Tag: Chris Ruane

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-17.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, pursuant to his Answer of 24 February 2014, Official Report, column 22W, on the Electoral Register, whether the Electoral Commission plans to consider initiating voter national registration days or weeks for UK citizens.

Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that it will consider the honourable member’s suggestions.

The Commission has previously organised voter registration drives specifically targeting overseas and armed forces voters, but not for widespread domestic registration.

The Commission is already in discussions with Bite the Ballot, who recently organised a National Voter Registration Day, about how it can help support their work.

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, whether the Student Loans Company database has been used for purposes of maximising student registration.

Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that the Student Loans Company (SLC) database was used during two data matching pilot projects which were organised by the Cabinet Office and evaluated by the Commission.

These pilots aimed to test the usefulness of giving Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) access to information held on national, public databases in order to improve the accuracy and completeness of their electoral register by identifying unregistered people.

In their evaluation of both pilots the Commission concluded that the Student Loans Company data was of limited use in identifying unregistered people.

The Commission’s two evaluation reports can be found here: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/146836/Data-matching-pilot-evaluation.pdf

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/156189/Data-mining-pilot-evaluation-report.pdf

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-26.

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, pursuant to the Answer of 28 January 2014, Official Report, columns 509-10W, on the Electoral Register, with which national organisations his Department is working to encourage people to register to vote.

Greg Clark

Five national organisations have received funding as part of the Government’s measures to maximise voter registration.

The Government is working with a number of other groups such as the British Youth Council and Operation Black Vote.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his Department’s policy is on allowing officials to appear before all-party parliamentary groups.

Simon Hughes

I refer the hon Member to the answer given by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham on 26 March (Official Report col. 300W).

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-31.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, pursuant to the Answer of 3 December 2013, Official Report, columns 611-2W, on electoral registration officers, which local authorities failed to meet performance standard 1 on using local government databases, in each year for which information is available.

Mr Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) who did not meet performance standard 1 in each year from 2008 to 2010 are shown in the table below. No EROs have been assessed as not meeting this standard in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Table: EROs not meeting Performance Standard 1

2008	2009	2010
Barnsley	Bradford	Barnsley
Berwick-upon-Tweed	Nottingham	Nottingham
Blaby	Sefton
Blackburn with Darwen
Brentwood
Chester-le-street*
Durham*
Harborough
Ipswich
North East Derbyshire
North Lanarkshire**
Nottingham
Sutton
South Lanarkshire**
Three Rivers
Windsor and Maidenhead
Weymouth and Portland
Walsall

*Chester-le Street and Durham are now part of County Durham unitary authority.

**North and South Lanarkshire are covered by one ERO

The Electoral Commission also informs me that it published its report, titled ‘Readiness for the transition to Individual Electoral Registration’, which included its assessment of ERO performance in 2013, on 31 March, and wrote to the honourable member with a copy of the report. The report explains that all EROs reported that they were meeting or exceeding standard 1 in 2013, and that the Commission is in the process of conducting a detailed analysis of EROs’ electoral registration data from the 2013 canvass, following which it will publish its final assessment of EROs’ performance.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has tested (a) assessment providers’ and (b) departmental plans for dealing with backlogs and high numbers of assessments.

Mike Penning

The Department does not have a target for completion of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims whilst processes are bedding in. Clearly, we want to minimise the length of time claimants have to wait for assessments but the key requirement is to produce high quality assessments, to enable DWP decision makers to make the right decisions about benefit entitlement.

We are committed to driving up PIP performance and are in regular contact with our assessment providers to do this. We already monitor performance closely and liaise with assessment providers on a daily basis, supplemented by formal monthly performance review meetings. We will continue to work closely with assessment providers on an ongoing basis to monitor quality.

Our original Departmental operational delivery plans assumed a larger volume of assessment provider referrals than we are currently receiving and we have retained this surplus capacity using it to consolidate learning or carry out other duties. This will be available for deployment as cases are returned to the Department for decision maker action. The Department has contingency plans in place to secure additional capacity from other areas of the Department should assessment provider volumes exceed plans.

From 10 March we have included with the PIP2 ‘How your disability affects you’ questionnaire, issued to PIP claimants, communications explaining how long they might be expected to wait for a PIP assessment. This information is also available on Gov.uk.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the early operational performance of each private sector company providing personal independence payments assessments.

Mike Penning

Personal independence payment (PIP) is a new benefit and processes are currently bedding in. The Department’s contracts with Capita and Atos Healthcare for the delivery of assessments for personal independence payment include a full set of service level agreements setting out the Department’s expectations for service delivery, including quality of assessments and the number of days to provide advice to the Department.

Officials meet regularly with both assessment providers to discuss performance. We are closely monitoring their progress against the Department’s expectations for service delivery and are taking action to drive up performance where this does not meet the required standards. In particular, for both providers, the end-to-end process for many claimants is taking significantly longer than originally anticipated. We are working with the providers to ensure that they are taking all necessary steps to improve performance, speed up the process and ensure claimants receive a satisfactory experience. Special rules claims for terminally ill claimants are dealt with urgently by our assessment providers. The latest published statistics show that over 99% of people with terminal illnessess who have applied have been awarded the benefit, which means over 9,500 terminally ill claimants are now receiving personal independence payment.

Although limited data has started to feed through, we need to wait until the Department has quality assured, meaningful figures for publication. We intend to publish official statistics on PIP from spring 2014 in line with our publication strategy. An ad-hoc release of PIP information was published on 11 February 2014.