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I extend a very warm welcome to the Scottish Parliament to Brian Byrne and Joan Hewton, who are both involved in the Scottish Assessors Association. I am grateful to you for coming along and being prepared to take questions from the committee.
Thank you for coming in this morning and being prepared to share your expertise with us. I have a couple of questions about the annual canvass. First, I want to be clear on what the timetable is for the next annual canvass. When does it start and finish? How will it impact on the 2014 referendum?
We do not know what the timetable is. The start of the canvass could be any time between October and December or even into January. That depends on individual registration, which is coming in in 2014. The canvass will almost certainly be delayed, but until when is unclear.
Am I right in saying that there is usually an annual canvass? I want that to be clear.
There is usually an annual canvass that would probably start in September and finish by 1 December.
That would be the usual process. However, what you are saying is that, because of the referendum in 2014—
No. It is not because of the referendum; it is because of the individual electoral registration process.
Perhaps you could explain a bit more about what that is.
The Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, which deals with individual electoral registration, is going through the United Kingdom Parliament. The idea is that each person will be responsible for registering themselves, rather than using the current household system. As part of that process, a data-matching exercise will be carried out, which will possibly take place from July 2014. In order for that data matching to be as good as possible, the canvass is likely to be delayed. The draft legislation suggests that it will take place on 1 December, although various suggestions are going around about bringing that date back slightly.
The normal process is for an annual canvass starting in September, but legislation going through the UK Parliament will involve a new data-matching process and individual electoral registration officers are awaiting the impact of that. It is therefore not clear when the annual canvass start date might be. Is that right?
The start date is not clear yet, but it should be clear by March.
By March. Am I right in saying that the canvass usually takes three months?
Yes.
Yes. It varies across Scotland depending on the geographical layout of any particular area. Some people start particularly early because they are in a rural area and they have further to go to carry out their canvass. However, it is generally the case that the tighter the area, the shorter the period in which we carry out a canvass. Some people will start at the beginning of August and others will start nearer the beginning of September—generally it is sometime between August and September. The canvass must be concluded and the register printed by 1 December. Every canvass will conclude a week or a fortnight before 1 December.
If the commencement of a canvass was delayed in an area until 1 December, what impact would that have on the electoral arrangements for a referendum poll in autumn 2014, particularly bearing in mind new arrangements to involve 16 and 17-year-olds?
It is quite useful for that, because the qualifying date to be on the register depends on your age at 1 December. Coincidentally, that is the same date as the publication date, but it remains 1 December no matter when the register is published. If you carry out a canvass after 1 December, you automatically capture more 17-year-olds than you would have captured earlier.
There are preparations in relation to the new legislation that is coming from the UK Parliament and legislation is about to be considered here that we hope will be completed by the end of June. At this point in time, have the EROs had any guidelines, or have they made any preparations, for the legislation that will progress through this Parliament in relation to 16 and 17-year-olds?
Yes. We have been discussing with Scottish Government officials various ways of capturing that information. Depending on the date of the start of the canvass, it could include a few 14-year-olds along with 15-year-olds. If the canvass is delayed until after December, there is less of a problem with 16 and 17-year-olds because they will be part of a normal canvass by then. It is really about having a method to capture the 15-year-olds and the suggestion seems to be that there will be a separate canvass form for 15-year-olds.
What strikes me is that new arrangements are coming down the line from both Parliaments. Has there been any assessment of additional resources that might be required for the canvass?
We have looked at how the two pieces of legislation will align. A lot of the costs will be dictated by when we start and when we stop each of the procedures and how they work in tandem. One consideration is to use the canvass to send out forms to all households to collect information about young persons, on the basis that including the form with the household canvass will cost less, because the canvass form is already in the envelope. However, you are trying to tackle only 1 per cent of the population, so maybe only 1 per cent of the households are likely to give a return on that. We need to weigh that up and we will not really be able to estimate costs until we know the final details. That would be during the canvass, which will probably happen in late 2013 or early 2014.
