Agenda and minutes

Members and officers are invited to make any declarations of pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests that they may have in relation to items on the agenda, and are reminded that they should re-declare their interest before consideration of the item or as soon as the interest becomes apparent.

Members and officers should make their declaration by stating:

a)    the item they have the interest in

b)    whether it is a pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interest

c)    the nature of the interest

 There were no Declarations of interest made.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 1 August 2018 (as previously circulated).

 The Minutes of the meeting held on 1 August 2018 were approved by the Sub-Committee as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

This report presents the recently published proposals for the reform of the annual canvass process in 2020. Members are asked to note the contents of this report.

            In the absence of the Chief Executive, the Group Head of Policy presented the report setting out the detail for changes to the process from previous years, inclusive of a full review of 2018 Canvass.

The key points highlighted to the Sub-Committee were:

§ The annual canvass for 2018 was successfully completed with a response rate of 96.45% against figures of 95.45% in 2017 and 92.53% in 2016.

§ The duties of the Electoral Services Team were revised in 2018 which resulted in clarification of duties with staff retaining some of their new responsibilities in order that the Electoral Services Manager can carry out a broader range of duties.

§ Project planning started earlier than previous years which meant a clear plan was communicated to all concerned, with all deadlines met.

§ The Electoral Commission published new templates that allowed Councils to customise elements of the Household Enquiry Form (HEF). Arun took advantage of this flexibility to more actively encourage online responses.

§ Personal canvassing started earlier in high returning areas, at the first reminder stage. This resulted in positive feedback from canvassers. Lower-responding areas were then canvassed at the second reminder stage. This change meant that Arun was able to use a smaller personal canvassing team, but over a longer period of time.

§  Fully utilised the automated data matching process between Arun’s software supplier and Council Tax which allowed identification and confirmation of vacant properties quickly and easily.

§ Personal canvasser visits were also completed at 99 care homes in the district which led to an increase in the numbers and accuracy of registrations for these residents and, an important consideration for a District like Arun with its particular demographics.

§ A clear focus for the Electoral Registration Team is to decrease the number of people responding by post which would see a decrease in postage costs as well as saving administration time as returns needed to be input by hand into the system. However Arun would still be legally obliged to provide a free postal return service. Arun would need to continue to focus its online service as a multiservice function as the online service allows residents to make additional changes to their details unlike phone or text responses.

§ A review took place with Electoral Registration colleagues from elsewhere in West Sussex in early 2018 a number said that they were trying an incentive approach to encourage the use of the online service based on a prize draw of high street vouchers with anyone being entered who had responded online by a given date. Arun may look into this in the future as savings from return postage are likely to far outweigh the cost of purchasing the vouchers.

§ There were very few complaints about form deliveries, which were dealt with appropriately

§ A thank you to the team for their hard work was given by The Group Head of Policy and the Sub-Committee were in agreement.

Comments from the Sub-Committee were:

§  There  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

This report presents a review of the 2018 Canvass for consideration by Members.  It sets out changes to the process from previous years, what went well and areas for improvement.  

The Group Head of Policy presented the report setting out the detail for the reform of the annual Canvass process in 2020.

The paper described the current process and summarised the proposals intended to enable local authority Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to target their resources more effectively.

The key points highlighted to the Sub-Committee were:

§  Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) are required to conduct an annual canvass of all residential properties in the area for which they have responsibility.

§  2014 saw the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration (IER) which replaced the household registration system that saw one person in every household being responsible for registering everyone who lived at that address.

§  Under the current process ERO’s must send every household a Household Enquiry Form (HEF) and this requires a response regardless of whether any changes in the household had taken place and failure to respond is an offence.

§  ERO’s must follow up any non-responses with up to two reminders and carry out a household visit if required.

§  The current process is highly prescriptive and allows ERO’s little scope to adapt the process to best fit the needs of current residents and different property types.

§  Feedback from ERO’s indicated that there had been continued confusion from residents about the new ‘two stage’ process. Some believed that by completing and returning the HEF that they had registered to vote as was the case under the old household system. This led them to ignore the subsequent Invitation to Register (ITR) and therefore failed to register. Others instead of completing the HEF went online and registered to vote again, however due to there being no response to the HEF the EROS were obliged to continue the chasing cycle. Not only did this increase costs but created a negative impact on the public’s experience of electoral registration.

§  Online registration was made available in 2014, this made the process quick, easy and more in keeping with the way people increasingly live their lives. This process was extremely successful with over 25 million online applications having been received to date. However there was an unexpected consequence; people are increasingly opting to register outside of the canvass period. This signalled that the canvass itself was becoming less important in registering eligible electors. The canvass is now one of numerous ways that the ERO is able to update their electoral registers.

§  The Cabinet Office piloted schemes over the 2016 and 2017 canvass in an attempt to address these issues. Four models were designed and piloted across 24 Local Authority areas in England, Scotland and Wales and it was these pilots that informed the proposed model for the annual canvass going forward.

§  The proposal would not be looking to abolish the annual canvass as it would still be a crucial means to help ERO’s identify additions and changes to the electoral register. The purpose of the annual canvass under the revised model  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.