Draft Local Government (Timing of Elections) (Scotland) Bill
We now move to the Executive's consultation paper and the draft local government (timing of elections) (Scotland) bill. I will not divide up the questions for the witnesses; just make sure that all the questions are asked. You have my permission to take your jackets off if it gets too warm, but that is all—do not take anything else off.
I apologise again—I do not know what has happened to my voice today. I will not apologise for the room that we are meeting in today. We have to take Buggins's turn. It is rather warm, but I notice that some of you have already taken your jackets off anyway, so that is fine.
The first group of witnesses are from the Scottish Executive. We have Peter Peacock, the Deputy Minister for Finance and Local Government, Leslie Evans, head of the local government, constitution and governance division, Frank Duffy, the head of local government, constitution and governance division branch 1, and Murray Sinclair, the divisional solicitor, in division C of the office of the solicitor to the Scottish Executive.
You are all welcome and, as you have all been here before, you will be familiar with proceedings. I ask the minister to address the committee.
I will try to ensure that you do not have to intervene too often, so that you can save your voice.
As members are aware, we announced in November last year our intention to legislate to allow council terms to be extended to four years and to allow Scottish Parliament and council elections to be planned at the same time interval, from 2003 onwards. We are now consulting on draft legislation. The consultation ends on 21 June. We hope that the bill will be introduced to Parliament in September this year. That will be necessary to make the changes required to cancel the 2002 local government elections, which would otherwise take place, in time.
We believe that the move to a four-year term will give councils far greater stability than the current three-year term. It will help councils to plan ahead and to deliver their policies and priorities more effectively. Extending council terms will complement other initiatives that we have taken, such as the new financial regime, which introduced three-year budget settlements and so a longer time horizon than that to which we were accustomed.
We recognise that there are differing views on whether local government elections should coincide with those for the Parliament or should fall mid-term—between parliamentary elections. Sir Neil McIntosh's report recognised that benefits were attached to both approaches. His evidence was largely taken before the experience of the 1999 election. There has been subsequent consultation on his report and I will go into the results of that later, if the committee wants.
The elections in May 1999 achieved the highest turnout for local government elections in a decade or more. The average turnout was 59 per cent against a backdrop of average turnouts of between 48 per cent and 41 per cent from 1976 to 1995. Graphs that illustrate the trend are available to members of the committee.
We believe that that high turnout reinforces local government's democratic mandate. Holding local government elections on the same day as the Scottish Parliament election strengthens the notion that equal legitimacy exists between both tiers of Scottish government and clarifies that there are different responsibilities attached to each tier. Over time, that will help to clarify the respective roles of the Parliament and local government. The previous system of holding separate elections led to local government elections being seen as national referendums on the Government. Officials will discuss with the relevant administrative bodies, electoral registration officers, returning officers and others issues associated with the planning and administration of the elections in June and will address any administrative concerns that arise from the proposals.
I am aware that there are concerns about the possibility that local government elections might be called early because of an early Scottish Parliament election. I have already had some helpful comments from members of the committee about that matter. I want to make it clear that our first and overriding principle is to move to holding local government elections on a four-year-term basis. A secondary concern is the wish to hold them at the same time as the Scottish Parliament election.
We will consider carefully the responses to the consultation on shifting local government elections from a four-year-term basis to make them coincide with an early election of the Scottish Parliament. In the draft bill, ministers have the power to call an early local government election in a wide range of circumstances. The committee can expect that we will have pondered the matter further when we come back to Parliament with refined proposals in September. The benefit of having the period of consultation on the draft bill is that it allows us to consider such matters in the light of comments, which are still coming in.
While I believe that there will be a case for ministers continuing to have some discretion in the calling of elections, it may well be better to express a clearer view on when that would be necessary in the bill that we introduce in September. I stress once again that our overriding principle is to hold local government elections on a four-year-term basis.
I will ask my questions before my voice totally disappears.
As you know, Professor John Curtice is our next witness. I found an interesting quotation in his submission. Unfortunately for my throat, it is also rather long. It says:
"at some point in the future the UK Prime Minister may opt to hold a Westminster general election on the same day as a Scottish Parliamentary election. In that event then under the provisions of this bill, three sets of elections would have to be held on the same day. It may be noted that when coincident elections were held in England in 1979 the government postponed parish council elections that were due to take place at the same time as the district council elections on the grounds that it was unreasonable to expect electoral administrators (and voters) to cope with three sets of elections on the same day. It is not clear to me that there are any provisions in the bill that would make it possible for Scottish Ministers to postpone the local elections in such circumstances."
Will you consider that possibility?
John Curtice's argument seems to be that we should make provision in the bill for ministers to have powers to make a Scottish local government election coincide with a UK general election and a Scottish Parliament election. I will have to come back with any information that I do not cover in this answer, but I will say that, as the UK election is a reserved matter, it would be unwise for a Scottish minister to get into that area.
I am not clear why it would happen, but if the UK Government—which, after all, has a role in Scottish Parliament elections—decided that it wanted to make a UK general election coincide with Scottish Parliament elections, the draft bill would allow us to make local government elections coincide with those two elections. I suspect that it would be going beyond the Scottish Parliament's competence to take powers in relation to a UK election, but I will have the issue double-checked by our lawyers and will get back to the committee in writing.
If I quote you correctly, you said that there would be a mid-term mini-referendum on the Government's performance if a local government election took place on its own. However, if the two elections happened on the same day, would not that be the same as having a full-blown referendum on the Government's performance, with the net effect that the local government election would have no real relevance because people would vote on the big issues instead of on the issues on their doorstep?
We have heard that argument a number of times over a number of years; it predated the first Scottish Parliament election and the most recent local government election, which were held on the same day. Having thought about the matter much more over time, I believe that the opposite is the case. Colleagues round the table who, like me, have been involved in council elections will know that it was no surprise to find various pundits and commentators on elections inviting people to make a judgment on the Government on the basis of the local government elections. Furthermore, it was not unknown for political parties represented around this table to include national issues in their local government manifestos. I am not sure that that situation would change if the elections were held mid-term; they could still be overtaken by national events, as they have been in the past. That could happen more frequently in future.
The genuine benefit of holding both elections on the same day is that the local government election cannot be hijacked, because a distinction has to be drawn between the two tiers of government on which people are voting that day. I would hope that, over time, it might be argued that electing councils on the same day as we elect a Scottish Parliament or vice versa would help to clarify to people that they are voting for different things. As a result, we could make things clearer than they have been in the past and stop local authority elections being hijacked. That said, I understand the point.
On the more general question of whether holding local government elections on the same day as a general election will somehow diminish the position of local authorities, I think that the opposite will be the case. As I said in my opening remarks, having the same turnout for a general and a local government election gives equal status and legitimacy to both tiers of government—one tier will not have a greater democratic mandate than the other. That will help local authorities overall, particularly as turnouts have increased. As for whether local authorities will be lost in the middle of a general election, it depends on how you view the situation. I would characterise such an election day as Scottish democracy day, when people go to the ballot box and elect both the tiers of government that operate within the boundaries of Scotland.
