Chris Ruane

The Electoral Commission does not take steps to encourage the take up of particular ways people can cast their vote, but rather provides guidance to support voters in taking their own informed decision.

The only exception to this relates to overseas voters in the lead-up to a poll; where such voters are concerned that their returned postal ballot may not arrive in time, we specifically highlight the option of appointing a proxy.

The Electoral Commission does not hold data on how many electors have registered online; these figures will be held by the UK Government, which manages the online registration service.

The Commission promotes voter registration ahead of specific electoral events through paid-for advertising campaigns. Directing people who are not registered to the government’s online registration page is the central call to action of this campaign activity.

The Commission assessed the suitability of measures relating to electoral registration in preparing its Corporate Plan 2018/19 – 2022/23. The resulting document includes additions to the register as a measure of performance. We also have an impact indicator which relates to the levels of accuracy and completeness of the electoral registers in the UK.

The Commission has spent no money on this. Direct advertising (or marketing) does not form part of the Commission’s approach to its work encouraging voter registration.

National Voter Registration Day was an initiative led by Bite the Ballot, which last took place in February 2016. As part of its activity to support the project, the Commission did not place any Facebook advertising.

The Commission produces comprehensive written guidance for Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) which covers the annual canvass process, including the sending of household enquiry forms. The guidance also covers targeting home movers, and the Commission also provides tools and resources to help EROs with carrying out this work.

Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) have a statutory duty to maintain the electoral registers and to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that all those eligible (and no others) are registered. While the Electoral Commission sets standards for and monitors the performance of Electoral Registration Officers, these do not relate directly to this statutory duty. For this, EROs are independent statutory officers who are directly accountable to the courts.

The Electoral Commission has published comprehensive guidance for Electoral Registration Officers, which covers the requirements and processes for imposing civil penalties for failing to respond to a requirement to register. The Commission does not provide training for Electoral Registration Officers.

The Electoral Commission does not hold this data.

The Electoral Commission does not measure changes in levels of voter registration at a local authority level. The only reliable method for assessing registration levels (the completeness of the registers) is through research using house-to-house surveying, to gather data on residents and match this against information held on the electoral registers.

The Commission carries out such studies at regular intervals but they do not allow for an assessment of registration for individual local authorities, which would be prohibitively expensive owing to the size of sample required.

As part of the Commission’s guidance and support programme for electoral administrators, it works closely with the electoral community to identify and share good electoral practice. This includes highlighting specific examples of good practice in electoral registration and embedding them throughout its suite of guidance and resources for electoral registration officers.

The Electoral Commission sets standards for and monitors the performance of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). These standards have the objective of ensuring that all eligible people are able to participate in the electoral process.

The Commission provides guidance to EROs to support them in delivering their functions and meeting the performance standards. In developing this guidance to improve the accessibility of electoral registration services, the Commission works with a variety of disability organisations – including groups representing electors with sight loss and learning difficulties – to ensure its work reflects good practice.

The Electoral Commission conducts research into the accuracy and completeness of the electoral registers in the UK at regular intervals. The most recent study was published in 2016 and was an assessment of the December 2015 registers.

The study provided findings on attainers for Great Britain and separately for Northern Ireland. Below the headline findings, it was not possible to report separately for England, Scotland and Wales because of the size of the sample used in the research.

In December 2015, the Commission found that 45% of attainers in Great Britain and 8% in Northern Ireland were correctly registered.

The results of the Commission’s next accuracy and completeness study will be published in autumn 2019.

The Commission has collected and published information about allegations of electoral fraud from the police since 2008.

The table below shows the number of successful prosecutions for allegations of postal vote and electoral registration fraud. It splits convictions for postal vote fraud into those relating to applications to vote by post and those relating to voting by post.

Number of successful prosecutions relating to postal vote fraud

The police-recorded cases of alleged personation offences in 2008 and 2009 were not broken down to record the type of personation, i.e. polling station, postal voting or proxy voting. It is for this reason these figures are not available.

The Commission believes that registering young people automatically when they are allocated their National Insurance number would be an effective way of improving completeness levels among attainers.

