Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 2 NOVEMBER 2005
SAM YOUNGER
AND PETER
WARDLE
Q20 Mr Tyrie: When I did a back-of-an-envelope
calculation to work out how much of that is work that would have
been traditionally done for inherited from Home Office electoral-related
activities, I calculated—you may want to challenge this
and come up with your own figure if it is wrong—that £26
million is roughly three times the level of expenditure on election-related
services that the Home Office was costing us. So the key question
on effectiveness seems to me to be what is happening to the rest
of it, and are we getting effective use of that money? You have
done a number of awareness campaigns with that £16 million
or whatever figure it is, and you have embarked on a number of
new activities. You have spent £0.75 million on a public
awareness campaign for people between the age of 18 and 24—I
think that is roughly right—but you are only spending, I
think, £9,000 on a public awareness campaign for voters living
abroad, for example. They are roughly the same number, 5 million
against 4 million. Do you think that is an intelligent balance
of the use of your resources?
Sam Younger: There are a number
of questions there, and I think the broad question about the value
for money of what the Commission does is a very good one. It is
one the Speaker's Committee is taking up and I think the Scrutiny
Unit in the House is going to be helping with that. I do not know,
and I am not going to specifically challenge your figures, except
£16 million for public awareness. We have a ring-fenced £7.5
million maximum that we spend under section 13 on public awareness,
but I think it is important to say that there were a number of
things that we took over which I think are effectively what you
are referring to: what the Home Office did do in public awareness
terms, which was a good deal less than the £7.5 million that
is now in the budget; the issues of policy and review were taken
over from there; the whole area of local government boundaries,
which was being paid for again elsewhere; but yes, there was an
addition. Of course, there were completely new functions. The
regulation of parties is a completely new area that has not been
there before. We have also had—and I think it is worth noting
this, though it has not been enormously costly, though it has
had peaks in what we have bid for in budgets but not in what we
have actually used is the whole role in relation to referendums—to
get ourselves sorted to be able to run a referendum. There was
a peak in terms of the budget looked much greater than what was
actually spent in the end, because originally we were planning
for three referendums in the three northern regions; in fact there
was only one, and of course, there had been figures flying around
in some of our planning documents about what the cost would be
if we had a UK-wide referendum, so there is that as well. There
is also something else that has not been there, which has been
quite a significant cost over the years—two things, I would
say: one is the relationship with the administrators, and I think
that is important. As Peter was saying, there was a vacuum there.
I think we have been providing really a very significant amount
of support to administrators that I think has been of great value,
and of great value to them, and that is borne out by some of the
research.
Q21 Mr Tyrie: Okay, there are the
three categories: what you were doing that the Home Office would
have done anyway, the functions that you have been specifically
asked to do under new legislation, and then there is the additional
activities that you have decided with the discretion that is available
to you to undertake. Perhaps you could provide a note to the Committee
on those amounts, broken down in that way. Then of course we want
to know whether you are spending those lines where you have some
discretion effectively. I wonder if you could answer the point
I made about voters living abroad public awareness campaigns versus
the 18-24 year old point.
Sam Younger: I think it is fair
to say if you wind back probably a year plus, and this was in
common with a number of others, we had not looked particularly
hard at either overseas voters or indeed service voters at that
point. That we have taken on. The amount of money we are spending
on that is increasing but we have to look at what is appropriate
and what actually is going to be effective in those areas, and
that is what we have done. So I think in relation to overseas
voters, whereas the vast majority of what we do spend on public
awareness is spent on advertising, and that can be effective in
reaching certain groups in this country, advertising to reach
overseas voters is actually an extremely blunt weapon. We have
done a certain amount of it, and I think it is £38,000 or
something we are spending this year, which is for advertisements
in overseas editions of UK newspapers for example, that is of
value, providing the leaflets for people, distributed through
the FCO and consular offices, and that actually is part of the
equation. When it comes, for example, to service voters, again
the amount that it is right for us to spend is relatively limited.
Q22 Mr Tyrie: We will come on to
them in a moment.