The opportunity exists to enhance, rather than diminish, the status of local authorities and to prevent local authority elections from being overtaken by national issues, which has happened and, I suspect, would continue to happen. A fair responsibility falls on all our political parties to handle elections in a way that does not diminish the role of local authorities, which is not our intention.
If the process of electing a Scottish or UK Government puts local government on the back burner, does the Executive have plans to provide resources to enhance the prospect of local government's receiving a fair airing and making a fair delivery of what it can do for the Scottish people?
As I said, I do not accept that proposition, but we are more than happy to consider any matters in which we can be helpfully involved and to assist local authorities, returning officers and others—including ourselves—in promoting the electoral process on democracy day, as I described it. We must also ensure that the distinction between the Scottish Parliament election and the local authority election is recognised. People must understand that they will have two votes for the Scottish Parliament and one vote for the local authority and that those bodies have different functions and responsibilities but are equally legitimate, democratically. We are more than happy to consider anything we can do to help the process, such as publicity and advertising. We do not desire a blurring of the edges; we desire the reverse of that.
From the minister's answer, I assume that he feels that combining elections would not take the focus off local government elections.
I do not think that focus would be lost. Political parties, the Executive and local authorities have parts to play in bringing to the Scottish public's attention the fact that we will elect the two tiers of Scottish government for which we have responsibility on that day. We can use that day to celebrate democracy, rather than to hide one election in another. The fact that the turnout would be the same for both elections would help to equalise the status of local authorities and the Scottish Parliament. It would also help with the legitimacy test, because no one could say that local authorities had a lower turnout and were therefore less democratically legitimate than the Scottish Parliament—that would be unfortunate and the proposals would help us to avoid that. Over time, the fact that the elections took place on the same day would help to clarify the roles of the two tiers of government, rather than blur the edges.
You mentioned McIntosh who, along with Kerley, recommended four-year terms starting on different dates. How meaningful is the consultation? According to a written answer from you, the consultation is only technical. Has your mind been made up? Will you genuinely listen to people? Are we wasting our time? Written evidence could have dealt with everything.
We are not wasting our time. The consultation is genuine. We have firm proposals on which we are consulting. I noticed Mr Harding's press release—we are damned if we do and damned if we don't.
That is the joy of being in power.
Had we issued a press release, we would have been accused of spin. We did not issue one and we were accused of secrecy. It is difficult to win. The consultation is no secret. I will be happy to issue a press release based on today's evidence, if that would help to make it clear that we are not trying to hide anything. A wide range of interested parties was sent the consultation paper. The committee is taking evidence today and is also drawing attention to the matter.
We have received many responses to the consultation. The issue is open and alive. We want to hear what people are saying. On the basis of some responses, we are rethinking whether ministers should have the full range of powers to call early local government elections that we envisaged. The consultation is genuine and open. We want to hear what people have to say.
Forgive us for being a bit cynical, but the consultation was announced in reply to a written question that was answered before the question was published, on the day of a parliamentary by-election, after the close of business. I understand Keith Harding's position.
Paragraph 3 of the draft policy memorandum states:
"From the elector's perspective, running Parliamentary and local government elections together will result in being asked to turn out less times and therefore will have a positive impact on voter fatigue."
Given that in Italy, Germany, Israel and many other countries people turn out for elections much more frequently than they do here, and given that it may be the case that people do not get into the habit of voting or do not maintain the habit because elections are few and far between, which may result in turnouts going down, what evidence do you have for that statement?
The hard evidence is that the coincidence of the Scottish Parliament elections and the local government elections led to a significant increase in turnout. That is important, because it improves legitimacy. We also have UK elections, community council elections and European Parliament elections. One of the regrettable facts of democratic life in the UK is that turnout is falling in elections for every level of government. That is a separate subject in its own right, but I would have thought that it would be a worry for every political party.
I do not think that having coincident Scottish Parliament and local government elections will do anything to diminish people's appetite to vote. Our argument is that it will increase their appetite and that they will vote in local government elections when turning out for a Scottish Parliament election or vice versa, however you want to look at it, in numbers that they have not previously.
As I indicated, I can distribute to committee members and members of the public some graphs, which show how the turnout has fallen and how it increased significantly at the 1999 elections. I am happy to hand those out right now.
I wonder whether the turnout at local government elections in fact increased. Paragraph 6 of the policy memorandum states:
"The heightened publicity and media attention for combined elections clearly has an impact on voter turnout."
However, in the three months before the Scottish Parliament elections, there was a massive television campaign, which told people that they would have two ballot papers on polling day and explained how both ballots would work, but there was absolutely no publicity—unless people got a leaflet through their door from a political party—about the fact that there was also a local government election.
The only reason turnout increased—the minister is well aware of this—is that a lot of folk turned up at polling stations and were presented with three ballot papers, not the two that they were expecting. Therefore, they may not have voted for local government issues. They may have thought, "I've given one vote to one party. I'll give my other two to another two," or, "I'll give my first two votes to one party." Was voting based on the workings of local councils? Will there be publicity to tell people that they have three ballots? It is bizarre that there was no publicity for the last local government elections in Scotland, yet a couple of months ago, before they were postponed—
Kenny, please get to your question.
On Scottish television there were advertisements for people to register to vote for the English council elections which, unless I am mistaken, were never scheduled for Scotland. So two years ago we had no publicity about Scottish council elections, but recently we had publicity for the English council elections. Will there be publicity? Is not it a fact that in 1999 a lot of people did not even know that there was a local government election?
There are choices to be made. We have indicated in the policy memorandum and in answer to questions in Parliament that the timing of elections is a balanced judgment. We are convinced that we have to go to four-year terms, for the reasons that I have set out, and we believe that, on balance, it is right to have local government elections on the same day as Scottish Parliament elections, for reasons that I also have set out. We could choose not to do that, but all the evidence is that, if we did so, we would go back to the position where local authority elections, right or wrong, have a poorer turnout. My objective is to ensure that as much legitimacy as possible is attached to local authorities. In the context of the new democratic system in Scotland, electing councillors on the same percentage turnout as members of the Scottish Parliament can only be of advantage to local authorities' legitimacy.
The plain fact is that, if you examine the statistics that I have circulated, you will see a significant upturn in turnout at the previous elections. That is a fact: the people voted in the local authority election. You and I could argue about what was in their minds when they went to the polling stations, but the fact is that they cast their votes in local authority elections in numbers that have not been seen for a generation or more. That must be healthy.
As I indicated to Gil Paterson, we are more than happy to consider ways in which we can continue to enhance advertising and publicity for, and people's understanding of, parliamentary and local government elections, if they occur on the same day. There is everything to be said for that, because it helps to accentuate the different responsibilities that those bodies have. If there is anything that we can do in that regard to better empower returning officers or local authorities or if there is anything that we can do out of our own hand, we are more than happy to consider that as a way of addressing some of the points that you may have concerns about.
Members have seen the set of graphs. The front page indicates the trend over the years of declining turnout and then the significant upturn at the previous election. The set of graphs shows the overall Scottish trends over the period together with those in the former regions, because we have aggregated the district and regional council elections. The graphs clearly show that, although there are variations, the trend was downward for a number of years until 1999.
