Tag: Chris Ruane

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-05-06.

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the use of the telephone to confirm continued entitlement to electoral registration; and which local authorities use telephones for that purpose.

Greg Clark

The Electoral Commission collates information on canvass responses (including responses by telephone) as part of its assessment of Electoral Registration Officers’ performance. This data can be found on their website at –

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/performance-standards/performance-in-running-electoral-registration.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-05-06.

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, with reference to the Answer of 6 September 2010, Official Report, column 304W, on electoral register, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to provide for penalties against local authorities which fail to provide sufficient funding and resources to enable electoral registration officers to fulfil their statutory responsibilities.

Greg Clark

Section 54 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 sets out that any expenses properly incurred by an ERO in the performance of their functions must be paid by the local authority that appointed them.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-05-06.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what steps have been taken by the Electoral Commission to inform hon. Members of the performance of electoral registration officers in their (a) constituency and (b) local authority.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Commission informs me that it notified all hon. Members of the performance of electoral registration officers (EROs) through a written statement announcing the publication of its assessment report on 31 March 2014. The Commission also writes individually to every MP who has an ERO within their constituency who has failed to meet at least one performance standard

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-05-12.

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, whether monies collected from fixed penalty notices issued for failure to register on the electoral register will be retained by the local authority which issues that notice.

Greg Clark

It has not proved possible to respond to the Hon Member in the time available before Prorogation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the use in Northern Ireland of prize draws to increase voter registration.

Greg Clark

No direct assessment has been made by the Cabinet Office of the use of prize draws to improve electoral registration in Northern Ireland.

However, we have learnt from the experience of Northern Ireland and used it to inform the development of Individual Electoral Registration (IER) in Great Britain. Unlike the transition to IER in Northern Ireland in 2002, in Great Britain data matching is being used to confirm the majority of current electors on the existing register without them having to make a new application. The Government has also provided £4.2 million funding which has been shared between five national organisations and all 363 local authorities in order to promote voter registration, particularly amongst under-registered groups.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what use his Department has made of the National Wellbeing Index introduced by the Office for National Statistics in formulating policy since the introduction of that Index in 2011; and what policies his Department has introduced to improve national wellbeing as defined in that Index since 2010.

Dan Rogerson

There is no National Wellbeing Index, but the Office for National Statistics has developed a dashboard of measures to monitor wellbeing, both subjective and objective, and in a number of domains.

The most Defra relevant measures are:

Where we live domain

5.3 Accessed natural environment at least once a week in the last 12 months.

Environment Domain

10.2 Protected areas in the UK.

10.4 Household waste that is recycled.

It is too early to be able to show a large number of policies which have been influenced by the data, particularly when the statistics are experimental, but there is still a lot of ongoing work. In terms of my department’s policy work on wellbeing and the general approach, Defra officials provided written evidence for the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) Inquiry on Wellbeing initiated last year. This evidence was co-ordinated by the Cabinet Office and submitted on behalf of Government. The evidence document can be found here:

http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/environmental-audit-committee/wellbeing/written/1069.pdf

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the incidence of heart attacks among workers who work (a) 40 and (b) 60 hours a week.

Jane Ellison

Information onsurvival rates for patients who suffer an out of hospital heart attack or an out of hospital cardiac arrest are not collected centrally.

The British Heart Foundation suggests that between 2-12% of people treated by the emergency services after suffering an out of hospital cardiac arrest survive to be discharged from hospital.

The Department has made no assessment of the effect of stress on heart failure, nor has it made any estimate of heart attacks among workers who work 40 or 60 hours per week.

However, researchers analysing data from the Whitehall II study observed that people who believed stress was significantly affecting their health had double the risk of suffering from coronary heart disease, compared to people who did not believe stress was having an impact.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-18.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what the electoral registration rates were in Northern Ireland in each of the last 15 years.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that it does not hold data on the electoral registration rate for each of the last 15 years.

However, the Commission has periodically carried out specific research on levels of registration in Northern Ireland. This found that the local government register for Northern Ireland was 83.4% complete in December 2007 and 73% complete in April 2012.

Following the publication of findings for the April 2012 register, a household canvass was conducted in Northern Ireland in autumn 2013. After the canvass, the Commission reviewed the results and concluded that it had been well run and significantly improved the completeness of the register. The Commission’s report can be found here: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/166999/Report-on-the-Northern-Ireland-electoral-registration-canvass-2013.pdf

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