CGI Returns to Count Scotland’s 2027 Votes After One Bid

CGI IT UK holds the £12.75 million contract to scan Scotland’s 2027 council ballots, after an open tender drew one bid. The Scottish Government concluded the deal on 19 September 2025. The count is due on Friday 7 May 2027, the day after polling.

CGI ran the same service in 2012 and 2017. Fujitsu ran 2022. The latest contest, run as an open procedure, produced a single tender.

CGI Is Back as Prime for the 2027 Count

The award notice names CGI IT UK Limited of 20 Fenchurch Street, London, as the contractor for “DC-Electronic Counting for Scottish Local Government Elections 2027.” The job covers the scheduled 6 May 2027 local elections and, if councils buy the option, by-elections toward 2032. It does not hand CGI the running of the elections themselves. That stays with the 32 local authorities and their returning officers.

Print sits inside the deal. The notice lists ballot papers, postal vote packs and other printed materials among the award criteria, alongside security, system requirements, elections know-how, skills, Fair Work First and price. System requirements carried a 25% quality weighting. Price carried a weighting of 20, so this was never written as a pure cheapest-wins shootout, even before the field collapsed to one bidder.

The £12.75 million figure is a ceiling, not a guaranteed bill. The notice says it is the maximum anticipated spend over the whole life of the contract, and that actual spend will follow the volume and nature of services delivered. Optional extras include more kit, more staff, by-elections, pilots of different e-counting technology, and changes forced by policy or law.

About 40% of the work is likely to be subcontracted: 25% in software and elections operations, 13% in hardware and logistics, and 2% in training. The notice does not name those firms. CGI’s 2017 run used Idox in Glasgow for software, Dacoll in Bathgate for hardware and Rathmhor in Linlithgow for training, but that roster is not confirmed for 2027.

The Count Starts the Morning After Polling Day

Scottish council elections are not called overnight. Polling is on Thursday 6 May 2027. Returning officers then move sealed boxes to dedicated count centres, and the scanners are due to run on Friday 7 May. That is the same rhythm used in 2022, when votes were cast on 5 May and counted on 6 May.

THE 2027 COUNT IN FIGURES

• Polling day: Thursday 6 May 2027 across all 32 Scottish local authorities.
• Count day: Friday 7 May 2027, in dedicated centres rather than on election night.
• Contract ceiling: £12.75 million excluding VAT, described as a maximum rather than a fixed price.
• By-election option: Councils may buy electronic counts after 2027, with the notice stretching that option toward 2032.

CGI’s 2012 case study still gives the cleanest picture of how a full STV scan day actually feels. The first result, from Orkney, was complete by 10.30am. Highland, the last, finished at 6.15pm. In 2022 the Electoral Management Board for Scotland said every one of the 32 counts was done by late afternoon on 6 May.

The 2027 contractor will have to stand up kit, staff, print and training in every council area, then disappear again. CGI said its 2017 team ramped to 300 people in the crunch month, with technicians on site on polling day. The 2027 notice again buys additional staff as an option if a centre needs more hands than the base plan allows.

Why Scotland Counts STV With Machines

Council elections in Scotland use the Single Transferable Vote. Voters number candidates 1, 2, 3 and so on. Anyone who hits a quota is elected. Surplus votes, and then the votes of excluded candidates, transfer at reduced values until the seats are filled. The Electoral Management Board says a manual version of that arithmetic could take days.

Scotland has therefore scanned local ballots since STV arrived in 2007. The papers are still paper. Intelligent character recognition reads the marks, then a set of checks decides whether a paper can be counted at once or must go to a person. The Board’s 2023 factsheet says the system will typically send 15% and 20% of ballot papers to an adjudicator, often because a handwritten 1 can look like a 7 to software even when it is obvious to a human.

WHAT THE SCANNERS DO ON THE NIGHT

• Scan and read: Each paper is imaged and the preference marks are read by ICR software.
• Count the clear ones: Papers with a clean 1, 2, 3 sequence are counted without a human pause.
• Pass on doubt: Unclear marks go to an adjudicator, who can accept a clear intention but cannot reject a paper.
• Leave rejection to the RO: Only the returning officer or a depute can reject a ballot, and the system cannot do it on its own.
• Run the STV maths: Software that has been independently certified applies the quota, exclusions and transfers, then prints the result reports.

That split is the political core of the kit. The machine is fast. The legal decision on a spoiled paper still sits with a named official in a hall, in front of agents. If CGI’s 2027 build holds that line, Friday 7 May will look like 6 May 2022: a long scan, a pile of human adjudications, and results before the evening news rather than a three-day hand count.