The last page illustrates the significant change—in some areas, a hugely significant change—in turnout. If we look at the first bars on the graph, those for Aberdeen City Council elections, we see that the change in turnout is from between 35 and 40 per cent to well over 50 per cent. That is a significant increase in turnout and voting for a local government election. The trend is healthy and we want it to continue.
I have a small question on the power to synchronise polling at local government and extraordinary parliamentary elections. We would all accept the need for four-year terms. If the Scottish Executive was unable to select a First Minister and another Scottish election was therefore called, why—as the draft bill appears to say—would we need local elections to coincide with that?
I am happy to pick up on those points. Iain Smith has already spoken to me at length about that matter. Other members of the committee have also brought it to my attention. I indicated in my opening remarks that we are happy to revisit that point.
The overriding principle is for four-year terms. On balance, we think that those terms should coincide with the Scottish election. I am no expert in constitutional law and the effect of what happens in the Scottish Parliament on that, but I understand that there are three situations that may cause us to need to consider the issue at all.
One of those situations is that, as I understand it, the Presiding Officer has a power to vary the date of the Scottish election by one month either side of the normal date. That power is for use in unusual circumstances, which we would not necessarily be able to predict. In circumstances in which the Presiding Officer uses that power, it seems right that a minister should have the power to call a simultaneous local government election. The variation in the date is not huge. Why have two elections within a month of each other? That is a reasonable point.
The second situation is, as I understand it, that we fail to appoint a First Minister after the normal election of a Parliament, in which case the Parliament could dissolve within a period of about 28 days. On the face of it, there would be no reason to call a local government election in those circumstances. Similarly, if—as happened during this session after the First Minister died—we had to re-elect a First Minister and there was a failure to appoint in those circumstances, a situation could arise, depending on the timing, in which it might be proper to synchronise the Scottish election with a local government election. However, that would not necessarily be proper in all circumstances.
The third situation is if Parliament votes by a two-thirds majority to dissolve. There is then the opportunity to call an election. If, in a year in which there would normally be an election, that happened between the date at which the council tax would normally be fixed—11 March; that is a statutory duty on local authorities—and the point at which the Presiding Officer could call an election, it would be reasonable for a minister to have a power to synchronise the elections.
Beyond that, the question is why, if there is no intention to use the power or if it would not be reasonable to use the power, the power should exist. I am quite prepared to take that point back and reconsider it. When we come back with revised proposals, we will ensure that they are more precise about when a minister should exercise the power. I repeat that our clear intention is to have four-year terms. That is the overriding policy priority.
The power obviously contradicts the aim of having four-year terms.
Minister, you have probably gathered that there is some scepticism in the committee about the bill. Part of that scepticism is based on the idea that the bill may be a mechanism for pre-empting the Kerley report and to avoid related difficulties. Would you comment on that allegation?
If we assume that the bill is not a mechanism for pre-empting the Kerley report and that we deliver some sort of electoral reform at some point in the future, we might find ourselves with a new electoral system for the local government elections. In the elections to the Scottish Parliament, we had two different systems—first past the post and the additional member system. What technical problems might occur if, on the same day, we had local government elections using the single transferable vote or alternative vote systems?
God forbid that we would ever be accused of trying to avoid any of the Kerley recommendations. As you know, we are committed to making progress on the question of proportional representation; indeed, those discussions are continuing in the ministerial committee.
The Executive's decision to promote the bill and the notion that the elections should be on the same day are without prejudice to any voting system in local government elections that may arise in future. The decision does not presuppose that the electoral system for local government will always remain first past the post. If the electoral system changes in due course by will of the Parliament, that matter would be covered.
There are practical questions. If your question is whether the local authority returning officers and electoral registration officers could cope with two different forms—if there were different forms, as this is all hypothetical—of proportional representation on the same day, my response to that is yes. I have enormous confidence in local government officers. They have made a huge number of things work over many generations. I believe that they would tackle any new system with their normal professionalism and make it work.
In many ways, we are moving towards a situation that has long obtained in the rest of Europe, where there are complex local government elections by PR. Indeed, Northern Ireland has PR for local government elections. As I understand it, those elections are conducted on the same day as UK general elections, so there is some experience of how such a system might work. I think that local authorities could cope with that. As matters stand, such a system would undoubtedly be more complex and would take more time, but nonetheless I think that local authorities would cope.
We can feed into that the fact that we are moving rapidly down the road of having the technological capacity to count votes electronically. I hasten to add that I am not advocating the system that was used in America late last year; I am advocating the simple scanning mechanisms that are now used. Aberdeen City Council is piloting such a mechanism and is considering how ballot papers can be counted differently. With such technology at our disposal, we could cut the time that it might otherwise take under PR systems to count complex ballot papers and reallocate votes.
To recap, members must be clear that what we propose is without prejudice to future electoral systems. If PR becomes the will of Parliament, we are confident that local government officers can cope. Technological mechanisms are becoming available to help with that. We intend to speak in detail to chief executives, presiding officers, electoral registration officers and others to ensure that we have thought everything through. There are meetings towards the end of June about general administrative matters relating to the issue.
I thank the minister for the discussions that he and I have had on the draft bill and the assurances that he has given to the committee this afternoon on some of the points that have been raised. I am especially pleased by his assurance that the primary purpose of the bill is to have a four-year term for local government. What concerns me slightly is that the draft bill does not say, "Local government will have a four-year fixed term." It says that local government elections will have no fixed term but that they will be synchronised with the Scottish Parliament elections—which happen to have a four-year fixed term. I wonder whether that can be considered when the bill proper is being drafted so that it says clearly that local government elections will be four yearly because they will coincide with the Scottish Parliament elections.
My main point relates to Kenny Gibson's question about the power relating to extraordinary parliamentary elections. I would like to explore a couple of the concerns that I would have were that power to be used.
One concern is that there would be a fairly short time between when an extraordinary election was called and when it took place. If that happened outwith the normal run of events, it would be difficult for political parties to get candidates in place for council seats. That issue of democracy has to be taken into account. If a councillor has a four-year mandate cut short by six months, for example, it would be difficult for that councillor to present himself or herself to the electorate in a fair way. The democratic legitimacy of those elections would be at issue.
My other concern relates to council tax. Councils may be in the process of doing things that they expect to finish, only to find their time cut short. I would welcome the minister's comments on all those points.
We will consider the drafting to see whether there are ways of better expressing matters relating to the four-year term, in order to draw attention to the principles. I will take that issue away and consider it in detail.
Iain Smith makes two points about the downside of ministers having a unilateral power to call an election. If that were well out of sync with the normal Scottish Parliament election—for reasons that we rehearsed in my answer to Kenny Gibson—there could be practical problems. There is a difference in political scale between selecting hundreds of councillors and selecting 120-odd parliamentary candidates—perhaps I should phrase that as "120 parliamentary candidates". The political parties would have a difficult job with that difference in scale. That is another factor that we will weigh in the balance when we make our final judgments on what we will present to Parliament.