Sam Younger: We will come back
to that later. I think one has to look at what is appropriate
in terms of getting to a given audience, and although I would
acknowledge that when you go back 18 months we spent less than
we should have done in the early stages because it was not yet
on our radar screen, I think we are getting much closer to something
that is appropriate to what can be an effective use of public
money to meet the purpose.
Q23 Jessica Morden: You have touched
on it already, but what are you doing about the charge that you
are sometimes seen as politically naïve? As you have mentioned,
you cannot employ people who have in the last ten years had political
experience, which means you sometimes feel out of touch with the
nitty-gritty of running elections on the ground. An example would
be your average treasurer or constituency agent who takes on a
job because they are interested in being politically active but
find themselves under scrutiny like a multinational company when
they put in their accounts. What can you do to help?
Sam Younger: There are two things.
One was within the context of the legislation as it is, improving
the forums within which we do find a way of getting to those constituencies.
Funnily enough, I have been particularly conscious of it in terms
of Parliament. In terms of the volunteers and local levels, I
think actually the mechanism of the Parliamentary Parties Panel
that we have in London, and the same thing in Cardiff, Edinburgh
and Belfast, is actually quite a significant regular means of
keeping in touch with that, quite apart from all the day to day
contacts. I am conscious that we have not managed to find a good
mechanism yet for consultation with Members of Parliament, for
example. I have tried to set up things with each of the parties
in Parliament. Funnily enough, we have succeeded to a degree with
the Conservative party but it is the only one so far, where there
is a sub-committee of the 1922 Committee that we meet with on
a quarterly basis, broadly speaking. I would like to develop those
kind of things, but maybe there is something more as part and
parcel of the constitution of the Commission that could bring
in that on an all-party basis, which I would very much like to
see. I think the other issue which you allude to is a real one,
and that is this question—I know it was a very considerable
area of debate when the Bill was being passed in the first place—about
whether there should be this prohibition on people with experience
of active politics as commissioners or staff of the Commission,
and the decision went that it should be. The premium was on the
independence rather than on the experience of electoral politics.
I think fundamentally at commissioner level and probably at most
senior staff level I feel that is appropriate. I feel it may very
well not be appropriate to have that as a requirement for staff
throughout the organisation, because I can see very real advantages
of having in the staff people who have had some experience here.
Take the regulatory area, for example, somebody who had some years
ago been a local party treasurer. At the moment they cannot actually
be a member of staff at any level within the Commission by statute
and I think there is a real case for looking at whether that could
be relaxed. I would be a little bit more wary about extending
that to commissioners, and part of the reason for that is one
or two people have argued that maybe you should do that on the
same basis as the Committee on Standards in Public Life, for example,
which has nominees of the three main parties on it. I think that
might be very sensible if the role of the Commission was exclusively
advisory, but of course, it is not. There are executive elements
to what the Commission does in relation to boundaries, in relation
to references, for example, in theory to the Director of Public
Prosecutions and so on, and I think that makes it really quite
difficult to have party nominees there, but I think we do need
to find, as I say, within the context of the legislation as it
is getting those mechanisms better, and I fully accept that they
are not fully there at the moment, but I think there are some
things that could be adjusted in the future in legislation. We
were not homing in on this sufficiently early because we did not
have much experience of it for something to have come up that
is really fully thought through in time for this current Bill,
but I think it is something that is well worth looking at.
Q24 Jessica Morden: I am particularly
interested in how you keep yourselves in touch with the nitty-gritty
of what happens on the ground. Have you considered having inward
secondments from political parties, or indeed seconding people
from the Electoral Commission to go and work with local parties
from all political persuasions on the ground?
Peter Wardle: One of the things
we have started is to try and set up arrangements with political
parties. It is difficult if you are a regulator because the regulated
are always a little bit suspicious, and again, I have seen this
in other areas I have worked. Most political parties have actually
been quite open to this, of sending certainly all our staff who
work on the regulatory side, trying to achieve a situation where
they can go and spend some time working with a political party,
not to spy on how their system is run and so on but to see how
it works. I think it is fair to say that the bigger parties are
probably more nervous about that the further down within the party
it gets, and so it is quite difficult. I agree with you that the
real problem is not really at national headquarters of major parties.