It recently published the findings of feasibility studies examining the potential for data sharing between organisations holding reliable information about citizens and Electoral Registration Officers. It found that data sharing could be achieved by linking national data sources to the individual electoral registration service, which is already connected to the systems used by Electoral Registration Officers to manage their electoral registers.

In this way, it would be possible for information about young people allocated National Insurance numbers to be shared with Electoral Registration Officers, to support automatic or automated electoral registration.

The Electoral Commission’s performance standards framework has not involved any formal notifications to Members of Parliament since 2014. Assessments of the performance of EROs are made annually by the Commission and the details of any ERO who has not met the standards in full are made available on the Commission’s website.

The Electoral Commission’s performance standards framework has not involved any element of self-assessment by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) since 2014.

The Commission has not assessed any ERO as not meeting this specific element of the performance standards since its inclusion in 2016.

The Electoral Commission’s performance standards framework has not included any formal notifications to Members of Parliament since 2014. Assessments of the performance of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) are made annually by the Commission and the details of any ERO who has not met the standards in full are made available on the Commission’s website.

The Electoral Commission’s performance standards framework has not involved any element of self-assessment by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) since 2014.

Assessments of the performance of EROs are made annually by the Commission and the details of any ERO who has not met the standards in full are made available on the Commission’s website.

We know from our research of the electoral registers that voters from BME communities are less likely to be registered to vote when compared with white voters.

As part of all of its public awareness campaigns ahead of elections, the Electoral Commission provides voter registration resources to a wide range of groups or individuals, to use in encouraging registration. These are freely available via the Commission’s website or its ‘Roll Call’ newsletter, to which anyone can subscribe.

We also identify specific organisations who could help promote registration to under-registered groups and actively provide these partners with resources: these have recently included, for example, the Council of African and Caribbean Churches and the Muslim Women’s network. It also works closely with Electoral Registration Officers, who hold many important relationships with church and community leaders to promote voter registration at a local level.

The Commission most recently contacted Operation Black Vote ahead of the Government’s voter ID pilots which took place in May 2019, to seek a contribution to its statutory evaluation of the pilots. It did not receive a response.

We know from our research of the electoral registers that students and young people are less likely to be registered to vote.

As part of its public awareness campaigns ahead of elections, the Commission seeks to target under-registered groups wherever this is possible. This includes placing advertising on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, and buying TV advertising space during times when people aged 16 to 34 make up a larger proportion of the audience.

The Commission also provides voter registration resources to a wide range of groups or individuals, to use in encouraging registration. These are freely available via the Commission’s website or its ‘Roll Call’ newsletter, to which anyone can subscribe. Ahead of the elections in May 2019, it developed a number of resources in partnership with the National Union of Students, including social media images, posters and a resource pack for individual student unions.

The table below sets out the largest increases and decreases in the registered local government electorate, by local authority, from 1 December of one year to 1 December of the following year. For example, the 2010 row shows the change in the number of register entries between 1 December 2009 and 1 December 2010.

The Commission does not collect data on the spending per person on electoral registration by local authorities.

The EnAble Fund for Elected Office is a £250,000 interim fund and is available until March 2020 or until the £250,000 budget is exhausted. The Fund supported around 40 candidates at this month’s local elections.

We have commissioned an independent evaluation, which will be published after the Fund has ended next year.

The Government Equalities Office (GEO) confirms no GEO civil servants have been seconded to either the Department for Exiting the European Union or the Department for International Trade in the last three years.

The Electoral Commission sets performance standards for Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), relating to their duty to maintain accurate and complete electoral registers.

The Commission uses a risk-based approach to inform its monitoring of performance, and provides support and challenge to EROs as needed. It provides guidance and other resources to EROs to support them in promoting electoral registration; this includes examples of innovative tactics used by EROs to encourage applications to register to vote.

The House of Commons does not hold this information as there is no facility within the booking system to search for and draw off this information. I have asked officials to contact the hon. Member to discuss any particular concerns he has.