The second point was about work that councils had in hand. As I said in response to Kenny Gibson's question, my specific concern as I reviewed the matter and thought about it more deeply was the statutory duty to fix council tax. That must be done by 11 March each year. If a minister had any power that could intervene in that process and therefore prevent a council from setting a budget, that could have huge cost consequences. There would be less time to collect that year's tax and the billing process would be interrupted. Any interruption would be a serious matter—for example, a council could start a new financial year without a budget. We would have to think carefully about whether it would be right for the councils' duties to be overridden. Sitting here, I can think of very few circumstances in which that would be right.
Councils may have other work in hand, too. I suppose that that happens with any election—not all business is completed. However, we have to consider whether there are any statutory limitations on that work—whether it is related to structure plans, for example. Council tax setting is probably unique in having a statutory date. We would have to consider whether calling an election would give rise to other impediments that would have to be weighed in the balance. We have to find the right period in which a minister should legitimately have the discretion to use the power. Equally, however, the power should not be used in circumstances where we think it should not apply.
Donald, would you like to ask anything?
No. As you know, convener, I am here for the next item. I have a continuing interest in these subjects.
I just did not want you to think that we were ignoring you.
Are there any more questions?
Yes.
All right—a quick one without a story.
Turnout is a key issue for everyone in politics. What measures is the Executive considering to improve turnout, other than coincident elections?
Turnout is a fundamental issue, not only for local authorities but for everyone involved in the democratic process. If I knew how to bring about massive increases in voter turnout, I would be earning a huge amount of money as a consultant. Increasing turnout is a challenge for everyone and not just for those in local government.
People have to believe that their participation in an election makes a difference and that their vote counts. Their vote must allow them to exercise choice in local matters. That is partly why we are taking so many steps to free up councils by removing guidelines. Previously, when a council was capped, or guidelines were applied or there were penalty systems and clawbacks of grant—as happened for many years—the public did not know whether responsibility lay with the council or with the Government that had imposed the cap or expenditure limit. There was an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing between councils and the Government, each of which said that it was the other's fault. One reason why we have removed guidelines is to make it clearer where responsibilities lie. It is now up to the council to make such decisions.
Moving to three-year budgets and tax levels that have been agreed and indicated to the public helps accountability. The power of community planning is about giving councils a more central role in pulling together public sector services and about councils getting views from their area. The power of community initiative gives more power to councils to do things that they think are right, in the interests of their areas. Best value will also contribute to people understanding better the role of their council and knowing what their council is responsible for.
Initiatives on civic education and citizenship are taking place in our school system to encourage people to understand better the workings of our democracy and to widen access in a variety of ways. What emerged from the McIntosh report was the extent of the use of the whip in local authorities and the fact that, in some councils, almost all decisions are whipped. We are moving towards a position where it will be much clearer which decisions are whipped and which are not, thus giving more transparency to council decision making.
There is a whole range of things that we could do to allow people to appreciate the importance of their local council and to hold that council to account. Rather than simply applying to local authorities, it is a challenge that relates fundamentally to attitudes in our society and to approaches to the whole democratic process.
I have a quick question on regulations concerning campaign finance. Those for the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament are decided at Westminster, but those for local elections are subject to a decision on our part. There is no provision for this, but do you have any plans to consider increasing regulation on expenditure for local elections?
The Electoral Commission is considering those matters in regard to England and Wales, but its writ does not run to Scotland. In a range of matters regarding local authorities on which we may have to legislate, several electoral and democratic issues arise. There is a balance to be struck between including some things in the draft bill and accumulating a significant number of matters that arise from the McIntosh and Kerley reports or that councils have brought to our attention, such as the flexible operation of local elections, the use of electronic voting and counting methods, and holding meetings using technology. All those things are the focus of discussion in the Executive and, on balance, we wish to consider them as a package rather than select one or two to insert in the draft bill. I cannot give any commitment on what we will do, but those matters are under active consideration and we will decide what to do to make the whole process much livelier and more relevant to people and we will regulate it appropriately.
I do not think that there are any more questions. In summing up, I do not think that anyone on the committee would disagree that an increase in council voting is a healthy trend. As Kenny Gibson pointed out, the argument is whether that was exactly what happened last time—it was possibly the case that people who were already going to the polling station for the parliamentary elections thought that they might as well vote in the local elections too.
I also agree with Kenny Gibson's comments about publicity. It is important for people to know next time that they have three votes, not two. They will have a first-past-the-post vote, a list vote and a vote for their local councillor. It would be interesting to consider the differences, and how people vote: whether they vote one way for the Parliament and another way for their local council. That might give us some food for thought.
I think that you are hearing from the world expert on that subject next.
Indeed. I thank you and your officials for coming today.
Okay comrades, we now have before us Professor John Curtice, from the department of government at the University of Strathclyde. I have to apologise for my voice, which is slowly but surely disappearing. As my officials will have told you, the format is that you speak for about seven minutes and I will then open it up to the committee for questions.
Professor John Curtice (University of Strathclyde):
I am sorry about your voice, convener—you are obviously getting ready for the election campaign already.
I understand that members have already received my paper. I will summarise the points that are made therein. Essentially, the draft bill makes provision to hold Scottish local government elections once every four years in the future and to do so on the occasion of elections to the Scottish Parliament. The Executive makes two main arguments in favour of its position. The first is that turnout would be higher and the second is that the longer time span for councillors' offices would help councils to take a more strategic view. I am not an expert on local government, so I do not wish to comment on whether four years would enable councillors to take a more strategic view than would three years. I note that four years is the norm in England and was the norm in Scotland prior to the last round of local government reorganisation. I primarily want to focus on the electoral aspects of the bill.
I do not think that there is any controversy about the claim that turnout is higher in local government elections when they are held at the same time as another election that voters appear to regard as being more important. The turnout in the 1999 coincident elections in Scotland was 58.5 per cent, which is only a little lower than the turnout for the elections to Holyrood. Once people are in the polling stations, they will vote in local elections if a ballot paper is handed to them.
The experience is the same in England, which had coincident elections on the occasion of the general elections in 1979 and 1997. Almost everybody who turned up to vote in the parliamentary elections also voted in the local government elections. Turnout in the election for Holyrood was about 58 or 59 per cent. That is above the level of turnout in any Scottish local elections since 1974. That part of the Executive's claim is uncontroversial.
However, the committee might want to take four issues into consideration in deciding whether that is a sufficient argument for the proposal. The first objection to the proposal is that, although it may be the case that more people turn out to vote in coincident local elections, they perhaps vote on the basis of what is going on in Holyrood or Westminster so the independence of the electoral mandate that is given to local councils might be undermined.
We can examine the evidence of the 1999 election. According to survey data, 28 per cent of people voted differently in the local elections from how they voted in the Scottish Parliament election, so voters do not necessarily vote in the same way in local elections as they do in parliamentary elections. Further evidence from England makes the same point. In 1997, when local elections and general elections were held on the same day, exactly the same percentage of people—28 per cent—voted differently in the two elections. The outcome in terms of party support, both in England in 1997 and in the Scottish elections in 1999, was different.