A number of people have indicated that they want to ask questions. I will just make sure that they are supplementaries. Rob, is your question a supplementary to what has just been discussed or do you want to come back in later?
I think that it is a supplementary question in the sense that it is about the accuracy of what is captured at the present time.
Okay, on you go.
The register is created and then updated every month or so. How accurate is the register on the current electorate?
Overall, population estimates are reasonably reliable but not perfect, and the overall electorate is something like 93 per cent of the population. However, there will be duplicates and people will be missing—it is swings and roundabouts. We feel that the percentage of completeness in the electoral register is in the 90s.
From what you know of the canvass procedures and so on, do you expect to be able to capture a percentage in the high to mid-90s of the 16 and 17-year-olds who can vote?
Young people aged around 18, 19 and 20 are very mobile; they are not so mobile at 15 and 16. We know where they are because we can use school records; we have good access to school records in Scotland. Such access can be a problem in some parts of England because of the dual-tier councils, but we have no issues with that in Scotland. We are therefore pretty confident that we will have good information about where the 16-year-olds are. Knowing where those people are is one reason why, as Joan Hewton mentioned, there might be an option to target the voting forms, rather than using blanket coverage and reaching every house in order to get to something like 45,000 people out of 4 million electors.
Thank you for the information that you have given so far.
That is right. The idea is that, by 2015, each individual will have been verified against the Department for Work and Pensions database. As the first stage of that, we will match the register that will be current in July 2014 against the DWP database. Anyone who matches on that will be confirmed as registered. For anyone who does not match, we will have to go through applications and invitations to get more information and confirm them. We will keep going with that until every individual is matched or registered.
Does that mean that the burden will be more on the individual to ensure that they are registered, like they have to do in America, than it is at present?
There are suggestions that there should be civil penalties for not responding, so registration will not be entirely voluntary. However, there will be more of a requirement on the individual to take part.
Will you look to councils or local authorities to ensure that the 14 and 15-year-old attainers who are to be ascertained for registration are registered through the schools?
At the moment, we get information on 16-year-olds from schools. Different EROs use that information in different ways. Some EROs will use it to contact people directly and basically ask, “Please can you confirm that these are the names of the people in the house?” If the information is confirmed, that is fine; if it is not confirmed, the ERO will need to use some other process to follow it up. Other EROs will do things the other way round, but they will still use the school records to check whether someone might be missing from a form and then follow that up. Access to school records is very good, and we expect to be able to use those in a similar way for the 14 and 15-year-olds.
The key point is that we cannot put people on the register unless they apply to be included on the register, so we must have a returned form. At present, during the canvass a whole household can register on a canvass form, whereas outwith the canvass an individual form needs to be submitted. When we come to the new system, everyone will need an individual form.
Can I just tease that out a bit? I thought that EROs had a general power to maintain the register and that they could use that power to approach people to get the information required. Therefore, all the traffic need not be one way, with only the individual registering. I thought that you were required to maintain the register.
Before about 2001, we had a duty to put people on the register if we felt that they qualified, were eligible and were resident. In 2001, that changed to become an application process. During the year, if you move into an area, you need to submit an application form to be included on the register. We use council tax records and whatever to identify people who have moved into the area and then send them an application form, but they still need to fill it in. If the canvass results in anyone new being included on the form, that is deemed to be an application to be included on the register. The system is different from the way it was before 2001, as everything now requires an application.
I want to be clear on that point. I remember that, in 1997 for example, there were big campaigns to get whole lists of university students to be submitted for registration en masse without any need for individual application. Is it no longer possible to have that sort of block registration?
In some circumstances, we can still use university lists. We can treat a hall of residence as a household and put people from it on the register at the canvass. However, when individual registration comes in, that will not be possible, so the university list will just be information for us.
So that is possible now, but it will not be possible for the referendum.
It is possible now in certain circumstances.
Likewise, could schools not just give you a list so that you can include its pupils on the register?
Only boarding schools can do that.
We will not go into the class divide that exists there.
