Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electorial Commission

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-13.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, if he will list the local authority databases used by electoral registration officers in the dry run for individual electoral registration for the 10 authorities with the (a) best and (b) worst registration rates.

Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that electoral registration officers (EROs) had their own discretion to use any local databases to which they had access to support their work on local data matching. After the dry run was complete the Commission conducted a voluntary survey of EROs on their use of local data following the dry run of confirmation.

Not all EROs responded to that survey so it is not possible to provide a full answer regarding all EROs with the best and worst registration rates. However, amongst the replies received, the following databases were most frequently cited:

· Council tax database

· Council tax benefits

· Housing benefits

· Registrar of births and deaths

· Housing list/Tenancy records

· Residential homes records