Who can lead Dumfries and Galloway Council?

A special meeting of Dumfries and Galloway Council (DGC) is to be held after a number of councillors quit the Conservative group which leads the local authority.

It left them with just nine of the 43-strong council in the south-west of Scotland.

Now a request has been received to hold a special full council meeting which will take place on 16 June.

If it leads to a change of control it would be the third istration to try running the authority in the space of three years.

The Conservatives previously formed the biggest single political group on the council with 16 .

Seven of them have now left - four to form a group called Novantae and three to create the Dumfries and Galloway Independent Group.

It means their numbers have now fallen behind those of the SNP, which has 11.

DGC confirmed it had received a call for a special meeting on Tuesday which will have to be held within a fortnight.

It could see the current istration replaced after a little more than two years in charge.

Following the decision by a number of Conservative councillors to leave the group there are now nine different groupings or individuals on the authority.

The SNP has 11 councillors followed by the Conservatives with nine and Labour on eight.

Newly-formed Novantae has four, the Democratic Alliance three, Dumfries and Galloway Independents three, Independents three and one each for the Lib Dems and "not-specified".

It means that no coalition of just two groups could achieve an outright majority.

After elections in May 2022, an alliance was formed between the SNP, Labour, Lib Dems and independents to run the council.

They said they hoped to serve the region while working together in the name of "mutual trust and understanding".

However, that coalition fell apart after less than a year and the Conservatives took over to lead an istration without an overall majority.

Earlier this year they were unable to take forward their own budget plans but remained in control.

Now a block of councillors has quit the group - some of them citing concerns about how the west of the region was being represented.

It has swiftly been followed by the submission of the request for a special meeting of the council which could pave the way for another change.

However, the other two biggest political groups on the council have already been involved in an istration which folded after less than 12 months in charge.

It would take at least three groups - and potentially as many as seven - to form an outright majority.

It will also be some time before the composition of the council is likely to change significantly.

The next local authority elections are not scheduled until May 2027.