Agenda item

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 would remain the same as under the current model. However it would be more targeted and efficient to ensure the Council was able to identify more residents who were not currently registered to vote as well as ensuring there would be opportunity to report changes in those residents properties if required.

§  The new model will incorporate a ‘data discernment step’ that will inform the ERO which properties have not had a change to the household composition.

§  The ERO would have the choice to follow one of two routes for each property. This would then allow for the process to be streamlined for those households that do not change each year. Enabling the ERO to target their resources to where responses and updates to the register are required.

§  ERO’s would also have the discretion to match their electoral register against locally held datasets such as Council Tax and housing benefit data.

§  The Electoral Services Team included in their response to the Cabinet Office some concerns about the proposed changes inclusive of how ‘clean’ the data would be on various databases specifically relating to issues matching student households and second homeowners.

§  The consultation finished on 30 November 2019 and a response alongside a draft legislation during the second half of 2019 with a view to implement changes from the middle of 2020.

Questions from the sub-committee were:

§  Concerns were raised by the Chairman regarding potential abuse of the process, and wanted confirmation that there was a process of strong verification in the new proposal. It was confirmed that this concern was one of those raised by the Electoral Services Team which was highlighted in their report back to the Cabinet Office. However route 3 of this proposal would help Arun District Council to minimise this risk significantly.

§  There was a further discussion around the possible introduction of a ‘My Arun Account’ to help support any campaigns/ incentives encouraging all residents to use online services with a focus on the importance of keeping their account details up to date.

The Sub-Committee noted the report.