It is with smaller parties that are generally not UK-wide or GB-wide,
or it is with the smaller accounting units and constituency organisations
within the bigger parties. It is quite difficult to get through
to that without cooperation from the parties but it is certainly
something that I think both the parties and ourselves recognise
we would like to achieve if we can find a way. Perhaps I could
just mention one thing which is helpful for the local treasurers,
which is in the Bill. Clause 51 of the Bill actually changes,
very helpfully from our point of view, and I think from the parties'
point of view, the bands. At the moment you have a very long band
for income and expenditure. Any party between £5,000 and
£0.25 million is treated in the same way, so what tends to
happen is that people with £6,000 are treated in the same
way as people with £249,000. There is a very welcome change
in the Bill for us which arises from one of our recommendations,
which introduces four bands, and means that really, everybody
below £100,000 can be dealt with on a much lighter touch
basis and, in line with the risks that are around it, we can concentrate
the more multinational approach on the £100,000 plus parties,
who are generally in our experience better organised and able
to deal with some of the accounting requirements that are in the
Act.
Q25 Jessica Morden: Do you accept
and are you aware that a lot of the regulation you brought in
early on did put off a lot of volunteers from being agents and
treasurers and demotivated people, which is very difficult from
the political parties' point of view?
Peter Wardle: The point has certainly
been put to us. As Sam said earlier on, partly it is not always
the case that it is the Commission laying regulation. Some of
this is actually in the Act and we are stuck with it. You will
know that in some areas we ourselves have said, "This doesn't
make sense." It is not easy to apply this legislation in
the 2000 Act, and some of what is in the Electoral Administration
Bill is responding to that and putting it right. It is important
to think back to the climate in 2000, when this was introduced.
One of the things which surprised me, and I think still surprises
me, is that the issue of sleaze in terms of financial affairs
of political parties was such a big issue in the run-up to PPERA
2000 and really is not a big problem at the moment, by and large.
Parties have adapted to this and, on the whole, it is working
pretty well. But I think it is true that we were probably a bit
over-zealous in the way we approached things and, to be fair to
my colleagues in the Commission at the time, this was new legislation
in a new area; there was no model readily available and some mistakes
were made; we did not always get it right. Sometimes I think it
is fair to say that some of the headquarters staff in political
parties encouraged us in the belief that this would work and we
were both wrong about it and we both agreed after a couple of
years that this needed to be looked at again. All I can say, I
think, is that there is genuine recognition of that between parties
and the Commission, and a desire to make it work as well as possible,
while at the same time making sure that we keep the public interest
benefits that the Act was designed to achieve.
Sam Younger: I think it is fair
just to add that one of the real bugbears in terms of volunteers
at local level in the early stages was that the way the penalties
in the Act were constructed, there was very little between a mild
rap on the knuckles and a criminal prosecution. That meant a lot
of volunteers at local level thought, "My God, if I get into
this, I could be criminally prosecuted." One of the things
that we do need to look at strategically is looking at having
a much more sensible and proportionate sense of what the penalties
can be, because I think that did scare people, quite fairly but
unnecessarily in reality, but it was a real issue and I hope that
is fading a bit.
Q26 Barbara Keeley: I was actually
slightly surprised to hear you say that you are meeting with a
sub-committee of the 1922 Committee quarterly and not with other
parties. I think that is rather astonishing for an independent
body. I am really quite surprised at that. Just on this, secondments
are not the way. Certainly, where electoral innovations have been
piloted round the country, it is quite common for local authorities
to have all-party working parties. There are simply enough solutions
to finding a way to bring together groups of politicians. We have
all-party parliamentary groups here. I do not think it would be
beyond the wit of any of us to come up with some sensible suggestions.
I have to say, I do think meeting separately with sub-committees
of one party is perhaps a bit disturbing.
Sam Younger: Just to respond to
that, we have been meeting with this group on the 1922 because
we were able to set it up. I have been in touch with a number
in the Labour Party, including the Chief Whip, the Chair of the
Party, and it has always been about to happen but it has not actually
happened so far. What I have done, which is, if you like, a substitute—because
part of this from our point of view is just to have a sense of
where people within the party are coming from and it has not got
any executive function of any kind—I have been, through
the good offices of David Kidney, who runs the DCA backbench group,
he brings together people for a periodic meeting, so that is a
way of getting to it there in the first instance, but I would
like something more formal if we could manage it.
