Fife is the third largest local authority in Scotland, with a population of approximately 356,000. It stretches from the harbour town of Tayport on the Firth of Tay to Inverkeithing on the Firth of Forth, and from Kincardine to Crail through the mining towns of Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly.

There will be 78 councillors as before, but they will come from 23 electoral wards and, whatever the voting patterns, there will be many new faces with more than half the sitting councillors retiring.

At one time, Fife was a rock-solid Labour stronghold, with its former mining communities and two ex-communists on the council who stood as independents. One in three voters supported Labour in 2003, giving them 36 seats.

But the Liberal Democrats secured 23 with 25.2% of the votes, and the SNP 11 with 20.8% of the votes. While the Conservatives polled 10.3% of the votes that was enough for only two councillors, while the independents managed five with just 8.1%.

It is almost certain that two out of three from Labour, the LibDems, and SNP will have to reach some sort of agreement after May 3. All are hedging their bets about who they might hop into bed with.

Labour says it has fulfilled all its manifesto promises and is urging the electorate to concentrate on what it has delivered. Officials hope the vote will be on local issues, not influenced by UK issues.

Labour leader Anne McGovern and her depute, Alexander Thomson, are among several from the party retiring, but they point to the fact they have built a dozen new schools and invested heavily in green projects as being among their successes.

They are also proud of the fact they have worked closely with the unions to settle equal pay claims in a £30m deal and reach agreement on the introduction of single status agreement with the unions. Above all, they believe they have managed to help tailor the services to the changing needs and increasing expectations of the Fife population.

They have entered no formal coalitions but, at times, have been supported by the Liberal Democrats, who backed Labour on the building of new schools by PPP because they believed that was important for both the pupils and teachers. However, they have also opposed them and would not back the recent budget because it included a £250,000 cut which would significantly affect the voluntary sector.

The Liberal Democrats say they do not want to get involved in slanging matches with the other parties and would rather listen to what the electorate wants. They expect to be in a position to implement some of their own policies in the coming term.

High on their list of priorities would be looking at more efficient energy use in council buildings to avoid "huge amounts of waste" and they would also review the cuts in the voluntary sector.

The SNP priority would be education because, it says, Fife's education attainment is below the Scottish average yet Labour still cut several million from education in the last budget. The Nationalists say although Fife is the third biggest authority in Scotland, it is one of the poorest funded, and the Scottish Executive needs to be "attacked" on the numbers.

They are also deeply concerned about community services such as swimming pools, which they say are deteriorating while the need for them grows because of drug and alcohol problems among youngsters.

The independents say they want to clamp down on antisocial behaviour which plagues every area and curb teenage binge drinking. In central Fife, there have been 144 failures in the "test purchase" scheme showing how easy it is for underage youngsters to buy drink in off-licences.

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