Meetings
6. The Committee met three times in 2008. The minutes
of the meetings are reproduced at Appendix 3. The Chairman and
officials of the Electoral Commission attended parts of some of
these meetings, at the invitation of the Committee.
7. In May 2006, the Committee agreed to establish
an informal sub-committee, for the purpose of identifying key
issues on which the Committee might focus. The membership of the
sub-committee is Sir Peter Viggers, who is also its Chairman,
Mr Humfrey Malins and Mr John Healey. The informal sub-committee
met once in 2008, to prepare for the full Committee's scrutiny
of the Commission's draft Estimate and Corporate Plan. An informal
note of that meeting is included at Appendix 3.
8. The principal business in 2008 was to consider
the Commission's draft Estimate for 2008-09 and its draft corporate
plan for the five years beginning 2008-09. The detail of this
work is fully recorded in the Minutes at Appendix 3 and the outcome
is summarised in the next section of this Report.
9. The Committee also initiated and then oversaw
the process to select the next Chairman of the Electoral Commission,
which at the time of preparing this Report had not been completed.
This aspect of the Committee's work is described in its First
Report of 2008.[2]
10. Finally, the Committee gave preliminary consideration
to the implications for its role and work of proposals in the
Political Parties and Elections Bill and in the forthcoming Local
Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill to add to,
amend or remove some of its functions.
2 First Report of the Speaker's Committee 2008, Appointment
of the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, published July
2008 as HC 961of Session 2007-08. Back
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