Scotland Has Used Three Primes in Five STV Counts

The 2027 award is CGI’s third turn as prime, not a first date with the scanners. DRS Data and Research Services ran the 2007 debut, when Holyrood and the councils voted on the same day and the combined parliamentary ballot paper failed. CGI took 2012 with software partner Opt2vote, then 2017 with Idox. Fujitsu took 2022, again with Idox and with Elite Training.

THE LAST THREE AWARDED E-COUNT DEALS

CGI’s own 8 December 2015 newsroom post called the 2017 award a £6.5 million contract for the 2017 elections covering all 32 authorities and adding postal balloting to the 2012 scope. Minister for Local Government Marco Biagi said the government had “worked closely with our partners in local government to ensure a robust and transparent competition.” Mary Pitcaithly, then convener of the Electoral Management Board, tied the specification to the 2012 count.

Fujitsu’s 2022 cycle is the one CGI is replacing. Ivan McKee, answering a parliamentary question on 23 September 2025, put the Fujitsu contract of £6,345,172 as starting in October 2020 and due to conclude on 16 February 2027. Tom Arthur had already told MSPs in January 2024 that the counting software sat with a separate elections firm, the same specialist that had counted 2012 and 2017 as a CGI subcontractor, and that the kit remained in live use for by-elections.

Idox, naming itself in a 2 December 2020 stock-exchange statement, said the Fujitsu-era deal was its third consecutive Scottish e-count, after 2016 and 2017 print and software work, and that it was partnered with Fujitsu and Elite Training. Chief executive David Meaden called it “an important win for Idox” that improved revenue visibility. Whether that software house is the unnamed 25% slice of the 2027 contract is not stated in the award notice.

The 2007 opening night is why later governments kept buying scanners and also why they still talk about testing. Ron Gould’s independent review for the Electoral Commission recorded 38,352 rejected local papers, 1.83% of 2,099,945 local ballots, and 146,099 rejected parliamentary papers. Gould found the combined Holyrood ballot, not the scanners, drove the parliamentary spoil rate, and he did not treat e-counting as the thing to abandon if STV stayed.

By 2022 the Electoral Commission said voters were confident the elections were well run, with 97% satisfied with the process of voting, while the rejected ballot rate of 1.85% in 2022 was down from 1.96% in 2017. Glasgow Canal still hit 5.64%. Most rejected papers were not numbering candidates, often an X against more than one name.

Voter confidence in elections remains high, thanks to the dedicated work of election teams across Scotland. However, further action is needed to ensure everyone understands how to complete their ballot paper so their vote can count.

Sue Bruce, Electoral Commissioner for Scotland, Electoral Commission report on the May 2022 council elections

The 2022 operational complaint was narrower. Several returning officers told the Electoral Management Board that the supplier appointed supporting technical staff late, so those people were still learning the process close to count day. Setup problems followed in some halls. They were resolved, the Board said, but they left ROs uneasy. CGI inherits that memory as well as the 2012 and 2017 one.

An Open Tender That Attracted One Bid

The 2025 contest was advertised as an open procedure covered by the Government Procurement Agreement. A prior information notice on 2 July 2024 put the estimated value at £12 million and invited industry views, including on whether the work should be split into lots. Lots were not used. The contract notice went out on 28 March 2025. Bids closed on 30 May 2025.

The award notice records one tender for a £12.75 million maximum, none of it from an SME, received by electronic means from a non-EU bidder. CGI is a Canadian-listed IT firm; the UK company is not an SME. The 2015 award for 2017 had drawn two offers. Ten years later the documented field is one.

McKee, four days after the contract was signed, said the government was re-letting the e-counting contract by open procurement and was not then aware of Fujitsu tendering for any Scottish Government work. Exclusion, he said, would be considered case by case under the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015. The published tender count does not say Fujitsu was barred. It says nobody else handed in a bid.

£12.75 million is about double the Fujitsu award and nearly double CGI’s own £6.5 million 2017 deal. The comparison is crude, because the 2027 ceiling includes a by-election option running years past polling day, and because the notice warns that actual spend will follow volume. It is still the price of a market with one documented bidder.

Outside the procurement portals, the award has barely been argued in public. A specialist STV scan for 32 halls on one Friday is a thin trade, and a one-bid result fits that thinness more than it fits a noisy scandal. The cost of that quiet is simple. There was no second price on the table, and no second technical bid for returning officers to hold up against CGI’s.