Given that we know that, even if local elections are not held on the same day as another election, many of those who turn out to vote will do so not necessarily on local issues but on the basis of other issues, it is not clear that there is any evidence to suggest that holding the two elections on the same day makes it any less likely that voters in local elections will not vote on the basis of local issues.
The second objection that could be made to the draft bill is that it prejudges, or may be thought to prejudge, the recommendation that the Executive has yet to make in response to the Kerley committee's recommendation that the electoral system for local government elections in future should be the single transferable vote. Without prejudging the issue, I think it needs to be appreciated that voters in a Holyrood election complete their ballot papers by putting an X against the name of one candidate and one list, whereas in a single transferable vote election, voters are given the different cognitive task of marking 1, 2 and 3 on their ballot paper. That may be thought more likely to produce confusion than the position in 1999 when, although we had different electoral systems, the cognitive task that voters faced was identical.
Asking voters to vote two ways using the X-voting system and filling out a ballot paper in rank order is a relatively rare phenomenon. I do not know of any principal legislature that requires its voters to vote in those two ways in the same election. However, some quite well-documented evidence—details of which are given in the paper—was produced in the 1930s and 1940s in New York. At that time, local elections were held using the single transferable vote and, at the same time, the mayoral election was held using single member plurality. There is no evidence that turnout in the city council elections suffered as a result or that there was a higher number of invalid votes.
The committee might wish to note one of the less well-commented-on provisions of the Elections Act 2001. That act postponed until 7 June the English and Northern Irish local elections that were due this month. It also contained detailed regulations to enable local elections in Northern Ireland, which are held using the single transferable vote, to be conducted at the same time as any parliamentary general election, which would be conducted using single member plurality. In the explanatory notes to the bill, the Home Office asserts that there is no practical reason to prevent combined elections being held in Northern Ireland using first past the post and proportional representation—STV. That may be the case. Assuming, as is expected, that the Prime Minister announces today a Westminster election on 7 June, the committee may wish to consider the direct evidence that Northern Ireland will produce as to whether holding a 1, 2, 3 election and an X election on the same day increases voter confusion.
The third possible objection—I am sure that the committee will take other evidence on the matter—concerns the burden on electoral administrators. There were clearly some difficulties with the coincident elections in 1999. Equally, it should be pointed out that there is not much evidence of difficulties in England in 1979 or 1997.
A small point to consider is that there is nothing to stop a UK Prime Minister deciding to hold a Westminster general election on the same day as a Scottish Parliament election. Under the provisions of the bill, it would be likely that that would be the day of Scottish local elections. In 1979, when coincident elections were held in England, the Government postponed the parish council elections that were due to take place on the same day. That was done on the ground that holding three elections on the same day was more than administrators and voters could be expected to manage.
The fourth and final objection that might be made is that differences in the regulations between the Scottish parliamentary and local government elections might cause some difficulties for coincident elections. The committee might like to take an update on the subject, but my understanding of the current position is that the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 rewrites the regulatory framework for party and candidate finance and provides a new set of definitions of the expenditure that is incurred by candidates in their campaigns and how they need to report on that. Westminster has respected the devolved nature of Scottish local government elections so, although the provisions apply to English, Northern Irish and Welsh local elections, they do not provide for the Scottish local elections. Before the bill is enacted—if it is—it might be wise to ensure that the regulations for the definition of expenditure in a local government election in Scotland are the same as for a Holyrood election.
I do not think that there is anything that the Scottish Parliament can do about this, but under the provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the definition of what counts as party expenditure in elections is simply the amount of money that is spent by the registered party over the four-month period prior to a Holyrood election, irrespective of the stated purpose of that expenditure. The implication is that if there are coincident local and Holyrood elections in Scotland, any national party expenditure incurred by political parties in Scotland within that four-month period—although it may be incurred principally to promote the party's local government campaign—will count towards the financial limits set for Scottish Parliament elections.
There is no provision in the act to increase the amount of money that parties can spend if coincident local and parliamentary elections are held. The same point applies to the general election on 7 June. The expenditure that the Conservative party incurred yesterday in promoting its local government manifesto will count towards its financial limits for the Westminster general election. There is therefore an extra constraint on party expenditure.
I will make one more point about stability. The bill seems to make it possible for ministers to call a local government election after less than four years—that is, if and when an extraordinary Scottish parliamentary election is called. Indeed, the bill makes that possible not simply should that extraordinary general election happen within the six-month period immediately before an ordinary general election is due—in which case the ordinary general election would not take place—but even if it is before. In theory therefore, if an extraordinary election were called two years into the Scottish parliamentary session, ministers would have the power to call a local government election at the same time; then two years later, when the Scottish Parliament faced an ordinary election, local government would be required to have another election. It is not clear in the documents that have been provided how that is consistent with the Executive's aim of ensuring greater stability in the longer term for local government councillors.
The committee picked up on the last point and asked the Deputy Minister for Finance and Local Government about it, so perhaps Iain Smith or Kenny Gibson will give the minister's answer.
You answered the question that I was going to ask about the 28 per cent of voters who voted one way in the Scottish Parliament elections and another in the local authority elections. They made choices. That seems to indicate that they knew that different issues were involved and that they were making clear comments about their councils and about who they wished to represent them in the Scottish Parliament. Do you agree with that?
It is clear that a significant proportion of voters took that view. We should remember that some of those voters were forced to make a different choice because the party that stood in the Holyrood election did not stand in the local government ward. In a sense, that is why the evidence from the English local elections in 1997 is interesting. In those elections, the vast bulk of the county council wards that were up for election were contested by all three principal parties, yet the 28 per cent figure still came up.
Another issue to throw into the pot is the proportion of people who voted differently in the 1999 Scottish local elections from how they voted for Holyrood. That percentage is greater than the percentage of people who said that they voted differently in the Scottish Parliament election from how they would have done if there had been a Westminster general election in May 1999.
In general, the evidence from south of the border is that the outcome of local elections is still clearly influenced by the national standing of political parties. However, that appears to be less true now than it was 20 years ago. Certainly since the late 1980s, the outcome of English local elections has been consistently different from what is reflected in opinion polls, whereas before then the outcome tended to be in line with opinion polls.
If the difference between the outcome of the local elections in England in 1997 and the outcome of the general election in the same places is compared with what happened in 1979, it will be seen that there was more of a difference in 1997 than in 1979. The electorate now seem more willing to vote differently in local elections than in any other elections.
Indeed, there is plenty of polling evidence to indicate that the one voter in five who voted differently in the Scottish Parliament election from how they would have voted in a Westminster election voted in such a way as to make the outcome different from what it would otherwise have been.
As the convener said, the minister made it clear that he accepted some of the points that you made on extraordinary elections, and it looks as if the provision to which you refer will be redrafted in the bill that is finally introduced. That is a point that I had made privately beforehand and which Kenny Gibson raised in questioning today.