I understand that the idea is that there will be a form similar to the canvass form that the parents—or anyone in the household—could fill in to say that certain people will be 16.
So parents will still be able to do that.
Yes.
I will turn the issue round the other way, because I think that I am not alone in being in a slight fog about the timescales involved. We do not know the date of the referendum, but let us assume a notional date of 31 October 2014. In an ideal world—for the moment, let us just park the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, which we will come back to—how soon before that would you want a finalised register?
The final register for the referendum probably needs to be available 11 days before the referendum.
How many?
Eleven days would be normal for an election. A longer period would be preferable, because the timescale is quite tight.
To get to that point, how soon before then would you seek information from voters?
Ideally, we will seek the information during the canvass at the end of 2013, because 90 per cent of people on the register come on to the register at canvass.
That brings us back to James Kelly’s original question. At the end of 2013, some procedure will take place to canvass who should be on the register.
Yes. Assuming that that happens after 1 December, it will be possible for anyone who is already 16 to be added to the register as an attainer. Anyone who is only 15 at that point would have to go on to a different system—a young persons register. The difference with that is that, because it is not published on the normal publication date, we will have a little longer to catch up on anyone who is missing.
Okay.
Yes.
On top of that, we need to overlay the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. Do we know when that will come into effect?
The current proposal is that it will come into effect on 1 July. I understand that discussions are taking place in the background about whether that should be delayed in Scotland, but I do not know whether there will be a delay.
So we do not have a date set for implementation, other than that it will probably happen in July 2014.
Yes.
If the committee agrees, I think that it might be helpful if the convener wrote to the UK Government to seek clarification on that.
I have scribbled down a note that we need a briefing of some kind, whether from the UK Government or the Scottish Government. There is a job to be done in bringing together information on where the UK is, with information on where the EROs in Scotland are. It would be extremely helpful to get a general briefing from the Scottish Government that pulled those two bits of information together.
May I ask a final question, convener?
Sure. On you go.
If we overlay the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill and anticipate it coming into effect in July 2014, that seems to me to be a colossal amount of work to be accomplished in Scotland.
It is a colossal amount of work. Also, the fact that two totally separate things are to happen at the same time—individual electoral registration and the creation of a register for the referendum, which will involve two different sets of rules—also has the potential to confuse some of the electors.
It might be unfair to ask you this—if you do not feel able to answer, I will quite understand—but if we take it that a major piece of legislation that will affect the franchise will be implemented in July 2014 and that a very important constitutional referendum will take place somewhere around the end of October or the beginning of November 2014, can that amount of additional work be accomplished?
It would be preferable, from our point of view, if the implementation of individual electoral registration were delayed in Scotland until after the referendum, but that might depend on a relatively early date for the referendum.
It could also be that, if IER were brought in earlier in Scotland, that would provide an opportunity to send out another batch of forms, with a view to increasing the size of the electorate at that point in time.
I presume that it would be very challenging to get that brought in sooner, because it is a UK responsibility.
The problem with bringing it in sooner is the fact that the European elections are to be held in June 2014, so there is only a very small window to bring it in sooner.
There is talk of bringing forward the European elections to the end of May. If that happens, it will provide a bit of scope for the process to be brought in a bit sooner.
A suggestion has been made that we could have an informal briefing from Government officials on 28 February. That might give us a chance to alert them to that issue in particular, so that they can involve themselves in a discussion with the UK Government before they come to talk to us about how the process can best be managed. I think that that would probably be a good way to proceed.
My question goes back to the issue of the attainers, but it is also relevant to the discussion that we have just had about timing and so on.
Yes, you are right. We will start to contact education authorities and get names and addresses. To get on the electoral register, a person’s name, address, date of birth and nationality are required. I am not sure that every school will have that information. If we get information from the schools, that allows us to prepopulate forms. If we send out a form that is prepopulated with the name, we are more likely to get it back than if we send out a blank form. It is a good idea to tackle schools first and then do the canvass with prepopulated forms, where possible. At that point, in relation to non-returns, instead of chasing households that are extremely unlikely to have young people in them, we will take a more individualised approach through schools and so on. There are various steps that we can take.
