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.
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 it his policy to collate information on the (a) amount spent by local authorities on electoral registration, (b) number of staff employed by local authorities on electoral registration and (c) local authorities with the (i) highest and (ii) lowest levels of electoral registration.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Government maintains an estimate of the annual cost of electoral registration. This is supported by cost data from Electoral Registration Officers and volume data provided by electoral management systems and other sources of information.
The Government recognises that Electoral Registration Officers within local authorities are best placed to make decisions on how best to target their work to ensure their electoral registers are complete and accurate. We welcome the sharing of best practice between local authorities on increasing levels of registration. The Electoral Commission provides guidance for EROs and sets and monitors their performance against standards under their Performance Standards Framework, details of which can be found on the EC’s website https://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, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of using vehicle registration databases held by the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency to increase levels of voter registration.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Prior to the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration (IER) in 2014, the potential benefits of using Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) data as part of implementing IER were assessed. This investigation demonstrated that DVLA data could not readily be used to verify individuals’ identity, nor ascertain the names and addresses of people who are not registered but are entitled to be registered to vote.
The Government decided upon using National Insurance Numbers for verifying applicant’s identities during the registration process.
The Government is committed to increasing the levels of voter registration and voter registration processes are subject to ongoing review.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many local authorities in England have reduced their total workforce by (a) 500-999 employees, (b) 1,000-1,999 employees and (c) over 2,000 employees since 2010.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of people employed by local authorities in England in (a) 2010 and (b) 2019.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether there is a protocol in place to inform Members when Departments change (a) correspondence, (b) secretarial and (c) ministerial e-mail addresses.
Answered by David Lidington
It is the responsibility of every Department to inform Members of changes to correspondence, secretarial or ministerial e-mail addresses.
Contact details for each Department are made available on GOV.UK.
The List of Ministerial Responsibilities also contains Department's contact email addresses. An update to the document is expected in the summer.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many civil servants working for central Government departments in each pay band were based in each (a) nation and (b) region of the UK in each of the last three years.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
This information has been placed in the Library.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the proportion of public sector workers that have reported mental ill health in each of the last three years.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.