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UK Local Elections 2026
22MAY

IfG counts 61 NOC councils, record

3 min read
10:09UTC

The Institute for Government counted 61 councils under No Overall Control after polling, the highest figure on record, and reframed the 7 May results as local dress rehearsals for the multi-party arithmetic Westminster may face at the next general election.

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PoliticsDeveloping
Key takeaway

Sixty-one councils now sit under No Overall Control, with three of them also litigating their own abolition.

The Institute for Government counted 61 councils under No Overall Control after polling, the highest figure since records began 1. The IfG reframed the 7 May results as "local dress rehearsals" for the multi-party Westminster arithmetic the next general election may produce, and recommended abolishing election-by-thirds in council elections to make partisan shifts more legible.

No Overall Control governance depends on negotiated coalitions or minority arrangements rather than majority control. Either route produces slower decision-making, higher service-delivery risk, and committee balances that can flip on a single suspension or defection. That is the structural read of the five-party fragmentation the pre-election MRP polls projected but could not convert into precise council-level forecasts. Three of the 61 NOC councils are simultaneously named in the LGR pre-action protocol letters, which means governance fragility and a live judicial review are now coexisting on the same balance sheet for Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Under election-by-thirds, a third of councillors stand each year in metropolitan and some district councils, smoothing the appearance of partisan swing across three cycles. The IfG argues abolition would surface the full scale of partisan shifts in a single round, making the 7 May result more legible to Whitehall planners. The recommendation runs into the institutional inertia of councils that prefer the smoothing effect.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

After the 7 May elections, 61 councils in England have no single party with a majority of seats. That is a record number. In those councils, nothing can be approved unless parties agree with each other or a minority group convinces enough other councillors to abstain. Decisions that would normally pass quickly become prolonged negotiations. The Institute for Government, a research body that studies how government works, observed that these 61 councils may be a preview of what happens if the next UK general election also produces no majority in parliament. MPs would face the same bargaining dynamics that local councillors in Essex, Bristol, or Oxford are already navigating. The IfG also wants to change the rules for local elections so that all a council's seats are contested at once, rather than in thirds over three years, which would make it easier to see how voters' views have shifted.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The 61-council figure derives from the convergence of three electoral patterns simultaneously. First, the five-party fragmentation the pre-election MRP models projected materialised almost exactly: no single party could convert plurality vote shares into seat majorities at council level under first-past-the-post.

Second, Reform UK's 2,126-seat haul is distributed across wards rather than concentrated, which means many councils where Reform has significant vote share do not have Reform-majority control. Third, the Liberal Democrat advance in southern and south-western councils, combined with Green advances in university cities, produced NOC situations even where the Conservatives had previously held solid majorities.

The IfG's election-by-thirds recommendation addresses the measurement problem rather than the governance problem. Under the current system, one-third of councillors in most urban councils stand each year for three years, then there is a fallow year.

This spreads the 7 May swing across three future cycles, making the council balance sheet appear to stabilise when the underlying national partisan shift has been large. Abolishing election-by-thirds would surface the full shift in a single round, making the governance challenge more legible but no less difficult to manage.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    Three of the 61 NOC councils are simultaneously facing LGR pre-action protocol letters, creating a situation where governance fragility and active litigation coexist on the same institutional balance sheet for Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.

    Short term · Reported
  • Risk

    If 61 NOC councils produce 61 different local governance arrangements, Whitehall's planning and funding allocation machinery, which assumes known lead political authorities, will face coordination delays on housing targets, infrastructure bids, and LGR implementation.

    Short term · Assessed
  • Opportunity

    The IfG's election-by-thirds abolition recommendation now has empirical evidence from a 61-council NOC wave to support it, making the reform more politically viable than before the 7 May results.

    Medium term · Assessed
Sources:Institute for Government
Mentions:Suffolk →England →Essex →Local Government Association →Whitehall →Norfolk →Westminster →Electoral Reform Society →Institute for Government →
First Reported In

Update #9 · Three constitutional contests open

Institute for Government· 22 May 2026
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