Examination of Witnesses (Questions 183-199)
1 FEBRUARY 2005
MR MALCOLM
DUMPER, MR
MICHAEL LITHGOW
AND MR
DAVID MONKS
Q183 Chairman: Mr Dumper,
from the Association of Electoral Administrators, Mr Lithgow from
the Scottish Assessors' Association, Mr Monks from SOLACE, the
Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers,
and indeed Huntingdonshire District Council as well. We are very
glad to see you. We know that you have to struggle to operate
the system to tight deadlines usually, because nearly all of us
will have been dealt with by your counterparts at some time or
another in our electoral existence. All three of you have indicated
some of the problems about individual registration with differing
degrees of force. How do you set the practical against the principle?
Are you concerned with the principle or are you just concerned
that there are practical difficulties with it?
Mr Dumper: I think
both. We are faced, at the moment, with a slightly peculiar situation
where we do have individual registration through rolling registration,
which has been in place for three years.
Q184 Chairman: Individual
registration?
Mr Dumper: Effectively it is in
with rolling registration at the moment, which is the monthly
updated register, but we are caught mainly on the practical implications
of the annual audit and the difficulties in conducting that. I
think it is fair to say that most registration officers would
mention that canvassing at the annual audit stage is becoming
more and more difficult. A very interesting point is made by one
of the previous speakers about annual returns and targets being
at 95% but you cannot really be sure that there is accuracy within
that 95%. We are relying on individual householders to complete
the registration details. As has been mentioned, they are not
wholly certain that the information they are providing on the
annual registration form can be correct as regards to opt-out,
nationality, jury service or whether the person wants a postal
vote. So there is a lot of information that is required but that
is really only being provided by one person. If you think about
engagement and actually getting people involved in the process
from the grass roots stages, which is registration, only about
40% of eligible electors are actually involved in completing the
data the first time. So it automatically leads to people feeling
not part of the process and, ultimately, therefore, might lead
to them not voting.
Mr Monks: I think if you were
starting with a blank piece of paper and not from where we are
now I think you would go for a system of individual registration,
but I think it ill behoves chief executives to talk to politicians
about principles. I find myself in my job as a humble public servant.
I think there are, as we have identified in the evidence and as
I think you have heard already, a number of very practical problems
with moving to a system of individual registration: possibly declining
numbers on the register and delays in getting forms back. I think,
inevitably, it will mean a greater burden on those administering
the register in local government, and greater cost. What I tried
to do at the start of the evidence was look at the big picture.
Fine, if central government says to local authorities and guys
like me who are PROs "We want to do it this way", fine,
we will do it that way. All I would say is that that will take
a lot of planning, preparation, proper resources, proper training
and quite a while. Please be aware of the pitfalls. So, in principle,
yes, if it came on a blank piece of paper but there are all sorts
of practical consequences. If I may draw a parallel, many of you
know local governments and have local government backgrounds,
and it is a bit like saying: "What do you think of the structure
of local government?" We have a structure that is a product
of history, we have a system of electoral registration that has
its roots in history and it has developed to today. We try to
make the best of it in local government. Probably one of its greatest
strengths is that we know how to get it to work, and broadly speaking—broadly
speaking—it is reasonably accurate. I would say: "Do
not chuck all those ideas out"; in principle we can get anything
to work for you, given enough time.
Q185 Chairman: Have any
of your organisations made any estimates of the costs, not just
the introductory costs of extra training and so forth but the
recurring costs of individual registration as opposed to household
registration?
Mr Dumper: I think that would
be difficult to quantify without exploring what avenues of individual
registration we were going to take. There are elements of geography,
etc, different groups that we are targeting to get registration
levels increased, so until we know the blueprint of what individual
registration would actually entail I do not think it would be
possible to actually apply costs to that. From my perspective,
and leading on from what David has said, I think most members
of the association would support individual registration because
I think that would, at least, see the eventual advent of an accurate
register. I think we are carrying a lot of inaccurate data on
the register, not least for the reasons I gave earlier about the
householder completing the individual information on behalf of
others, but also issues like carrying forward names where we carry
names forward for a one- or two-year period which inflates the
electorate and gives an artificial turnout figure.
Q186 Chairman: Can we
stop at those specific points? I wonder if you have an overall
assessment.
Mr Lithgow: I think immediately
we can see that we would have to double the number of forms that
go out, so you can see that there is an immediate doubling of
the cost in terms of stationery and that kind of thing. Also,
it would mean that our systems would have to be developed to accommodate
the changes. Like the other two, can I just say that in Scotland
we will make any system work. If the decision is taken that we
have individual registration, then in principle we have no position
on that, but there are pitfalls.