The Government Equalities Office (GEO) reports to Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, and works with Baroness Williams, Minister for Equalities, and Victoria Atkins, Minister for Women. It has not had a board since 2012, when its non-executive directors were Janet Soo-Chung CBE, Judy McKnight CBE and Peter Bungard.

In the Government reshuffle of 9 January, the Prime Minister appointed the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, as Minister for Women and Equalities.
The Government Equalities Office has an ambitious agenda to champion equality and help make Britain a place where everyone can succeed without facing discrimination. This work will continue under the leadership of the Home Secretary

We are in the process of confirming new governance arrangements to reflect this change.

In the 2017-18 Session, to date, no answer given by the Church Commissioners has referred to the information requested not being (a) collected or (b) collated centrally.

In the current parliamentary session (as at 19 December 2017), the Government Equalities Office have answered one (0.72 %) written parliamentary question explaining that the requested information was not available on the grounds of it not being collected. No parliamentary questions were answered explaining that the information is not held centrally. This is out of a total of 139 parliamentary questions that have been answered.

In the Session to date, the House of Commons Commission has received 30 Written Parliamentary Questions. Three of those questions – representing 10% of the total answers – have referred to the information not being (a) collected or (b) collated centrally: they referred to reported failures to wear a security pass, Specialist Adviser vacancies and average download speeds.

Since 2010, the Government Equalities Office (GEO) has undertaken a programme of activity to tackle gender inequality in the workplace, including through wide-ranging engagement with employers. Women have too long suffered disadvantage in the labour market, which is a barrier to social mobility. McKinsey estimates that bridging the gender gap in work would add £150 billion to the UK economy by 2025. We need to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

The full-time gender pay gap has fallen to a record low of 9.1%, and we are committed to eliminating the gender pay gap entirely. In 2017 we introduced requirements for all large employers to publish their gender pay and bonus gaps data by April 2018. These requirements will help employers identify and take action to close their gender pay gaps, which is key to accelerating progress.

Many women struggle to find good jobs that meet their needs after taking time out to care for children and other relatives. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that time out of the labour market has a substantial impact on women’s salaries. On returning to work, women earn around 2% less on average for every year spent out of paid work. In the 2017 budget, £5 million in funding was allocated to increasing opportunities and support for returners. We are working with employers across the public and private sector to understand how returners can be supported back into permanent employment, and co-ordinating new public sector programmes for returners across the country in a wide variety of roles.

The Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities recently launched the government’s ‘Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential’ plan to improve social mobility through education. GEO will be engaging with the wider Department for Education on the implementation of the plan.

The Parliamentary Health and Wellbeing Service (PHWS) support staff to help maintain and improve their physical and mental well-being.

PHWS offer a number of services including:

• healthcare advice to improve fitness and wellbeing
• wellbeing classes on the Parliamentary Estate, including yoga, pilates and mindfulness
• advice and guidance for staff with disabilities
• support to give up smoking plus dietary and lifestyle advice
• access to physiotherapy services.

The House also has a contract with Westminster Gym which provides employees, amongst others, to access to gym facilities and a range of classes and treatments.

Wellbeing support is also provided and includes counselling by Wellbeing Practitioners. Support, advice and guidance is also provided to help with issues such as:

• Mental Health
• Problems at home or work
• Ill health or ill health of loved ones
• Financial difficulties and debt
• Bereavement
• Alcohol and Drug issues

A minor treatment clinic is located in the Palace of Westminster. The Clinical Nurse Adviser can provide advice and information about illness, injuries at work, lifestyle and wellbeing issues. The Clinical nurse is able to refer clients onto specialist agencies or in-house services where necessary. Minor treatments such as dressings, ear syringing, removal of stitches and blood pressure monitoring can take place at this clinic.

The Service also runs Health & Wellbeing events. These are organised regularly during the parliamentary year and include an annual Wellbeing Day. This gives staff the opportunity to have an individual health check and obtain advice and guidance on health & wellbeing related issues.

I refer the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd, Chris Ruane to the answer I gave on 20 November 2017 to Question 112405 (http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-questions-answers/?page=1&max=20&questiontype=AllQuestions&house=commons%2clords&uin=112405) .

