Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340-359)
7 FEBRUARY 2005
MR NICK
RAYNSFORD MP, MR
CHRISTOPHER LESLIE
MP AND MR
PAUL ROWSELL
Q340 Chris Mole: Does
the specification for that data gathering and data standards include
the provision for the introduction of individual registration
and other modernisation projects, such as e-registration and e-voting?
Mr Raynsford: These could all
flow from and, indeed, would benefit considerably from the availability
of a single national online register but, as I have said, where
we have got to so far is establishing a common language. There
is now the election mark-up language which is used by the project.
We are discussing with the Electoral Commission the process by
which we will move towards a definition of the standards that
will apply, that is the second stage. They have a statutory role
in relation to standards. We cannot act without a recommendation
from them on that, so their involvement is absolutely critical.
They do have other pressures on their time at the moment which
have perhaps acted as a slight inhibitor. Once those two phases
are complete then we will have a system in place that will allow
a lot of the benefits we were talking about earlier in this evidence
session, about remote voting, to be conducted with a far greater
degree of security and confidence than otherwise would be possible.
Q341 Mr Page: I am very
pleased to hear that the CORE project is going to schedule. Is
it over budget in its costings?
Mr Raynsford: No. My understanding
is that the budget is exactly the same as was envisaged for the
Laser project, which was some £12 million in total, and certainly
we have not exceeded that as yet.
Mr Rowsell: We are well within
budget. So far we have paid about £400,000 for the suppliers
to update their software systems to the standard language, EML.
Q342 Mr Page: The milestones
are being reached in the scheduled time?
Mr Raynsford: We have already
completed the first consultation and have reached the agreement
across local government and with the suppliers of software for
putting in place a system which will allow consistency in all
authorities. The next stage, which is the definition of the standards,
involves consultation which must be conducted in time to enable
those standards to apply for this year's canvass if we are to
meet that timetable. That does require the Electoral Commission
to make a recommendation by no later than July, which was why
I referred to their particular role in this.
Q343 Mr Page: This was
launched in January of last year?
Mr Raynsford: Yes.
Q344 Mr Page: And you
are saying that CORE is so far up to speed and up to time?
Mr Raynsford: I am saying it was
understood as far as the first consultation as a result of the
response from consultees that we could not meet the timetable
for the 2004 canvass which would have allowed introduction in
2005, that simply was not feasible. We did consult as to whether
it would be feasible or not, the reply of the consultees was that
it was not possible. As it has to be done at the time of the compilation
of the register each year that meant inevitably that the earliest
possible subsequent date would be for the 2006 register based
on the 2005 canvass, which is now our objective.
Q345 Mr Page: I asked
my question because I come from the Public Accounts Committee
where we see Government projects on IT littered with failures,
successes are rare, so it is nice to see a project that appears
to be in budget and on time.
Mr Raynsford: It is early days
yet. I do not want to whet your appetite.
Mr Page: My last point, and I may be
pinching your question here, is I read that the Information Commissioner
was not consulted on the CORE project. Did he offer his services
and were they rebuffed or was he just not brought in?
Q346 Chairman: He did
not know about it.
Mr Raynsford: The first stage
of the consultation was entirely about the technical issues to
do with the software systems and the language. We have every intention
of consulting the Information Commission on the second stage,
which is about access to information, where the issues to do with
data protection arise. I can only apologise if the Information
Commissioner felt that he should have been consulted about the
issues to do with the technical introduction of a system to allow
consistency between authorities but I do not see any particular
data protection issues involved in that. It is the second stage
where those apply and we will certainly consult the Information
Commissioner.
Q347 Chris Mole: Can I
go back to the issue of costs. It has been put to us by one of
the large credit checking companies that you can almost buy this
database off the shelf essentially from some of the existing reference
agencies' databases. Would you have any objection to doing something
like that rather than building your own with all of the risks
associated with it?
Mr Raynsford: Yes, we would. We
do not believe it is right that something as fundamental to our
democracy as a national register of electors should be privately
owned.
Q348 Chris Mole: You might
own it yourself but you acquire it from somebody else.
Mr Raynsford: The present system
involves the compilation of a register which is a publicly prepared
register which is then made available for certain defined purposes
to other potential users. Some have access to the full register,
and that is restricted to a limited number of potential recipients,
the wider public has access to the whole register but that is
an edited version.
Q349 Chris Mole: So basically
it is to maintain public confidence?
Mr Raynsford: To maintain the
integrity of the system and to ensure that it is, and will always
be, publicly available in the service of democracy.
Q350 Mr Beith: The OSCE
guidelines actually state that "the examiner should carefully
review the legal framework and be satisfied that it does not allow
for collection, use or dissemination of personal data or information
in any manner for any purpose other than the exercise of suffrage
rights", but we have sold a pass on that one, have we not?