Q187 Andrew Bennett: Could
you keep the cost down if you only chased up the people who moved
as opposed to the people who stayed in the same address and, therefore,
there is no real reason for them to register each year?
Mr Dumper: Clearly, yes, that
would keep down the costs. I think it would be a case of linking
into other council records to ensure that where there is movement
you could pick up those people who have not chosen to re-register
by change of address, but that tends to happen in some ways now
with the ability to access Council Tax records, for example, by
registration officers because it prompts you to pick up people
who may have moved and encourage them to fill in the form. To
get an accurate register you need some form of audit. I am not
so sure, if we moved to individual registration, whether an annual
audit would be necessary, but maybe one pitched—dare I say,
if we had fixed term parliaments—the year before the Parliamentary
election then that would be the occasion to conduct an all-out
audit to ensure the accuracy of that register.
Mr Monks: I suppose, to try and
answer the last question a little more laterally, if we were to
look at doing something like this—and, yes, of course, costs
are very, very important in local authorities now—a way
forward might be something along the lines of linking it with
the way we administer benefits as housing authorities. I do not
want to go on at great length about that but the way we administer
housing benefits, for example, in local government is, in my view,
particularly dumb. We have lots of people rolling into our offices
and we ask them to produce bank statements and identification
and, inevitably, a lot of these people bring the wrong piece of
paper at the wrong time, and it takes us an awfully long time
to do that. So authorities like mine, and we are now part of a
pilot project (there are about three or four of us doing this)
are employing staff (we already do this) to go out and see people
in their homes, often elderly people or, perhaps, people who find
our bureaucracy threatening or too challenging—and I can
understand that—
Q188 Chairman: Even in
Huntingdonshire?
Mr Monks: I could not possibly
answer that! I have to face the leader this week. If you have
to face a 34-page questionnaire and fill it in for benefits, that
is a very complex document, so if you can send someone out and
talk them through it, then at the same time you could say: "By
the way, do you want to tackle this electoral registration system
as well?" It is a bit of joined-up thinking we need to do
internally, and it is that sort of change of mindset we need to
do. That is not impossible but there are difficulties with the
legislation, and how we keep our records (I am sure someone will
say "Data Protection Act" after a while—that is
the sort of thing we bump into), but if we did that sort of thinking
I think that would help. I think that is the answer rather than
what I call aggressive canvassing, and a lot of local authorities
do that.
Q189 Peter Bottomley: You
have told us we already have individual registration for people
who have moved during the year. We know that a single person household
is, in effect, an individual registration anyway, so that presumably
leaves just the majority to cope with. Assuming we were to move
on to individual registration, how much notice do you think you
would need for the change and does it all have to be done in one
go or can it be done on a rolling basis?
Mr Dumper: It could, potentially,
be done on an incremental basis but I think it would be better
to pitch it in two years' time, for example, so we would have
enough time to fully explore the avenues that we need to take
and get a proper scheme and an awareness programme developed.
Incrementally, yes, but I think that may lead to confusion amongst
the electorate as to which type of registration they should be
going through.
Mr Lithgow: I would agree with
those points as well.
Q190 Peter Bottomley: Coming
on to the practicalities of how an individual register could be
compiled and maintained, clearly one of the easy ways to do it
would be to say: "You can register to vote at 16, so if you
come off Child Benefit you can then go on the register."
Do you accept the idea of trying to make sure someone knows they
are eligible to vote and then you can deal with the question of
in which local authority or constituency they can cast their vote?
While you are thinking about that, assuming each person's vote
is equal, it is a terrible shame that a lot of eligible overseas
voters are not registered.
Mr Dumper: I am not sure—are
you suggesting through a national registration scheme?
Q191 Peter Bottomley: There
is eligibility to vote in any combination of elections, whether
you are an EU citizen postal voter—there are variations.
Are you eligible to vote at all, and then the question is: is
there a local area in which your vote should be counted, and the
third question is, should you only be able to vote in that local
area or by postal vote by proxy, or can you vote somewhere else
and have the vote transferred electronically or in some other
way?
Mr Dumper: I think, if I understand
it, if you are saying that registration will be through a variety
of methods, as you outlined, should the vote be contained within
the normal residential area of the constituent's ward, then, yes,
that would be the case. That leads on to whether you have got
the benefits of a national register and the flexibility of that,
and that does involve or allow the opportunity of remote voting
from anywhere.
