Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 152)
TUESDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2005
MALCOLM DUMPER
AND DAVID
MONKS
Q140 Dr Whitehead: In theory CORE
could actually, as it were, require local authorities to spend
more money in order to get less income?
Malcolm Dumper: Potentially, yes.
Q141 Dr Whitehead: If CORE did go
ahead in the way that is envisaged, it would have project keeper,
which one assumes might be the actual commissioner?
Malcolm Dumper: That is quite
a natural suggestion, I think. I was quite concerned in reading
that there may be several different keepers, different areas to
set up CORE. I think there needs to be one controller of the project
based on consistency throughout the regions if they are going
to be split down to areas.
Q142 Dr Whitehead: The keeper of
the CORE does sound rather like the Lord of the Rings, I have
to say! Let us say the Electoral Commission were the keeper of
the CORE and you had personal identifiers of the kind that you
favour, would it then be a logical step perhaps that the responsibility
for the whole register might move to the Electoral Commission
in the way that we have, say, in Australia and Canada?
Malcolm Dumper: It comes back
almost to the first question we were asked today by Mr Howarth
about the Commission's role, and, in fact, would they want to
take on that governor role within the electoral services? I doubt
it very much. I think there needs to be retention of local knowledge
and the local ability to conduct electoral registration. I do
not think the Commission can in any way conduct the exercise of
registration and the custody of all electoral information from
one area. I think it would need to be regionalised, but whether
or not that is something that the Commission will take on in the
future is not for me to speculate on.
David Monks: I think they could
be the keeper of the CORE, and, as I was saying to David Howarth
earlier on, I think they could use us as their local agents. There
is no way they should go out and employ armies and armies of people
to do something we have been doing, but the line of responsibility
a" la elections, a" la what I was talking about before,
the line of responsibility on the electoral registration should
be back up to the Commission and not our personal responsibility.
Let them set the standards, let them take the responsibility;
perhaps they could fund us as well. It all makes sense when you
pull all those lines together. I certainly do not think it should
be a government department. I think it should be the Commission
and it should be independent from government or whatever particular
administration.
Q143 Dr Whitehead: If you had that
scenario developing, then also indeed, I think, from the responses
you put in your evidence, you would have the possibility of sharing
data in various other ways in order to externally validate, as
it were, what was happening as far as the register was concerned.
What sort of level of data would you think it would be reasonable
or appropriate to share, and, if you did have that level of sharing,
would that affect, do you think, in any way how the canvas that
we have already discussed might be carried out, in as much as
you could say, "All these people we know are still here because
they are pensioners or drivers or whatever, and therefore we can
do certain things as far as the canvass is concerned"?
David Monks: Exactly. I think,
to pick up that last point first, then you would perhaps do a
canvas—I have heard it suggested once in the life of every
Parliament, I think that would be a real risk if you have had
say two or three elections a year, but you could put a time limit
on it once every three or four years. Remember that a lot of the
people who come back on our register do not move. People in Huntingdonshire
say, "Why do you keep sending me this form? Okay, my 16 year
old will become an 18 year old", or something like that,
that is fine, but these people do not move house. What we need
to do—is it the Australian system—is to concentrate
on the people who are moving house and if, to pick up the last
part of your question, we could get access to other records, DVLA,
DWP, some of these other government departments, at worst it would
be a cross-check and at best we could pick up people who we have
not got already; so the accurateness of the register goes up for,
frankly, not a huge amount of effort, just a modest amount of
effort, and, again, if I was a civil servant arguing back against
me—which is one of the ways we think when we produce all
this stuff—they could say, "Well, we can probably do
with either very, very minimal extra resource or outwith existing
resources." You know, the exchange of the odd few emails,
or something like that. Can we check these addresses? Can we check
these names? There are probably data protection issues there now,
but again that is something we could look into. As we have said
in our evidence, we think we should be having a looking at things
like DVLA and looking at their records.
Q144 Chairman: Have you discussed
that with the department? What is the state of your discussion?
If I remember rightly, data sharing will be dealt with by secondary
legislation if the Bill goes through in its present form, will
it not. Is not that the gateway?
Malcolm Dumper: I think that is
right.
Q145 Chairman: Are you in discussion
with the department about what kinds of data. . ..
Malcolm Dumper: I think the next
phase for the CORE project, I believe, is to unfold fairly soon,
and one presumes that that debate will then be had, but I am not
sure whether it is going to be by secondary legislation or not.
Q146 Chairman: I am more interested
in whether they are talking to you about this?
Malcolm Dumper: Certainly we will
do. Indeed, in discussions we have with DCA that will certainly
come out. I would just like to return to Dr Whitehead's question
though. I think there needs to be a careful balance struck here
about the elector providing information which will in time, I
presume, include some form of personal identifiers. Whatever that
will be, the concerns that there might then be that this is going
into a national database and what access rights are there—who
is actually going to access this information, and so on—I
think needs to be very carefully thought through to ensure that
there is some protection to the individual with the information
they have been providing.
Q147 Chairman: One last topic I want
to touch on, which is service registration. There was an appalling
fall of 118,000 service voters in the three years after the new
system was introduced. Would you have any problems if you went
back to the old system?
Malcolm Dumper: I certainly think
they appear to have been hard done by since the new arrangements
in 2000 when the ability to register at home and the declaration
of local connection in some cases for those who did not have a
permanent address seemed to satisfy the problems that the MoD
were having with their service units. We used to be very critical
of the service indices, as I think they were called—the
Army, Navy and RAF, but I would like to see them set up again,
because I think they had an important role to play.
Q148 Chairman: You would like to
see them?
Malcolm Dumper: Set up again,
that the MoD in the particular service areas have particular units
that are responsible for ensuring that people are completing the
registration documentation for their local authority areas.
Q149 Chairman: The other essential
feature of the old system was that, whilst you were registered,
you remained registered for the whole of your service.
David Monks: I remember this.
We have that issue in Huntingdonshire where we have quite a lot
of RAF personnel, and that was the criticism of the old system,
because these people are shunted not only around the world but
around the country as well, so they lose contact with their area.
I think to answer your question directly, the answer is, yes,
we could introduce a system. I am not sure if reintroducing, resurrecting
the old system and grafting it on to what we have got is the best
way forward. If you are going to say to us that we have got to
do better, yes, given the time, the resources, the training and
all the other stuff that we always go on about, we would do our
best to get these people on because they are entitled to vote
as is anybody else and so we must do better and get them on the
register.
Q150 Chairman: The other system was
simple.
Malcolm Dumper: Yes. I do not
think it was resourced properly.
Q151 Chairman: There was a risk of
greater overhang, but it did not require a great deal of training
and activity as long as the units put the names in?
Malcolm Dumper: Yes.
Q152 Chairman: Thank you very much
for your time today. It is much appreciated. The show will run,
as these proceedings go on and on, but we will try to bring to
bear your advice on those of the members who are taking part.
Thank you very much.
Malcolm Dumper: Thank you.
| 