Mr Raynsford: This was an issue
that we addressed four years ago when there were very serious
issues raised by the Robertson case. The conclusion that
we reached, and I think it was the right one, certainly it has
survived a couple of subsequent challenges in the courts, was
that there should be access for matters of national security,
for matters of action to prevent money laundering and criminal
activity and for credit reference purposes, which have an obvious
association with that previous issue. Otherwise the register is
not available more widely. That posed a very interesting dilemma
for us, as we have discovered. You are probably not aware of this,
but I have just recently become aware of it, that local authorities
do not have access to it in order to run their own referendums;
an issue which we have identified as a problem so we will be taking
action to rectify it. That is a measure of just how carefully
the complete register is protected at the moment.
Q351 Mr Beith: Anyone
who is a candidate has access to it if he is to have a right to
communicate with every elector.
Mr Raynsford: For obvious reasons.
Q352 Mr Beith: Have you
got any evidence of whether potential electors are deterred from
registering because of data protection concerns, particularly
the concern that some people write to us about, that they are
unhappy that their name has fallen into the hands of some commercial
organisation because they are on the register, either on the public
register or on the restricted register?
Mr Raynsford: There is absolutely
no doubt there are worries of that nature and it is important
that the restrictions that do apply currently are publicised as
well as can be done, but inevitably there will be a suspicion
when people receive junk mail that that junk mail has arrived
because the sender of the mail has bought a copy of the electoral
register.
Q353 Mr Beith: What are
you including in your consultation package about changes in access
to the register? You are supposed to be producing a limited package
of proposed changes on particular issues, is that something you
are still working on?
Mr Leslie: One of the issues Nick
raised earlier was this question about the scope for anonymous
registration or for limited data to be divulged through the edited
register. The fact that there are undoubtedly some people who
feel that they are more vulnerable by virtue of the fact that
their name appears on a public register, albeit recently in a
supervised form, inspected in person, rather than on the edited
register now, there is a principle at stake of having a full register
that can be inspected by political parties, for instance, to ensure
that it is accurate, to ensure that it does not miss people off
by mistake, for instance, and that has been a principle since
electoral registration began in the 19th Century. Also, we have
to recognise that it is possible to have a form of anonymous registration,
although very tightly controlled because we do not want it to
become like an ex-directory system where you get literally half
the population going ex-directory, we want it still to be a full
and comprehensive register for those authorised agencies to verify
that it is a full and comprehensive register.
Q354 Dr Whitehead: We
have heard mention of the security of the full register and the
need to ensure that the edited register and the full register
are differentiated, but is it not really the case that the full
register is not really very confidential? For example, you could
stand as the You have Won a Cruise, Claim by Tomorrow Party and
you would then have access to the full register. You can go in
to see the returning officer the day after the election and get
a copy of the full marked register. That seems to rather drive
a coach and horses through the alleged confidentiality of the
full register.
Mr Leslie: There are two distinct
points there. Obviously the Electoral Commission control who can
be registered as a legitimate political party, although I accept
there are circumstances where individuals could become a political
party if they really wanted to go through that process for their
own commercial motivation, in theory that is a possibility, but
there is a form of control on that by the Electoral Commission.
Q355 Mr Beith: Can you
just clarify that. As far as I know the Electoral Commission have
no control over who can register a party so long as they comply
with the financial and other legal obligations placed on political
parties. They cannot decide that something does not look like
a suitable political party to them.
Mr Leslie: Except that those are
still controls and they are part of the legislation.
Q356 Mr Beith: You can
fill in the proper returns and do all the things you are supposed
to.
Mr Leslie: There are people, indeed,
who form all sorts of bizarre and weird political parties, as
we know.
Mr Raynsford: Here is the tension
between, in a democratic society, allowing anyone who wants to
stand as a candidate and to have an ability to communicate with
anyone who is in a position to elect them. If you are guaranteeing
that right, which seems to me fairly fundamental in a democracy,
then the safeguards against access to information inevitably are
compromised to that extent.
Q357 Dr Whitehead: Are
there safeguards that one could put in perhaps in terms of the
uses to which political parties and/or credit reference agencies
might actually legally and reasonably put the information to which
they are party?
Mr Leslie: You would have to be
careful not to jeopardise the right of persons to stand as candidates.
In doing so, those sorts of controls may deter persons and parties
coming forward being informed and standing for election, so we
have got to strike that balance. There was a second point that
you raised.
Q358 Dr Whitehead: The
marked register.
Mr Leslie: The marked register
availability, and I am conscious that that has been raised before,
there is a lacuna in the arrangements here which I think we do
need to look at in a legislative context.
Q359 Chairman: You need
to look at, but do you not need to do something about it? It is
crazy, is it not, to have the provision that you can be left off
the original register for various reasons, your name does not
appear on it, and yet when it comes to the register of who has
been to vote your name appears on it?
Mr Leslie: So far the marked register
has only been made available to authorised persons by my Department.
We have not had that release of those marked registers to persons
who would not be listed in those criteria where they could get
the full register anyway. If we have a legislative opportunity
that arises, certainly we would want to look at whether we could
take the opportunity to address that particular lacuna.
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