The Scottish independence referendum cost £2m more than expected to stage, at nearly £16m, after voter turnout hit record levels.
The Scottish government said the final administrative cost – for count officers, electoral returning officers, postage costs and the Electoral Commission – was £15.85m, equivalent to £4.38 per head for the 3.62 million people who took part.
Ministers had estimated in the referendum bill process that the administrative cost – which excludes the money spent by the rival Scottish and UK government campaigns – would be about £13.7m.
In an indication of the potential costs of the UK government’s referendum on EU membership, the staffing bill for counting officers employed on referendum night jumped from £8.3m to £10.8m, while the expense for electoral returning officers tripled from £333,000 to just over £1m.
The Royal Mail’s costs came in under budget, down from a forecast £2.4m to £1.6m. The highest spending council was Edinburgh, which hosted the national count centre, where the total cost reached £1.2m.
Prof John Curtice, an elections expert at Strathclyde University, said: “Democracy costs money. If you think it’s worthwhile asking people to address the question, then £5 per head seems reasonable to me. Compare it to how much a packet of fags costs.”
The UK-wide referendum on a new alternative vote (AV) electoral system in 2011 cost £75m, far less than the £100m predicted. But only 19 million people turned out for that referendum, just 41% of the total possible electorate and less than half the 86% turnout in the independence referendum.
John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, said the higher than expected cost in September 2014 was justified. He said the referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future “was a triumph for democracy and participation, with the highest turnout of any UK ballot for more than a century.
“While the Scottish government anticipated a very high turnout, potentially of more than 80%, these final costs reflect the significant, additional work done by the chief counting officer, counting officers and electoral registration officers to make sure as many people as possible registered to vote, the ballot ran smoothly and a result was declared as quickly as possible.”
John Lamont, the Scottish Conservative chief whip, suggested the cost may have been too high. He said: “Everyone accepts the independence referendum was a historical constitutional event and, therefore, will have had cost implications, but the fact remains that the SNP said the eventual bill for the taxpayer was going to be much lower. Many voters will feel this was a lot of money to spend for the nationalists to be told that most people prefer Scotland to remain in the UK.”
