Agenda item

5.1  The Chair welcomed Tim Shield, Returning Officer for London Borough of Hackney (LBH) and Dan Paul Head of HR from London Borough of Hackney to the meeting. 

5.2  The Returning Officer recapped on the challenges experienced at the elections in May 2015 and reminded Members of the action taken as noted in previous updates to the Commission in July 2015 and November 2015.

5.3  The key areas identified related to a training need for staff, structure and a new IT system. 

5.4  Hackney Council is in the process of implementing a new staffing structure and IT system.  Currently some interim appointments remain within the team.  The Council’s recruitment to post within the new structure for the Elections team is ongoing.

5.5  The Commission was informed the new IT system was implemented in the last 2 weeks of December 2015.  Implementation of the new system was complete within 2 weeks with minor glitches.  All staff have been trained on the new system and no serious problems have been identified.  The new IT system is used by 60- 70% of local authorities.  Hackney has arrangements in place with Islington Council (who use the system) and they are there to help with any questions or queries as additional support.

5.6  The Elections team is split into two distinct functions.  Managing elections and managing the IT system.  Whilst these changes were being implemented the team has continued to provide a full service.

5.7  The Government ordered all councils to close their register on the old system by 1^st December 2015.  New applications to enrol on the electoral register are carried out on the new Individual Electoral Registration (IER) system.  The deadline for residents to register to vote was midnight on 20^th April 2016.  On Monday 20^th April 2016 Hackney Council had 3000 applications pending for processing for registration.

5.8  The new IT system is fully integrated and enables the Council to see all the information related to an application on one dashboard.  This means if an application failed the verification process Hackney Council can see why and if an application has passed the verification process they can see this information too.  The new system allows the Council to see the time the application was made, enabling them to confirm if an application missed the deadline time.

5.9  The new IER system implemented by the Government requires a huge amount of management.

5.10  In relation to postal votes.  A person can register right up until the deadline date for a postal vote.  Hackney has issued 4000 postal vote application letters.  They are currently in the process of confirming the data and applications for postal votes.

5.11  Hackney cleansed it register as suggested, when they closed the old registration system and switched to IER.  In this process Hackney removed a number of individuals from the register because they not confirm their residence at the property.  In response the Council has received large volumes of letters returned to sender.  At the same time there have been scores of people registering to vote to.  The register cleansing process has resulted in a static number of votes on the register.

5.12  Questions, Answers and Discussions

(i)  Members enquired why Hackney had a large number of duplicate applications on the system.

Members were informed the online IER system does not recognise duplicate applications.  To prevent duplicates two things should be implemented; giving people the ability to check if they are on the register and the ability to alter the address that the system automatically populates for the property.

The Council has found people will complete a voter application form multiple times on the online IER platform if they are unsure if their application has been submitted successfully.  The Council has to check each application to see if it’s a duplicate before they can remove the application from the register.

The Officer pointed out that completing an ‘application to vote’ on IER and receiving a reference number, does not mean the person was on the electoral register.  The application still needed to complete the verification process before a person is placed on the register.

Once the new IER system embeds, it is hoped the maintenance required for the system will reduce.

(ii)  Members queried if the challenges previously faced – elector not showing on the printed register - were resolved?  Members also enquired if moving to IER would present the same challenges?

The Returning Officer informed members that officers across London were having discussions about managing a pan London register.  Councils across the capital selected different approaches when switching over to IER.  Hackney Council decided to cleanse its register to ensure they had the correct voters registered.  In this process the Council removed 30,000 voters from the list.  At the same time they have received a large number of new applications and this has resulted in a static register.  The process of re-registering has not impacted on absent voters.  The Council has not experienced an increase in the number of voters registering on the system or being identified in this process. 

The Council’s Policy team reviewed the register and confirmed the borough’s volume of turnover fits with its profile of a transient population.

(iii)  Members enquired about the Council’s plans in relation to crisis management and its preparations for any potential crisis on polling day.  Specifically Members referred to the plans  for the people who were not registered and how they would be managed on the day.

The Returning Officer advised the Council has informed applicants who have missed the application deadline time; to inform them they are not on the electoral register and cannot vote.  Enhanced training has been provided to staff and the Elections team has a pool of staff on standby, as part of their contingency planning.  These staff members would be deployed on the day if required.  Included in the contingency planning process was additional staff in the Elections team to answer the telephone and resolve queries from polling station staff.

The Head of HR also informed all the individuals deleted from the register (as part of the process of cleansing the register) were informed in writing that they were removed from the electoral register.  The officer highlighted large volumes of those letters were returned to the Council.

(iv)  Members enquired about the estimated turnout of voters for the EU Referendum and queried if the EU vote was likely to have a similar percentage turnout to the General Election.

The Returning Officer informed members that the turnout in Scotland was 80% and they expect the percentage for the EU Referendum vote to be similar.

The Commission was informed that the only confusion the Council was expecting related to if a person was eligible to register to vote.  This was complex because if a person was a resident within in Hackney in the last 15 years and now lived overseas, they were still entitled to register to vote in the EU referendum but it could prove difficult establishing their Hackney residency.

In regards to the Mayoral and Assembly election in May 2016.  This election would have three ballot papers and staff have been informed to issue all three papers to voters and let the voters decide if they wish to use all three papers or not.

(v)  Members enquired if the registration process was likely to be changed in the future if and the deadline to register was likely to change.

The Returning Officer informed the Commission, the Government could choose to maintain regional registers because the new system covers the whole process.  This would then involve sending notifications to councils when there were updates to the register.  The current deadline date for voter registration does not take into consideration having thousands of applications to complete in time for polling day.