Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will commission research on the effect of levels of functional illiteracy on electoral registration rates.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In its democratic engagement plan, Every Voice Matters: Building a Democracy That Works For Everyone, the Government explored key barriers to registration identified through research and face to face engagement. We are tackling these barriers, including those faced by survivors of domestic abuse, homeless electors and young people, and have reported on our progress in our follow up report, Democratic Engagement: Respecting, Protecting and Promoting our Democracy.
Although it did not emerge as a factor in its own right, we are aware of the potential contribution that lack of literacy makes to the under registration of a number of groups, such as those with learning disabilities, homeless people and those with specific language barriers.
The voter registration website is reviewed regularly to ensure it meets the Government’s service design standards to make it as easy to use as possible and we have produced easy read guides to registering to vote in partnership with Mencap. We are also working with civil society organisations to encourage engagement with those under registered groups who are more likely to experience lower levels of literacy.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what his most recent estimate is of the electoral registration rate for each region of the UK.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Cabinet Office does not hold this information. Registration statistics, including a breakdown of the numbers of people registered in each UK region, are available from the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) website: www.ons.gov.uk
Estimates of the completeness and accuracy – including those for regions across the UK – are published by the Electoral Commission. The latest report on register completeness and accuracy was produced by the Electoral Commission in 2016 and is available online: www.electoralcommission.org.uk.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what (a) central Government and (b) local government databases electoral registration officers may use in undertaking their registration functions.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Regulation 23 of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 and the Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 2001 gives Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) wide-ranging powers to request whatever information and data they require for the purposes of maintaining the electoral registers. EROs are therefore entitled to request datasets from organisations which would help them undertake their registration functions.
Online applications via the Register to Vote website are verified via the Individual Electoral Registration Digital Service (IER DS) using Department for Work and Pensions data. EROs also use local government data in carrying out their registration duties. Commonly used datasets include council tax, housing and housing benefit data, adult social care data, and school admissions data.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many electoral registration officers have been convicted of an offence related to failure to take sufficient steps to register electors under section 9A of the Electoral Registration Act 2006.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Cabinet Office is not aware of any convictions of electoral registration officers under section 9A of the Electoral Registration Act 2006.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Answer of 20 July 2010, Official Report, column 298W, on Electoral Register, how many electoral registration officers have been convicted of an offence related to failure to take sufficient steps to register electors under section 9A of the Electoral Registration Act 2006.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Cabinet Office is not aware of any convictions of electoral registration officers under section 9A of the Electoral Registration Act 2006.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what additional central Government funding was made available to electoral registration officers for electoral registration in each of the last five years; and which local authorities were successful in bidding for that funding.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Since 2015, Cabinet Office has provided five years of annual grant funding to Electoral Registration Officers in England, Scotland and Wales to cover the additional cost that Individual Electoral Registration (IER) introduced to the registration system.
Initial in-year allocations are paid to all local authorities in England and Wales, and valuation joint boards in Scotland as early in the financial year as possible. If local authorities/valuation joint boards require further additional funding, they are required to submit a justification led bid (JLB) towards the end of the financial year.
Since 2015, the Cabinet Office has provided £96M to cover these additional costs
● 15/16, £27M
● 16/17, £21M
● 17/18, £18M
● 18/19, £16M
● 19/20, £14M (initial allocations announced and payments being processed – does not include JLB funding.)
Since 2015/16, 50% of the Local Authorities and Valuation Joint Boards have received additional JLB funding on top of the initial allocation in at least one of the years of funding.
It is anticipated that plans to reform the annual canvass of electors will significantly reduce the overall cost of electoral registration and place electoral registration services on a more sustainable footing.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what (a) national and (b) local authority databases may be inspected by electoral registration officers.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Regulation 23 of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 and the Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 2001 gives Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) wide-ranging powers to request whatever information and data they require for the purposes of maintaining the electoral registers. EROs are therefore entitled to request datasets from organisations which would help them undertake their registration functions.
Online applications via the Register to Vote website are verified via the Individual Electoral Registration Digital Service (IER DS) using Department for Work and Pensions data. EROs also use local government data in carrying out their registration duties. Commonly used datasets include council tax, housing and housing benefit data, adult social care data, and school admissions data.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, which local authorities have failed one or more Electoral Commission performance indicators for electoral registration in each of the last four years.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Electoral Commission sets performance standards for Electoral Registration Officers and assesses how they are delivering against these standards. Reports on delivery against the performance standards for electoral registration are produced by the Electoral Commission and can be found at: www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/electoral-administrator/performance-standards-data/performance-in-running-electoral-registration
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what information he holds on the cost to the public purse of (a) central and (b) local government spending on advertising to promote voter registration in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Electoral Commission (EC) has a statutory responsibility to promote awareness of elections, including registration. In this capacity, the EC leads public awareness campaigns on voter registration, notably ahead of elections.
The Government does not have an allocated budget for advertising voter registration deadlines
The exception was a government funded campaign in 2015 targeted specifically at overseas electors. The budget was £500k and new registrations increased by 570%, exceeding the target to receive 100k new applications from overseas electors before the registration deadline.
We do not hold any figures on local government spending on advertising to promote voter registration.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of ring-fencing funds allocated by his Department to local government for the purpose of voter registration.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Funding for the annual household canvass and year round electoral registration (in addition to funding for polls at a local level) is paid for by the local authority using monies from the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) provided through MHCLG and the revenue raised by the authority through council tax, business rates and any reserves. This provides the majority of the funding for electoral registration.
Since the transition to Individual Electoral Registration (IER) in 2014, central Government has provided annual direct funding to local authorities to cover the additional costs of IER compared to the previous household system.
Since 2015/16, five years of annual funding has been provided by Cabinet Office to cover these additional costs, totalling £96M to date. It is expected that planned reform of the annual canvass of electors will significantly reduce the overall cost of registration. The Government is not therefore minded to make an assessment of the potential merits of ring-fencing IER grant funding.
Electoral Registration Officers are responsible for delivering electoral registration services and securing funding from the local authorities that appoint them. It is for local authorities to decide how they allocate their budgets.