Holyrood’s Audit Has the Work in Delivery

Holyrood’s Public Audit Committee, in its June 2026 major IT projects report, is the first official status check after the award. The project is listed as Electronic Vote Counting: Local Government Elections May 2027. Shona Riach, Director General Exchequer, Strategy and Performance, is the accountable officer. Luke McBratney, Deputy Director, Elections and Constitutional Projects, is the senior responsible owner.

THE ROAD TO 7 MAY 2027

1. 2 July 2024: A prior information notice estimates the requirement at £12 million and asks the market how to shape the buy.
2. 28 March 2025: The contract notice is published as an open procedure, reference CASE/692538.
3. 30 May 2025: The tender deadline passes.
4. 19 September 2025: The contract is concluded with CGI IT UK Limited.
5. 30 September 2025: The award notice is published at 1:56pm, recording one tender and a £12.75 million maximum.
6. November 2025: The audit tracker still has the project in planning at a £12 million whole-life cost to the Scottish Government.
7. June 2026: The same tracker moves the project to delivery, still at £12 million, with zero months of schedule slip and zero cost variance against a February 2024 to May 2027 baseline.

Those two money figures describe different things. The £12.75 million on the award notice is the contract maximum, including optional by-elections. The £12 million on the audit tracker is the Scottish Government’s whole-life cost for the May 2027 count. The committee’s narrative says the by-election extension, toward January 2032, is optional, that councils pay those counts themselves, and that this extra slice is excluded from the whole-life cost. Assurance reviews had not resumed because the project had been in procurement and mobilisation.

On that official measure, a year on from signature, the work is in delivery, on its original end date, and still booked at £12 million to the Scottish Government. The scanners have not run yet. Friday 7 May 2027 is the test that the tracker cannot score in June 2026.

The People Who Can Still Reject a Ballot

Returning officers remain the legal centre of the count. CGI supplies the scan, the software and the staff package. The notice repeats that the conduct of the elections stays with local authorities. Adjudicators in the hall can accept a clear preference. They cannot throw a paper out. Only the returning officer or a depute can reject a vote, and Gould’s old warning still sits behind that rule: the voter has to be able to see who decided.

CGI’s Fair Work package, written into the award notice, is the other human side of a machine count. The contractor has committed to pay staff on the contract the real Living Wage, the rate set independently and updated each year by the Living Wage Foundation.

WHAT CGI PROMISED AROUND THE CONTRACT

• Education: eCounting education packs, a Democracy and Technology Q&A, and election-week talks.
• Young staff: Two S4 to S6 work-experience and internship places, two graduate hires on the e-counting contract, and one apprentice on the same work.
• Local firms: A commitment to use local SMEs through the life of the deal.
• Environment: Three litter picks a year with the authority and clients, plus the Scottish Government Path to Zero pledge.

Those extras will not decide a ward. The 32 returning officers will, after a Friday of scanning and a stack of papers that look like a 1 to one pair of eyes and a 7 to a camera. CGI has done that Friday before. Fujitsu did the last one. In 2027 there is no second contractor on the scorecard, and the halls will still be full of people who can stop a ballot the software wants to count.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Electronic Counting the Same as Electronic Voting?

No. Voters still mark paper ballots in polling stations and by post. The machines scan those papers and apply STV arithmetic; they are not voting terminals. The Electoral Management Board says each paper carries a unique code that must match a list of valid codes for the ward, and that a duplicated or unmatched code is sent to the returning officer rather than counted as a normal vote.

Who Counted Scottish Council Elections Before 2027?

DRS ran the first STV e-count in 2007. CGI was prime for 2012, with Opt2vote as the software partner, and again for 2017, with Idox in Glasgow. Fujitsu was prime for 2022, with Idox and Elite Training named as partners, on a contract McKee put at £6,345,172 from October 2020 to 16 February 2027. The 2027 award notice does not name CGI’s software subcontractor.

Who Pays for an Electronic By-Election Count?

Local authorities pay for electronically counted by-elections if they take that option. The Public Audit Committee’s June 2026 note says the extension toward January 2032 exists so councils can buy those services, that this slice is optional, and that its potential value is excluded from the Scottish Government’s £12 million whole-life cost for the May 2027 count.

Can the Counting System Be Reached From the Internet?

The Electoral Management Board’s 2023 factsheet says each count centre is separate, with no link between centres and no connection between the counting system and the internet, so the kit cannot be reached from outside the hall. Security features inside the system are meant to flag tampering, and suspected fakes or duplicate codes go to the returning officer with the physical papers.