Prepopulation of forms also leads to electronic returns. People can check the form online and say whether it is correct. That gets rid of a lot of paperwork.
That would perhaps be something that would be appealing to younger people, who, I think, now communicate solely on that basis.
Is there any scope for the Electoral Commission, which has a responsibility to promote participation, to co-ordinate with the registration process in a way that would benefit efforts to promote awareness in schools—and in colleges and universities, given that people who are 16, 17, 18 and 19 will be in a range of institutions? Have you talked to the Electoral Commission about that?
Yes, the Electoral Commission quite regularly runs campaigns, and we try to co-ordinate local campaigns with what it is doing. It is important that there is a major campaign to promote awareness in the institutions that you mention, and that that campaign ties in with when and how we issue forms.
One of the areas in which there could be complexity is universities. Richard Baker mentioned the drives to get university students to register. Members will all recognise that as an issue, based on our experience of trying to get new students on to the register for the first time. Now, however, we are talking about a situation in which a great many of them will already have been registered at their parents’ home and will have to decide whether to reregister at their new address in their university town or to stay registered at their parents’ address. Is that an additional area of complexity? Is there a danger that people will get lost between the cracks?
Electoral Commission research shows that the group that is hardest to get on the register is that of young, mobile people, which is almost the very definition of a student. If they move after we have got them on the register, we have to go through the whole process again.
So that information would come from local authority education departments. Would it also come from colleges and universities?
Electoral registration officers have wide powers to ask for information from almost everyone, but especially so with regard to local councils, which would therefore cover education departments. As for universities, although they are usually very helpful in providing lists of the students for whom they provide accommodation, it is more difficult to get information about students in private accommodation.
Of which there are a great many.
Indeed, especially slightly older ones.
I do not want to lose what we have agreed, so in a moment I will encapsulate for the clerks where we are with regard to the canvass procedures and the register. First of all, however, I draw colleagues’ attention to page 7 of annex A to the cabinet secretary’s letter to me of 14 December, which touches on the UK individual registration process. It goes on to say:
I will follow on from my colleague Annabelle Ewing’s questions. Although the referendum is the most important vote that will have been held in Scotland in the past 300 years, the fact is that every election is important. Given that—and given the bill that is going through the UK Parliament—I point out that in recent years it has been brought to my attention that, despite filling out and sending off their voter registration forms, some people have found that, when they go to vote, their names are not on the register. I do not know whether the witnesses have given any thought to that, certainly with regard to the new individual registration process that is being introduced, but is consideration being given to a process whereby the valuation board notifies individuals that they are registered?
Under the individual registration process, the ERO writes to a person to tell them either that they are on the register or that they are not and should fill in the enclosed form.
Could such notification be made by text or email rather than by letter?
We have suggested the use of electronic methods, but that has proven to be a slight struggle.
As Annabelle Ewing pointed out, the use of modern technology is increasing among 15, 16 and 17-year-olds—although I have to say that text messages are probably not so modern any more. Could that technology be used to notify not only younger people but older people who might not have registered before or who, because of the new system, might be confused about whether or not they are on the register?
With the individual registration process, there will be a digital Government service that people can use to register. They will be able to go online and give details such as their date of birth, national insurance number and so on; that information will go to the ERO and the Department for Work and Pensions, will be matched—or, indeed, not matched—and will then be sent back to the ERO. If people do that online, they should—I hope—get an electronic response.
What about those people who have absolutely no access to a computer and no intention of accessing one?
At the moment, EROs use as many communication methods as possible. In my area, the electronic response rate—through phone, text, emails or the internet—is about 40 per cent and is growing. Different EROs are at different stages—some are ahead of us; others are behind—but the rate is growing. Where we use electronic methods of communication, people seem to respond well and like it, but there are always going to be others who rely on the post.