The Department for Education, including the Government Equalities Office, operates nine principal public phone lines. Calls to five of these lines are charged as UK-wide (0370), geographic (020) or public body (0300) numbers. Four of these are free-phone (0800 or 0808) numbers, which do not incur a charge.

The Electoral Commission collected data from Returning Officers for all UK constituencies following the UK Parliamentary general elections in 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015. The numbers of postal votes rejected by Returning Officers were as follows:

The Commission is collecting data from Returning Officers following the UK Parliamentary general election in June 2017. This data will be published in September 2017.

The Electoral Commission does not hold data on the number of 18 to 25-year olds living or registered to vote in UK Parliamentary constituencies.

The Electoral Commission’s most recent report on the accuracy and completeness of the electoral registers in Great Britain, which related to the 1 December 2015 registers, estimated that 71% of 20 to 24-year olds and 51% of 18 to 19-year olds were registered to vote at a current address.

The Electoral Commission undertakes voter registration and public awareness campaigns in the lead up to each major poll, including advertising targeted directly at recognised under-registered groups such as people aged 18 to 25 and UK citizens living overseas.

The tables below gives totals for advertising placed explicitly and exclusively to target these two audiences in the two campaigns run in the lead up to polls in May and June 2017. For the May elections, the figures include advertising targeted at 16-17 year olds given the lower voting age for these polls in Scotland.

People within these categories are also likely to see advertising which reaches them as part of different target groups (such as recent home movers), wider age groups (such as 18-35 year olds) or indeed advertising targeted at the general population. It is not possible to disaggregate these figures and include them here.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 17^th March 2015 by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office (Francis Maude) to Question UIN 227295.

Total advertising spend, excluding VAT, is set out in the table below. The figures include associated costs such as the production of creative services. A breakdown by category is not available.

Spend in FY 12-13, 13-14 & 14-15 includes advertising for the Green Deal. The Green Deal helps you make energy-saving improvements to your home and find the best way to pay for them.

During FY 14-15 we have allocated an advertising budget for the ‘Power to Switch Campaign’ as follows:

• £620,000 to develop, produce and supply advertisements. This includes budgets agreed with the agency to produce each of the TV and Radio advertisements;
• £4,100,000 to buy advertising space (including agency media buying and communications planning fees).

The FY 14-15 figure includes £335k spent on the ‘Power to Switch Campaign’. Actual final spends are not yet available.

The 'Power to Switch' campaign will run for 5 weeks and will include national, regional and online advertising, encouraging people to switch and save.

The Electoral Commission’s current campaign to target UK citizens living overseas has an overall budget of £132,000 and has a target of 100,000 additional registrations from overseas voters during the campaign period. If successful, the campaign would have a cost per registration of £1.32.

The Commission will report on the success of the campaign following the election, which will include reporting on the cost of registering overseas voters.

The response to registration campaigns varies considerably depending on levels of public interest in the election and until recently the Commission was only able to measure the number of registration forms downloaded, rather than actual additions to the register. During the Commission’s most recently completed overseas campaign which ran ahead of the 2014 European elections, the cost per download of each registration form was £10.13.

The Electoral Commission has a statutory duty to design certain electoral registration forms. These designs must be submitted to the Lord President of the Council for approval following which they must be provided for use by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs).

In doing this, the Commission must ensure that the forms collect all the information required by legislation, and so space to collect prescribed information therefore needs to be prioritised over requests for any additional information.

In designing the forms the Commission has also sought to focus on accessibility and ease of use by applicants.

The Commission has plans in place to evaluate the impact of its work to promote registration in the period leading up to the May 2015 elections. The Commission also provides guidance to EROs to support them in evaluating the impact of their activity locally, which includes advising them to take steps to record the level of responses as a result of an activity.

The Electoral Commission did not spend any money on Facebook targeted advertisements for National Voter Registration Day.

The Electoral Commission will publish an evaluation of Commission’s registration campaign in summer 2015. This will include results against the targets set for the campaign and information from tracking research with the public. It will also consider the impact of activity carried out by other organisations.