in England as well - for which Douglas Ross cannot be responsible.
Labour expect to leapfrog the Tories into second place at least in vote share, if not the number of councillors elected across Scotland.
They also think the Tories might be exaggerating their likely losses to manage expectations.
The first couple of results from the Borders certainly show a big drop in Tory support but no seat losses.