The point that I am trying to get across is that when it comes to the referendum, I would hate for somebody to say that they filled out the form and sent it away, but found out when they went to vote that they could not because their name was not on the register and they had not been informed that, for example, their application form got lost.
We are considering that for younger voters. Before an election, people get a polling card that indicates that they are on the register. If they were used to getting a polling card but do not get one, they should contact the ERO. However, we recognise that young voters are not used to getting polling cards, so we consider that it might be better to write to them to say that they are on the register, which I think is the point that you are trying to make. We have thought about that possibility.
From memory, I do not think that someone needs a polling card to go and vote.
No, but a polling card indicates that the election is happening, that the person is on the register and that there are different ways of voting—those are the three purposes of the polling card.
Right.
I have just a quick question. You said that you have had discussions with the Cabinet Office. Is there cognisance of the importance of the referendum, given that the Cabinet Office is dealing with the interface between the legislation down there and what we are achieving here?
Yes. The Cabinet Office is very aware of that. We find the Cabinet Office responsive and believe that it understands the situation.
I have a general question about information technology issues. Obviously, you are very dependent on IT for the job that you undertake in producing the register. Are there any additional IT issues in dealing with young voters? If so, how will those be addressed?
We are very dependent on IT. I understand that the software companies involved have been contacted by Scottish Government officials about the likely process. They therefore know what will be involved and they have responded. We have not seen any results, but we understand that that is happening.
From your perspective, what are the issues that we need to understand more clearly?
We have to have a database of names of people who are not on the register but who will go on to a combined normal register and young persons register in time for the referendum. There will be one database, but it is in two streams, which will have to be combined at some stage.
Okay. That will require programmers who have the skills to merge all that.
Yes.
In itself, that should not be a difficulty, provided there is enough time to do it.
They are quite specialist companies, and they need time as well.
Okay. Do you want to say more about how much time might be needed? That might not be clear yet because we are still not clear about what is happening with the UK process.
The general rule, going back to what the Gould report said, is that six months is enough time.
That is a good rule.
It is on a completely different issue and relates specifically to 16 and 17-year-olds. Normally when you do your canvass and find somebody who is going to be 18 in the forthcoming year, a date of birth goes in. However, there are clearly areas of sensitivity if you do that with people who may be 15 or 16 at that point. Because the information is for one fixed-date referendum, is it possible to include those young people without reference to their date of birth and just to note that they will be 16?
I think that we suggested that in our response and I think that people have processes in mind for that. When we send out canvass forms and we put people on as young attainers, the advice that we have had is that we should not put on the date of birth; instead, we put “Date of birth known.” That means that, in case the form goes astray, there is only a name. That would probably have to be the case with the form for the young persons register. However, the form itself tells you that the young person is under 16.
I have a second point on the question of disclosing the addresses of the young attainers. Obviously, there are young people who are subject to non-disclosure orders. For example, there may be young people in care who will be eligible to vote but whose whereabouts are not known to one or both parents, for obvious reasons. Again, is it possible for arrangements to be made such that in particular circumstances their address need not be disclosed?
I understand that the draft legislation covers that. There is a process in normal registration for a declaration of connection with a property, which is normally for homeless people. If it is extended to young people in cases where there is a wish for the address not to be known, that is quite possible.
We are aware that this process has already been gone through in other places such as Jersey and the Isle of Man. Has there been a learning process from their experiences?
To an extent, the process has already happened in Scotland, with the health board elections, as you are aware. This is slightly different, however, because in the health board elections, people were already 16 at the time of registration. The proposals before us go a bit further, to capture people who are 15 at the time of registration. There are childcare issues with that. That is the only major difference, however. Capturing 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds is pretty similar, except for the fact that, technically, 16-year-olds are adults, unlike 15-year-olds.
You seem quite relaxed about the whole process. Would I be right in saying that?
I try to be as relaxed as possible.
EROs from throughout Scotland meet regularly. We invite advisers from the Electoral Commission, the Cabinet Office, the Scottish Government and other organisations to those meetings, and they all attend. We have good dialogue and communication between all parties. We feel that we have talked it round, and that we are as ready as we can be to take on the legislation when it is enacted.