Q27 Barbara Keeley: Up and down the
country the people who run the elections every year and are charged
with that are the local activists and local councillors. We, happily,
only come to elections every four or five years. If you need that
relationship, it has really got to be with those people over the
next few years. For instance, the changes that we are talking
about here are going to affect people other than us before they
affect us.
Sam Younger: I think it is fair
just to note there was something I did not mention earlier on
that is important. One of the areas where we do actually have
quite good links established has been through the LGA, which again
is an all-party group of the LGA, sometimes the leaders, sometimes
an all-party group of people who have a particular interest in
elections issues, but that liaison actually is quite strong and
valued.
Q28 Barbara Keeley: I think we should
take this away and look at it actually, because I think it is
quite important that you get this proper relationship with the
parties.
Sam Younger: I absolutely agree.
Q29 Barbara Keeley: It does not sound
as if it has been addressed in anything like a satisfactory way
up to now. It is a big issue. It is a big issue to colleagues,
I think, and I think we should look at it.
Sam Younger: I am very happy that
that should be done.
Q30 David Howarth: If the Commission
expands its role, obviously it will come up against similar models
in other countries. I was wondering whether there are lessons
to be learnt from other places, perhaps on the question we have
just been talking about and other things?
Sam Younger: Clearly, there is
a whole range of models elsewhere. There is one area where our
Commission is dissimilar from really any of the others. The big
difference in models elsewhere is that in some places you have
an independent electoral commission and in others you actually
have electoral issues that are managed by a department of government,
a ministry of justice, whatever it is. When one looks at the independent
electoral commissions, in almost all the other examples, the independent
electoral commissions actually have the function of running elections.
Clearly, that is something we have looked at quite a lot and scratched
our heads about. Our own view at the moment is that we do not
think the right way would be to go down that path. That is partly
for historically reasons. We have got such a long tradition of
decentralisation in running elections in this country, and also
it seems to me that link, in terms of running elections, to local
authorities is one that makes much more sense in resource terms
than having some big central body running elections. What we are
looking at in the experience elsewhere is how, without going down
that road, we can help get better consistency. This is where the
standards issue is a key element. On the question of links politically
and so on, I am not sure how much we can learn very directly.
One of the things that strikes me about a lot of our counterpart
organisations is that they deal with the running of elections,
and that will keep the politicians and the political parties very
much at arm's length. We do not run elections. We have a significant
role that is actually advising on law and policy. For that there
is a necessity, it seems to me, to have those kinds of things.
There is a bit of a tension there. As we say, and as we have been
acknowledging, we do not think we have quite got through that
to the right model. Indeed, frankly, I would be surprised if one
could have the right model only a few years into a completely
new organisation operating in this kind of field. I do think there
is room to get that better. I am not sure in that way what the
experience elsewhere really tells us because the model is quite
different from what there is elsewhere.
Q31 David Howarth: I come back to
the first point that a national body might be separate from electoral
commissions, a separate body running elections on a national basis.
When I was leader of a council, the chief executive used to say
to me, "Why do we want this? Should not some national body
be running this?" I am not too sure whether the point about
decentralisation applies here, especially since we are now talking
about national standards and ring-fencing. Is it right that funding,
say, for canvassing to get people on the register should compete
against other local services when you might say that the electoral
register and better arrangements are rather fundamental and run
at a different level of activity than the services themselves?
Sam Younger: You make a fundamentally
important point in terms of the resourcing of electoral activity.
In particular, I think this is very relevant in the context of
the Bill. There is resourcing to encourage registration, for example.
I think there is a real fear, and it is a fear that has been expressed
to us by chief executives of local authorities among others, that
there may be some more money coming to help with registration
but if it is not ring-fenced, the chances are that it is quite
likely, maybe not in year one but subsequently, to disappear into
something else that is seen as a necessity. A report we did a
couple of years ago on funding of electoral services did very
much argue for some form of central ring-fenced funding that would
allow these things to be done discretely. I think there is a difference
between that and a national organisation actually running elections.
