By Brian Allison, local government reporter

NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN the parties on the new Dundee City Council have begun in earnest to try to form an administration.

With the election, the weekend and Monday’s public holiday all out of the way, the political groups started meeting each other yesterday in a bid to make some sense of the numbers the electorate have handed to them.

No party has enough councillors to be able to take overall control.

The SNP are the largest single party with 13 members, Labour have 10, the Conservatives are on three and the Liberal Democrats have two, while Ian Borthwick remains the sole Independent on the 29-member council.

The Nationalists and the Lib Dems met yesterday morning for talks which new SNP group leader Ken Guild described as “amicable and constructive”, a view echoed by the Lib Dem leader Fraser Macpherson.

However, both men stressed that no deal had been done and that they would also be talking to other groups on the council.

While the SNP would prefer to be able to command enough votes for a majority, Mr Guild has said they will attempt to operate as a minority administration if that does not prove possible.

He said they intended talking to the Conservatives and Mr Borthwick, although it was again emphasised that there could be no formal coalition between the SNP and the Tories.

The Lib Dems also spoke with the Tories yesterday and Tory group leader Rod Wallace said they had discussed “issues in the interests of both groups and the city in general.”

Mr Wallace said there had not yet been any approaches to the Tories from either the SNP or Labour groups.

Talks last night between Lib Dem and Labour councillors were described by Mr Macpherson as positive.

He said it would be some time before any deal is agreed between the Lib Dems and another party and that a decision would have to wait for further talks with other groups.

A similar arrangement to that obtained in the last council, with Labour and the Lib Dems in coalition and supported by the Tories, would be sufficient for a majority, albeit by only one vote.

It is likely to take several days yet before it becomes clear who is going to form the new administration of the city council.