Q192 Mr Clelland: Mr Dumper
mentioned this question of the difficulty of the annual canvass
and the possibility of having some sort of audit. Are you suggesting
that once you have had the canvass you have got to make the register
and it should be updated by periodic order, not necessarily annually?
Mr Dumper: I think if individual
registration and rolling registration was working perfectly, I
do not see the need (I have to say, this is a personal view) for
an annual audit. Annual audits, as I mentioned earlier, are becoming
very difficult to conduct. I am not sure that we are getting anywhere
near the accuracy levels that we should. As we mentioned in our
evidence, local authority funding is under severe pressure; there
are different practices applied to annual audits by registration
officers, mainly because of the difficulty of the areas they are
canvassing. Generally, I think, from the social perspective, not
a lot of people like opening their doors at 6, 7 o'clock in the
evening because we conduct the canvass at the wrong time of the
year, when the darker evenings are coming in, which makes it extremely
difficult and people are reluctant to respond to a knock on the
door or, indeed, a telephone call at that time of the evening.
If individual registration was robust and secure, the electorate
were aware of it and knew exactly what they should be doing, I
do not see the need for an annual audit; a three-yearly or four-yearly
annual audit would be sufficient.
Q193 Mr Clelland: Once
you have compiled your national register should it be possible
for registration officers to fill those gaps when they learn that
people in a particular household have not registered and automatically
include them?
Mr Dumper: Obviously, that is
a fundamental component of individual registration; the RO has
the power to obtain information from any other council source—or,
indeed, any other government source—that may have information
about electors in that particular residence.
Q194 Mr Clelland: What
should the deadline for registration be for any particular election?
Mr Dumper: I certainly think it
is too far off at the moment. To close down an electoral register
on 16 March when an election is going to happen the first week
in May is not going to be helpful to the electorate.
Mr Monks: I think it could be
a lot tighter. I have seen evidence and talked to people in the
political parties who are worried that people register in marginal
constituencies very near polling day because the opinion polls
are showing—well, you know where the marginal seats are
now. So you have to be able to guard against that sort of worry
as well. You have, as an electoral registration officer, to be
sure this is a bona fide registration; somebody actually
lives in the area with specific local connections, or something
like that.
Q195 Mr Clelland: So closer
than it is now but not too close?
Mr Monks: Definitely.
Q196 Mr Clelland: Of course,
the problem with a General Election is that you will not necessarily
know until very near the election.
Mr Monks: That is correct.
Mr Dumper: I certainly think you
could bring it into the month prior to the election, but nomination
day is the key. You need to have regard to the day of nomination
when registration should have a cut-off date.
Q197 Chris Mole: Mr Monks
described the problem where people might have a concern with late
registration and, essentially, fraudulent was the implication.
Would it not be possible to have a system, as I believe they do
in Australia, of provisional registration that you can verify
after the event?
Mr Monks: I think something like
that would be worth looking at. I think in Canada—you must
excuse my lack of knowledge of the other systems—you can
actually register on the day of the election, or the day before.
It strikes me if this can be achieved in other areas we need to
look at that. Can I make just a general point on that, because
I do think this is important? What we do have a habit of doing
in this country, which I find not terribly helpful, is we get
an idea of a system like that then we graft it, rather skilfully,
on to our existing, Victorian legislation which goes back to 1870-odd
(and, in my view, is quite incongruous with the 21st Century)
and we come out with a result which, I am afraid, leaves some
of us in court. It is all very well for a lawyer, that is good
for lawyers, but I think if we are going to have a new system
(and I did say this at the end of my evidence) let us go at it
de novo rather than try and graft something on. I do think
there is merit in what Mr Mole says.
Q198 Mr Soley: This follows
on from that. A number of us in this House, from time to time,
go to see other elections in other countries to see if they are
fairly and properly done under common rules (?) of the United
Nations and the EU. What would happen if an operation like that
was done here? Would we have any serious criticisms at the result?
Mr Dumper: I would say no. Yet,
I myself—
Mr Soley: No or yes?
Q199 Chairman: In relation
to registration.
Mr Dumper: I am quite intrigued
by the way that overseas organisations arrange registrations and,
indeed, their voting processes in such a short period of time.
I have visited countries such as Mozambique and South Africa when
they had their elections several years ago, and to implement in
a period of six months what they did, total registration, remote
voting, was applaudible. However, as David mentioned, at the moment
we are stuck with this very age-old but trusted system, and I
think we should recognise that. People do have real trust in our
system on voting, despite the recent issues on postal votes, and
for that reason I think it should not completely be taken apart;
we need to look at the processes, revisit them and modernise them.
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