There may be a half-way house. One of the things we are looking
at, for example, at the moment, is to say: if you move beyond
standards, is there some arrangement whereby you use the model
of the regional returning officers who are there for European
Parliament elections and extend that model across the piece so
that you have a degree of co-ordination above the local level,
which might or might not be under the aegis of the Commission
or `A. N. Other' body. The key point to me about keeping the embedding
in local authorities in general terms is that electoral costs
are episodic. While there is a good case for core funding coming
from a central ring-fenced source, local authorities do have the
capacity to flex the resource they put in so that they can cope
with the peak at election time but they are not carrying a body
of staff that are elections specialists and who then might not
be fully employed the rest of the year. Particularly at election
time, that ability for a local authority to call on a resource
at short notice to support an election is of value. It is an open
debate. Certainly, from our point of view, it seems to me it is
right to go down the road of standards and monitoring standards
and ask whether that and some ring-fenced funding work well. There
may, in the long term, be a case for changing the system altogether,
but it is not one that we will be pressing for at this stage.
Q32 David Howarth: The basic idea
is that simply getting people to count the votes is something
that local authorities have traditionally been able to do and
have the network connections to do. Could you not envisage rather
simple ways in which that knowledge could be handed over to a
regional or a national body?
Sam Younger: Yes, I think a regional
body is one that is genuinely worth looking at. It is interesting
that one of the things that came out in the European Parliament
elections was the real value of regional level people who have
real expertise and experience and who could help others in their
region. There is a variation of models you could go to but the
point is, it seems to me, to make sure that you keep the best
of the local plug-in of electoral services while improving that
co-ordination. I think what is in the Bill is a good start.
Peter Wardle: We have tended to
talk in this last conversation mainly about the actual voting.
One of the benefits of having local authorities involved is at
the registration stage. Whatever system of registration you have,
looking at international models, there are some that do that on
a national basis. You do get then the problems of lack of local
knowledge. It seems to me that if the local authority is doing
its job well, it is pretty well placed to get at the community
it serves at the widest level, to reach the hard-to-reach groups.
There are lots of parts of local authorities whose business that
is. One of the things that sometimes happens is that the electoral
services part of the local authority is slightly insulated from
those other bits of expertise in the local authority, for all
sorts of historical and sometimes good reasons. If, for example
you were to ask a national body like the Electoral Commission
or some other national body to get down and find really difficult
to register groups in Liverpool Riverside, for example, the area
where registration is one of the lowest in the country, I am not
sure a national body would be able to claim it could do it any
better than a local authority which had better links into the
local community.
Q33 Mr Tyrie: I have a couple of
questions on political donations. Is the Electoral Commission
happy with the powers that you have, the sanctions, over the political
parties which do not meet your reporting requirements?
Sam Younger: The answer to that
in general terms is "no". That relates back to what
we were saying earlier, that there is a disconnect between, as
it were, the nature of the crime and the punishment. The two do
not fit at the moment. In many areas, there is simply nothing
between an informal or a formal rap over the knuckles and a criminal
prosecution of the treasurer of a party. We have certainly not
had a single case where it would be anything other than absurd
to go for a criminal prosecution of a treasurer of a party. That
is why I say we need something that moves towards some more technical
level penalties which encourage compliance without criminalising
non-compliance unreasonably. Most of the cases we have had of
non-compliance have not been deliberate subterfuge; there might
have been a change of treasurer at local level, whatever it might
have been, and something slips through the net and so we get reporting
late. At the moment, we are hobbled. We are not satisfied with
that. That does need to change.
Peter Wardle: One particular area
that I think it is worth exploring is the penalty clause 49 of
the Bill which provides for a party to be deregistered if, in
this case, it does not submit its annual return confirming who
its officers are. There are two other areas where quite a few
parties failed to comply and that is in sending in their reports
of donations and sending in their annual statement of accounts.
