By Paul Hutcheon Scottish Political Editor

THE Scottish government is to launch a bid to separate future Holyrood elections from council ballots, parliament minister Bruce Crawford said today.

It will publish a consultation paper on the best way of decoupling the two separate polls next week.

SNP MSP Crawford urged politicians from opposing parties to put their differences aside and "work together to rebuild the public's trust in our voting system".

As well as launching the consultation paper, the government will publish its response to a report by elections expert Ron Gould, which found that voters were treated as an "afterthought".

In the Holyrood ballot in May, 146,099 votes were rejected along with 38,352 votes in the local government elections.

First Minister Alex Salmond has said his administration accepted in full the recommendations of the Gould report.

Crawford said: "We believe - as does the parliament - that the key step would be for the further devolution of executive and legislative powers to the Scottish government and the Scottish parliament for the conduct of its own elections."

Labour's Scotland Office minister David Cairns said: "Both Labour and the Conservatives have made it clear that they do not want to devolve legislative competence for the elections."