All 15 EROs in Scotland meet regularly. We use the Scottish Assessors Association for that. Most of them are also assessors, but the ones who are not assessors are also involved and play a full part.
Have you had contact with the jurisdictions that Linda Fabiani mentioned?
We have not had contact with Jersey or the Isle of Man.
We intend to take evidence from them further down the line. That will perhaps be helpful to you, if there is anything that you wish us to raise with them.
Yes, it would be interesting to see that.
I also wished to ask about publication of the register in relation to campaigning and so on, as per normal elections. I wondered if we could tease out that issue as well. In relation to Annabel Goldie’s important point about confidentiality, do you see any differences in how those who are involved in campaigning will be able to access and use registers?
Looking at the draft legislation, it seems that the intention is to restrict access to the register as much as possible, until just before the referendum. Anybody who is on the register for the referendum will, by definition, be 16 on the day of the referendum. The closer we get, the more 16-year-olds, rather than 15-year-olds, will be on the register.
My question follows on from the earlier discussion regarding the information and assistance that EROs will require. We have touched on some aspects, such as data records, IT experts and software, but are there any other things or people that you require in order to capture as many people on the register as possible, particularly the 15, 16 and 17-year-olds, who will be voting for the first time?
If there is any doubt about capturing information on people under 16, we would be happy if that doubt was removed, so that we have the clear right to capture that information and so that education departments, for instance, could not say that there are data protection issues.
The clear way in which to get people on the register is a good publicity campaign that is properly targeted at the right time and at the right people. There is no point in trying to attract 16-year-olds on to the register by advertising at 1 o’clock on the day. It has to be timeous—it has to be at the right time; we should not just keep writing to them.
The political parties use various media platforms, and not just newspapers and television.
We have not yet done that. I know that other countries such as Austria have introduced voting for young persons. We are aware of it, but we have not talked to anyone about the process.
Will you do so?
Perhaps we will, now that you have brought it to mind.
My question is a supplementary to the line that Linda Fabiani investigated on the register of young voters. According to section 8 of the draft referendum franchise bill, the register will not be published but
I think that it is mainly to cover the returning officer, to allow them to organise the election. The campaign groups will have access to the register at a certain point and I imagine that political parties will, too.
There is the important issue of political parties or other individuals needing to check the permissibility of donations. I do not see how they can do that unless they can see the register.
I understand that that question has been raised. A balance probably needs to be struck between the child protection issue and clarity on who is registered. We will just have to follow that. It is not something that we can decide.
The Electoral Commission has raised that issue with the Government. Obviously, that provision is in the draft bill, and we will see the Government’s response in the bill that comes before us.
The point that we have made is that the register of young voters should be treated differently as regards open sale or sale to credit reference agencies. It should not be needed for that; at the moment, it is only for the purpose of the referendum. It should be restricted to the political process.
I return to the issue that I raised initially and which Joan Hewton referred to when she said that we need a good publicity campaign. A good route for discussing the issues, and particularly the registration process, would be the modern studies and citizenship classes that every secondary school has. That would be in keeping with the general duty of information that the process entails.
Different EROs have different approaches. Some get involved in modern studies classes. I think that Joan Hewton does that in one council. Renfrew is particularly to the fore in that respect. We are all at different places with that but, for this referendum, we will have to be more up to speed with it.
It would be great to see the issue as a specific item in the curriculum.
We are more capable of achieving uniformity of practice and good practice sharing now, through the medium of the Electoral Management Board for Scotland. Is it your hope that, as a result of the discussion that goes on through that medium and your general discussions as assessors, you can ensure that good practice is much more widespread throughout the country?
For the benefit of the folk behind, that was a yes.
Sorry—it was a yes.
As there are no further questions, I thank Joan Hewton and Brian Byrne for attending the Scottish Parliament today. I am grateful to you for giving us your time.
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