If we arrive in a world where the statement of account regulation
applies only to the bigger parties as a consequence of the change
we were talking about earlier—I think sometimes it is genuinely
difficult for smaller parties to get their accounts prepared and
in on time—and if only those parties that you can reasonably
expect to achieve that were required to do so, then also, in relation
to returns of donations, it would be well worth exploring the
possibility, frankly, if someone is not playing by the rules,
of kicking them out of the game until they are prepared to pay.
That is the way that the legislation is framed. From talking to
parties of all sizes, this would not be the day after the thing
does not appear, but if a few months later there was no sign that
the party was prepared to comply with the rules that all the other
parties are complying with, then it seems the more appropriate
sanction would be to remove their registration rather than to
take a personal prosecution against the party treasurer, for example.
That just seems the wrong response.
Sam Younger: May I add something
that we have noted, that has been taken up and is under discussion
now in the context of the Bill? There is one area of donations
that we feel from our point of view has not worked at all, and
that is the role of the Commission in donations coming to Members
of Parliament or local councillors and others, where we feel we
are effectively duplicating existing arrangements and not adding
value. That is one particular matter that was put into the Bill
five years ago and we think there is a strong case for it not
being there.
Q34 Mr Tyrie: Do you think that the
public have a deeply entrenched view that money can buy access
and influence? If so, do you see it as a key part of your role
to think of ways of dealing with that?
Sam Younger: I think that is certainly
true. As you know, we did a review on the issue of funding of
political parties. The public opinion that came out of that did
say that people have a concern about that in terms of large donations.
Q35 Mr Tyrie: But you shied away
from the key recommendations which might have addressed it, did
you not?
Sam Younger: Yes, I suppose it
is fair to say we did, but that was on the basis that we felt
essentially there was a contradictory view at the time expressed
in public opinion with people saying, "We do not like the
idea of big money being able, as we see it, potentially to buy
influence that makes us feel uncomfortable". At the same
time, when you ask the following question as a consequence of
that, "Is it right that public money should go to political
parties", the answer is "no".
Q36 Mr Tyrie: True, but that is why
a body like yours knows the cost of this.
Sam Younger: It is fair to say
our view was at the time that this is a debate that should go
on but it is not a debate that has got to the point where we would
recommend firmly that we do that.
Q37 Mr Tyrie: So they believe this
but not too strongly and you are not too worried about it?
Sam Younger: It is a concern but
if we felt it to be so fundamental 18 months ago to say that we
actually need to move now, I think that is what we have said,
but I do not think we feel it is quite that fundamental at the
moment.
Q38 Mr Tyrie: We note those views.
We have spoken on public platforms together on this. One last
question in this area very quickly: do you think that the recent
attention that is being paid to the possible misuse of MPs' allowances,
which should be spent for constituency purposes but about which
allegations have been made that they are used to secure party
political advantage in specific constituencies, is one that you
need to address?
Sam Younger: I am very wary about
it. At one level, you could say the Commission is involved in
everything to do with elections and should take an interest in
all of this. It seems to me that the use of parliamentary allowances
should be a matter for the parliamentary authorities. We would
say that allowances for Parliament should not be used for purposes
other than those for which they are intended. It is no part of
what we police. There is another body that does that. I am very
wary about getting into areas that are not ours to run.
Q39 Barbara Keeley: You have welcomed
the Bill. I think others have said that perhaps they were looking
for a clearer consolidation of existing electoral law. Could you
comment on that? Do you think there is enough done there to consolidate
electoral law?
Sam Younger: The answer to that
is "no". We have always found, and I am sure others
have, that when people from any other country come to this country
and ask, "Can we have a copy of your electoral law, please",
the answer is always, "Well, err, that is a pretty difficulty
thing to do". In principle, we would very much like to see
a consolidation of all electoral law, but that is a very major
undertaking. Our feeling is that we should not delay putting in
some of the very important measures that are in this Bill by two,
three or maybe more years in getting a consolidation. There is
a very strong case for consolidation because I think it is for
everybody. It is not just for those administering elections; it
is also for candidates and agents who have to deal with elections.
It is supremely complicated, with the result that I think it is
fair to say on all the points of electoral law there are very
few people who thoroughly understand it. Consolidation is very
important.
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