Your submission indicates that it is difficult to make exact comparisons with the evidence from the 1999 elections, because there was no case in which there were coterminous boundaries and candidates from all parties were standing. Is there evidence from the 1999 elections that is broken down on a constituency basis to indicate that there were significant differences in voting between the Scottish Parliament elections and local elections?
In theory, one can get the closest comparison in Edinburgh, because the local elections there are fought by all four main parties. However, the local government boundaries did not exactly match the parliamentary boundaries. Unfortunately, because of the difficulties with the count in Edinburgh, and because there was some uncertainty about its accuracy, those of us who were enjoying using Edinburgh to test those theories have decided that the evidence may not be sufficiently reliable. The survey evidence on the degree to which people split their tickets is therefore probably the evidence on which we should principally rely.
I am quite interested in this, as psephology is a great interest of mine. Let us forget for a moment the local government elections and Scottish Parliament elections. Is there a concern that, if national elections are held at the same time as other elections, rather than having voter fatigue because there are so many elections, people will think their vote less likely to be significant because they get to vote only every two or three years? If local government elections are tagged on and three elections take place at once, is it possible that the turnout by people who are voting for the first time or who have not been in the habit of voting will go down? I base those questions on evidence from Europe. In Italy, there seem to be elections at least annually, and yet the turnout is substantially higher than it is in this country.
My next question is about the 28 per cent voter differential. Have you done any research on whether that arises because people genuinely differentiate between the person who is standing for Holyrood, the party on the list and the local council? Does it arise simply from a concept of fairness, with voters hedging their bets because they do not want to give all three of their votes to one political party? Tactical voting is another obvious consideration.
Is voter fatigue a reality or a myth? The electoral registers always seem to be years out of date. I know places in Glasgow that were demolished years ago but are still on the electoral register. Updating the register would have more impact on voter turnout than what the minister said about improving best value and other esoteric issues.
I would also like you to comment on the element of fairness in balancing the ticket, as opposed to making conscious decisions. I believe that, given the lack of publicity and the fact that only two votes were promoted, many people turned up not realising that there was a council ballot on the same day and then wondered what to do with that extra ballot paper.
There was an awful lot in those questions, so I hope that you will excuse me if I do not pick up all the points.
I will just ask again if you do not.
That is fine. I would be delighted to take one question at a time.
On voter fatigue, I would not wish to argue—and you will note that I did not argue—that a reason for promoting the bill is that there would be too many elections in Scotland if it were not promoted. There comes a point at which that is true. It is not entirely an accident that the two countries in the world that have the most opportunities to vote—the United States and Switzerland—are also the two countries that have the lowest levels of turnout. However, we are nowhere near approaching that threshold.
My reason for saying that I do not think that voter fatigue is an issue either way is based on what happens in non-metropolitan districts, which have a choice as to whether they hold elections once every four years or annual elections for a third of the total number of seats. Once one introduces controls for demographic differences among those districts, there is no evidence that those that hold annual elections have a turnout that is either consistently higher or consistently lower than those that hold elections once every four years. Given the number of elections that we currently have in various parts of the United Kingdom, it is difficult to argue either that having more elections encourages people to vote or that having more elections discourages people from voting. I am entirely neutral on that point.
You also asked about vote splitting and why people do it. I will admit that I have not done detailed research on why people split their vote in the 1999 election, at least as far as local elections are concerned. I will say parenthetically that one of the things to note about the 1999 Scottish Parliament elections is that tactical voting was much less common than it had been in previous Westminster elections. That is partly because of the electoral system and partly because of changed political circumstances.
I have done work on why it appears to be the case in England that people are now less likely to vote in a local election in line with how they would have voted in a Westminster election, as appeared previously to be the case. To answer that question, I shall use a little bit of academic jargon, but I think that that will be quite useful in this case. Academics distinguish between first-order and second-order elections. A first-order election is one that voters think matters, and they vote on the basis of the issue that confronts the body that they are voting for. A second-order election is one that voters do not think matters and, as a result, they vote on the basis of something other than the body that they are electing.
European elections are classic second-order elections. Westminster elections are classic first-order elections. As far as England is concerned, the evidence now appears to indicate that local government elections are now one-and-a-half-order elections. In other words, there is a relationship between people's evaluation of the performance of their local council and whether they vote differently from the way in which they would vote in a Westminster election. It seems that the reason why people are not voting in local elections in the way that they used to is that they are—to some degree, and in a minority of cases that is significant enough to make a difference to the outcome—voting on the basis of the performance of their local council, rather than what is going on elsewhere.
If the status and powers of local government were enhanced, would that lead to an increase in turnout?
I accept entirely the proposition that one of the reasons that turnout now appears to be lower in local government elections is that people do not think that local government is as influential or important as it was. Such time-series survey evidence as we have for Great Britain as a whole certainly indicates that people are less likely to think that local government matters as much as it did 10, 15 or 20 years ago, and that people who do not think that local government matters are less likely to turn out to vote in local government elections.
So a substantial number of those who turn out may not have any real interest, but would simply be casting their votes because they were in the polling station.
There is an implication that turnout is higher if another election is going on, and that people might not have gone to the polling station if that other election were not taking place. There would, therefore, be people voting who would not otherwise have done so. What we do not know—it is probably unresearchable—is whether the votes of those who vote in that way are in any way less well-informed than everybody else's votes. It is impossible to identify which individuals would have voted if the elections had not been coincident.
If the Westminster elections were also held on the same day as the Holyrood and local government elections, do you think that there would be more variation, because people would have more choices and would be more likely to spread their ticket?
I do not know of any research evidence to support that proposition. However, we know from consistent polling evidence that, if you ask people how they would vote in Holyrood and Westminster elections, they say that they would vote differently. There was some difference, but not a dramatic difference, in the outcomes of the two by-elections that were held in Glasgow Anniesland on the same day at the back end of last year. We will get further evidence on 7 June, because we will have two Scottish Parliament by-elections on the same day as the Westminster election, and you can be assured that people like me will be looking to see whether there is a difference in the outcomes of those two constituencies.
My question is a different version of Kenny Gibson's question about voter fatigue. Do you believe that there is potential for administrative fatigue if local authorities are burdened with administering elections regularly? Have you made any assessment of cost implications, for either an increased number of elections or a reduced number of elections?
I have made no attempt to examine the cost implications. I see Arthur Midwinter sitting beside the convener—Mr McMahon may want to ask him that question.
My straight answer is that, since 1973, a number of councils in England have regularly been required to hold annual local elections and to administer general elections and European elections, which may not be held on the same day, and I am not aware that those local authorities have found that burden particularly heavy. I presume that once local electoral administrators are aware of the timetable that faces them, they attempt to plan accordingly.
I have a couple of questions that follow on from those that were put by Kenny Gibson.
Do you believe that holding local elections and national elections on the same day will do anything positive to enhance the knowledge of ordinary people on the work that is done by local authorities? Alternatively, do you think that such an approach would put local authorities under a cloud?
My impression of the 1999 election campaign is that the issues that surround local councils did not receive much publicity. The local government election campaign did not attract a great deal of media interest.
