Individual Electoral Registration and Electoral Administration - Political and Constitutional Reform Committee Contents


Written evidence submitted by Lord Freud, Minister for Welfare Reform, Department for Work and Pensions

1.  Thank you for your letter[55] regarding the methods that the Department for Work and Pensions uses to validate address and record nationality details.

2.  With regard to the point about using the Local Land and Property Gazeteer (LLPG), the repository for our information, the Customer Information System (CIS), provides information for the whole of the UK.

3.  The Department considered options as to the best source of data to validate addresses taking into account the need for national coverage. However, the LLPG only covers England and Wales. To ensure national coverage and accuracy we use the QAS Pro system by Experian (which covers England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) to validate addresses against the Royal Mail Postal Address File.

4.  As for the feasibility of recording nationality, the Department is reviewing its requirements to collect nationality data for the purpose of paying social security benefits. I am unable to comment at this stage on the scope for such data to be used for matching eligible voters.

5.  If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.

October 2011



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