Tag: Chris Ruane

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, which local authorities have failed standard 3 door-to-door canvassing more than once and (a) have and (b) have not applied for additional central government funding for electoral registration.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) for the authorities set out in the table below have not met standard 3 in more than one year:

Brentwood

Broxbourne

Castle Point

East Devon

East Dorset

East Hampshire

East Hertfordshire

Epping Forest

Great Yarmouth

Gwynedd

Hyndburn

Lancaster

Maldon

Merthyr Tydfil

Mid Devon

Mid Sussex

North Devon

North Dorset

North Lanarkshire

North Warwickshire

Powys

Rhondda, Cynon, Taff

Sedgemoor

Solihull

South Lanarkshire

Taunton Deane

The Vale of Glamorgan

Torridge

Uttlesford

Warwick

West Devon

West Oxfordshire

West Somerset

The Electoral Commission informs me that it does not hold information on applications made for central government funding for electoral registration. The Cabinet Office is responsible for managing this process.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2015-02-11.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what guidance the Electoral Commission issues on the sale of electoral registration details of electors who (a) are on the open register and (b) have opted not to be included on the central register.

Mr Gary Streeter

Electoral legislation prescribes in what circumstances and to whom electors’ details on the full and open electoral registers can be sold.

The ‘full’ electoral register includes the names and addresses of everyone who is registered to vote. Access to, and use of, the full electoral register is carefully controlled. It is only available for sale to certain government departments and other bodies, as well as to credit reference agencies, and may only be used for the purposes for which it has been supplied (for example, credit reference agencies may only use it for credit reference purposes).

The open register is an extract of the electoral register, which electors can opt out of. The open register can be bought by any person, company or organisation.

The Electoral Commission’s guidance to Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) summarises what they are required to do by law. The guidance makes clear the difference between the open and the full registers, and sets out who can have access to them and the prescribed fees for supply.

Individuals applying to register to vote are provided with information on the open and full registers, including what they are used for and who can be provided with data from them.

As part of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration, EROs wrote to all existing electors who had been automatically transferred to the new registers. This letter included information on both the open and full register. The Commission’s report on the first phase of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration, published in October 2014, noted that when EROs began sending these confirmation letters it became clear from the response that many people who were on the open register were not aware of that fact, and were unhappy about how their information was being used.

The Commission remains of the view that the open register should no longer be compiled or made available for sale. The Commission has also recommended that, should the open register be retained, electors should be asked whether they wish to opt in, rather than opt out.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, on what specific date the Electoral Commission plans to publish its estimate of the number of people missing off the electoral register.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Commission informs me that it will publish this report shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2015-02-11.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what steps the Electoral Commission has taken on local authorities who have improperly sold on the details of electors who have opted out of the open register.

Mr Gary Streeter

If an Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) wrongly supplies the details of an elector who has opted out of the open register, this could constitute a breach of the Data Protection Act. In those circumstances, The Electoral Commission would advise an ERO to immediately speak to their local authority’s Data Protection Officer (or an equivalent officer) and/or directly contact the Information Commissioner’s Office. Depending on the circumstances it could potentially constitute a breach of the ERO’s official duty. An ERO guilty of any act or omission in breach of their official duty – without reasonable cause – is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

The Commission’s guidance to EROs makes clear that the details of any elector who has asked to opt out of the open register must not appear in the open register.

It also highlights that an ERO is a data controller with statutory responsibilities under the Data Protection Act, and links to the data protection principles produced by the Information Commissioner’s Office, as well as other sources of guidance for local authorities on data handling, including the Local Government Association and the Society of Information Technology Management (SOCITM).

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what estimate the Electoral Commission has made of the number of local authorities who conducted a dry run in data matching and did not repeat this to the Electoral Commission.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that it has not made any estimate of the number of electoral registration officers (EROs) who did not undertake local data matching trials following the dry run of confirmation in 2013. 139 EROs reported results to the Commission but there are likely to have been other EROs who carried out some activities but did not report it to the Commission.

The Commission further informs me that it did ask EROs, on a separate survey, whether local data matching would be important during the live run of confirmation and 91% said that it would.

The Commission therefore expects more EROs to conduct local data matching for the live run of confirmation than reported on results following the dry run.

The Commission, working with Cabinet Office, will be collecting data from all EROs after the live run of the confirmation process which will demonstrate levels of usage of local data in practice. This data will be published on the Commission’s website.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2015-02-12.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what information the Committee holds on what income local authorities receive from the sale of electoral registers to the private sector.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission does not hold this information.

However, the Commission’s guidance to Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) recommends that EROs maintain a record of the transactions of sales of the registers, which should be available for public scrutiny. The cost of purchasing electoral registers is prescribed in legislation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what estimate the Electoral Commission makes of how many registered electors move house and (a) re-register and (b) fail to re-register to vote each year.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that it intends to provide information on this in its report which uses census data to assess the completeness and accuracy of the registers. This is due to be published in July.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2015-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many passport applications and renewals were administered by post offices in each year since 1985.

Jo Swinson

Information of the number of passport applications and renewals administered by post offices is the operational responsibility of Post Office Limited.

As such I have therefore asked Paula Vennells, the Chief Executive of Post Office Limited, to write to the hon Member on this matter. A copy of her reply will be placed in the libraries of the House.