The extent to which voters split their ticket was quite interesting, if not surprising. However, I must point out how important the official four-week election campaign is as a source of information for voters, as opposed to the information that they get during the remaining three years and 11 months between local government elections. Most psephologists argue that the long run is usually—but not always—more important than the short run and that there is nothing to stop voters learning about the merits, or demerits, of councils in Glasgow, Edinburgh or wherever throughout the lifetime of those councils.
Are you saying that the normal practice is for people to take the long view of councils and to act accordingly on election day? Does intensive campaigning, with continual national coverage on the box, skew the result of a local election?
It depends what you mean by "skew". If you are asking whether I think that the outcome of local elections might be different from what it would have been otherwise, you would be surprised to learn that my answer is yes and no. It might be skewed in so far as political parties campaign much more intensively in a Holyrood election, for example, than they might do in a local election. There may be an electoral gaffe or event that causes public opinion to change substantially, and that gaffe or event would not have occurred had the Holyrood election not been taking place.
On the other hand, a party may think that it can skew the result by holding elections on the same day, in the sense that it hopes to insulate itself from electoral disadvantage at local government level that it might otherwise suffer. The evidence does not support such an approach, because a significant proportion of voters is prepared to split its ballots and, as a result, the marginal distribution of support for parties appears to be different. It does not appear to be the case that, if party A does particularly badly in location Y, it will be insulated simply because it is relatively popular at Holyrood.
On that point, the minister was motoring quite heavily on the fact that there is a 28 per cent differential in voting. Do you have figures on how people voted in the Scottish Parliament elections for list members in comparison with how they voted for constituency members? Was there a significant differential?
The figure of 28 per cent is based on the fact that 28 per cent of people voted differently in the local government election from the way in which they used their constituency vote. The equivalent figure for the difference in relation to the list vote is 30 per cent.
Thank you, Professor Curtice.
To sum up, we plan to take evidence from returning officers—I think that you made a comment about that at the beginning of your evidence. We also spoke to the minister about publicity and, from the questions that were asked by committee members this morning, it is clear that we think that that is important. There should be more equality and inclusiveness, which we are into in this Parliament, than there may have been at the previous election.
Iain Smith and Kenny Gibson picked up your point about an emergency, and the minister is addressing that. I picked up the point about finance. The minister's answer appeared to be that the Executive is examining the regulation of finance and considering increasing finance for Scottish local elections. As you pointed out, that is a devolved power. However, the Executive does not see that as being part of the bill.
It does not seem to me that it is within the power of Scottish ministers to alter the provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
But what about local elections?
It lies within the power of this Parliament to change the finance laws with respect to individual candidates.
Yes, but any change will not be part of this bill, although the issue will be considered.
Convener, may I ask—
I cannot believe you. I cannot believe either you or Kenny Gibson today.
I just wanted a further point of information. I am just taking on board what the professor said.
Have you any information on whether people who voted at the Scottish Parliament elections split their vote between list and constituency candidates?
Yes—approximately one in five people voted differently on the first and second votes. In Wales, the figure was one in four. This will be perfectly obvious to you, but the important thing is that the outcome of the list vote, in terms of support for the parties, was significantly different from the first vote. One could argue that what is important is not simply whether some voters vote differently in the two ballots, but whether, as a result of that, the overall outcome is different. The evidence is that both those things can be true.
Thank you, Professor Curtice.
You are welcome.
Right, comrades. We are running slightly over time.
That is Gil Paterson's fault.
No, I think that perhaps it is the fault of both of you.
Representatives from the Scottish Assessors Association are here this afternoon. Bill Johnston, who has been here before, is the assessor for Glasgow City Council and the vice-president of the SAA. With him is Frank Sibbald, who is the depute electoral registration officer. Bill, you know the drill.
Bill Johnston (Scottish Assessors Association):
Yes, I do. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you here today in my dual capacity as vice-president of the Scottish Assessors Association and assessor and electoral registration officer for the city of Glasgow.
I should explain that, until the reorganisation of local government in 1975, there was a legal requirement that councils appoint their assessor to be the electoral registration officer. Although the statutory requirement was removed at that time, all the then regional and island councils recognised the soundness of the existing position and continued with the arrangement.
At the most recent local government reorganisation in 1996, the Representation of the People Act 1983 was amended to require every local authority to appoint an officer for its area to be the electoral registration officer. Of the 32 councils in Scotland, 31 agreed to reappoint the assessor, whereas Dundee City Council appointed someone else. The duties of the electoral registration officer, after appointment, can be summarised as: conducting the annual canvass in preparation for the publication of the register of electors; publicising and distributing the register on 1 December each year; processing and publishing on a monthly basis any additions and deletions to the register, which is permitted under the new rolling registration system; and maintaining the list of absent or postal voters.
At the time of an election, the electoral registration officer's involvement can be summarised as: providing the returning officer with sufficient copies of the electoral register to permit the smooth running of the election; supplying each candidate or his agent with a copy of the register for their own political purposes; providing sufficient copies of all application forms that candidates may require, which are mainly absent voting or postal voting application forms; providing the returning officer and candidates with a copy of the list of absent voters as soon as is possible; and in some areas, assisting the returning officer with the preparation, publication and distribution of polling cards. In addition, the electoral registration officer often provides staff to assist the returning officer with their day-to-day duties.
Should the draft bill be enacted, with the effect that all future Scottish Parliament and local elections would be held on the same day, I am confident that there would be no major impact on the ability of electoral registration officers to fulfil their statutory duties. In effect, the bill would have little impact on the work of registration officers.
My only words of caution concern the new timetable for absent voting. Previously, the latest time for lodging applications for a postal vote was 11 days before the day of the election. That has been reduced to 5 pm, six days before the date of the poll. Should large numbers of postal voting applications be lodged with the electoral registration officer at the last minute, they will take some time to be checked, processed and passed to the returning officer for the issue of postal ballot papers. Unfortunately, that will happen at a time when returning officers are extremely busy with other election duties, of which they are only too aware. I am fully aware that returning officers have been advised of that situation, and no doubt they will have taken steps to address the problem, but I highlight the situation to the committee in the hope that all those who are involved in the political process will take whatever steps they can to ensure that all applications for an absent vote are lodged with the electoral registration officer as soon as possible.
I apologise for being so brief, but from the few words that I have said, you will see that the draft bill would have little impact on electoral registration officers. The financial implications, too, are minimal.
Thank you. Your comments on postal votes answered a question that I had planned to ask about practical issues. Problems occurred in 1999, which you may think will be smoothed out by 2003, but could you comment on them?
Could you be a little more specific? As far as electoral registration officers are concerned, I am not aware of major problems.
For example, did you have enough time for training and recruitment? Were there any issues concerning boundaries?
There is some confusion, possibly even at this committee. The main duties of conducting a poll once it has been called rest with the returning officer. Electoral registration officers in Scotland are in a completely separate department.
We will have returning officers at the committee in June, so I can ask them my questions then.
Many of our questions today have been about voter turnout and just how combining the dates of the Scottish Parliament and local government elections would increase the turnout for local elections. Given that the bill provides an opportunity to examine voter turnout, is there anything practical that, from your point of view, could be done to assist with voter turnout—apart from synchronising the elections?
The recently passed Representation of the People Act 2000 and the associated regulations attempted to address that point. We now have a system that is known as rolling registration. As soon as a voter moves home, they can apply to have their registration changed. People in a new home will be more likely to vote than if they had to vote from an address that they may have moved from many months ago.
In addition, we now have, in effect, absent voting on demand. If a person does not wish to turn up at the polling station for whatever reason—they do not need a reason now at all—they can apply to the electoral registration officer and be granted a postal vote indefinitely.
I hope that those steps will help to address low turnout. I listened to what was said earlier and I tend to agree: people are very apathetic. I do not know whether there is much more that we can do.
I mentioned that people who moved in 1994 were still registered in 2000 at a close that had long since been derelict. I know of that happening in areas that have been demolished, as I hinted earlier. The rolling register is a step forward in trying to ensure that the electoral register is up to date to minimise such situations. A lot of voters do not take an interest in the register until the election is upon them.
What would your opinion be of a system whereby, if a local authority tenant were to move house, the housing department would automatically tell your office? Often a register shows the same five voters at the end of a street. Just to look at that—especially as councillor—one knows that they are the same five people.
Such situations have not been picked out. I would have thought that the system that I have suggested would be a possibility to make the register more accurate.
Will you ask a question?
Turnout is never as bad as we imagine. The register is always a minimum of 10 per cent inaccurate. As a result, a 59 or 60 per cent turnout is, in reality, a 66 per cent turnout.
Was that a question or a statement?
Would the exchange of information between local authority departments improve turnout by improving the accuracy of the registers?
Ah. There is the question.
Under the terms of the Representation of the People Act 2000 and the regulations, electoral registration officers have the power to access all sorts of information. I accept that, previously, we had the power to get information from the housing departments, particularly in Glasgow, but we now have the power to get all sorts of information from the local authority.
As the electoral registration officer for Glasgow, I now have access to such information. I have access to the names of council tax payers as and when they change. As soon as we get past the election that has just been called, we will start being proactive and issuing voter registration forms to all council tax payers as and when they change. We are examining our in-house computer system to find out whether it will be able to generate the voter registration forms automatically.
The sharing of information is a good way forward. When the original legislation was written, it was intended to be reactive—electoral registration officers would react to an individual who wrote and applied to change their registration. In Glasgow, we have decided to be proactive—as have other electoral registration officers—in that, as we are able to access local authority information, we will issue application forms for changes of registration. Obviously, there is a cost involved but, thankfully, Glasgow City Council has agreed to bear that cost.
Will there also be deletions? For example, I examined the electoral register for Tarfside Oval. There are four multistorey blocks there, which contain 395 flats. I know from speaking to housing officers that 66 of those flats are empty, but, in the electoral register, every flat has a name attached to it, as if those people were somehow still there. Would those people be deleted from the register if, for example, the housing office told you that they had moved three years ago?
Again, as part of the new regulations, when someone applies to register in stream, if I can call it that, they are required to provide their previous address to ensure simultaneous registration and deletion.
I want to ask about one last thing. On another point, the eighth paragraph of the policy memorandum says:
"The 1999 elections were generally considered to demonstrate that the two elections could be combined successfully."
Should the bill be passed, there is a possibility—I will put it no more strongly than that—that local government elections could be held using STV. How would you be able to operate elections that used first past the post, STV and AMS all at once?
I am sorry, but that is not particularly—
That is really a question for the returning officer.
I am sorry. I thought that perhaps you could enlighten us on behalf of the returning officers, given that they are not here.
We will take evidence from returning officers at some point.
Frank Sibbald (Scottish Assessors Association):
I have a brief point about combined elections and the possibility of operating a single transferable vote system. One of the concerns that arose from earlier remarks was the intervention and further combination of a Westminster Parliament election at the same time as the Scottish Parliament and local government elections. We would run into the issue of the difference in franchise. The Scottish Parliament and local government registers are the same, but the Westminster one is different—it has a different qualification. That coincidence of elections would cause administrative difficulties in different registers, different markings and different absent voting procedures.
I would like to clear up a question that was not answered satisfactorily at the Falkirk West by-election. Two or three wards did not receive polling cards. When we phoned the returning officer, he said that that was the fault of the assessors but when we phoned the assessors, they said that they did not know what we were talking about. Who is responsible for the issue of polling cards?
The legislation is clear that the issue of polling cards is the duty of the returning officer.
Using addresses and information provided by the assessors?
Yes. That is correct.
One of the provisions in the draft bill allows the possibility of varying the date of elections. How much difficulty would it cause electoral registration officers if an election were brought forward—for example, if it were held on 17 February?
It would not cause any particular difficulty. Today, we heard that there is to be an election on 7 June. By the end of this week, or the beginning of next week, registration officers will have versions of the register available for all the political parties.
So it is just political parties that would have problems with elections being called on 17 February.
I was interested in what you said about the only potential problem that you envisage being a larger uptake of postal votes. As I understand it, following the new regulations, the political parties are encouraging people to use postal votes. How will that impact on the 7 June election?
The impact will rest on the fact that the deadline is 5 pm, six days before the election and that some political parties and agents might suddenly deliver massive amounts of requests for postal ballots. As electoral registration officers, we will have to process those requests and get them to the returning officer in time for issue. At that time, returning officers are at the final stages of recruitment and swearing in of polling clerks and presiding officers, filling the ballot boxes and so on—all the last-minute bits and pieces. They would then have to spend time issuing massive numbers of postal votes, which would be very time-consuming at a busy period for them. However, that will be addressed and I am sure that the returning officers will come up with the goods.
The other difficulty is that returning officers will be required to get the postal votes out quickly so that they can be returned in time to be counted. However, a section in the new regulations says that if an individual has not received the postal ballot paper three days before the election, they can go to the returning officer's office and ask for a replacement ballot paper. There is a possibility that the returning officer may not have even received those papers. It is all very difficult and time-consuming, especially at the last minute. However, I am sure that the returning officers are addressing the issue.
Perhaps my question should have been a warning. Beware—there is a lot coming your way.
Is there a way in which polling cards could be improved to encourage people to turn out? I know that the polling card tells people that they do not have to take their card with them in order to vote and so on.
The wording of the poll card is laid down in the Representation of the People Act 2000. However, in many councils—particularly down south—it has become common practice to include polling station maps on poll cards. Instead of the current standard size, the poll card is larger and contains more information. I have no statistics to show whether that has led to an improvement in turnout. It probably makes the job of preparing and issuing the cards more difficult, but if that is the rule, so be it.
Thank you. Did you say that the election had been called?
An official advised me of that at 1.30 pm, as I was waiting to give evidence to the committee. I have not heard it first-hand, as it were.
A whisper in my ear tells me that that is a reserved matter and I should not have asked the question. Thank you for attending the committee.
I suggest that we have a break for tea and coffee, but before we do, I would like to say that I am pleased that the SNP members were so keen to get involved in the previous discussion.
Meeting adjourned.
On resuming—