Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, January 13, 2022

Official Report 490KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Scottish Local Government Elections Amendment Order 2022 [Draft]

Item 4 is subordinate legislation. We will hear evidence on the draft Scottish Local Government Elections Amendment Order 2022 from the Minister for Parliamentary Business, George Adam, and Lauchlan Hall and Iain Hockenhull, who are his officials from the Scottish Government. I welcome all of you to the committee and invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Good morning. As this is the first time I have seen the committee this year, I wish you all a happy new year, and I hope that you had a restful and enjoyable festive period.

I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to discuss the proposed changes to the procedures for running local government elections in Scotland. During the productive session on 28 October last year, we had a discussion about a number of other Scottish statutory instruments, and committee members raised the matter of the monitoring of election expenses and the guidance that is available to candidates on that issue. Following that session, I reflected on those points with my officials and held follow-up discussions with the Electoral Commission. As a result, I am now proposing the provisions in the Scottish Local Government Elections Amendment Order 2022, which sets out a statutory role for the commission in producing and policing guidance in that area.

I want to make it clear that the Electoral Commission already produces guidance on candidates’ expenditure, but that is carried out on a non-statutory and informal basis. The commission has welcomed the proposal to make its role statutory. That move will also bring arrangements in line with those for the Scottish Parliament elections. Overall, I consider that the changes will provide greater clarity on, and oversight of, electoral spending.

The order will bring forward the date when poll cards can be issued to electors. That change has been made specifically at the request of the convener of the Electoral Management Board for Scotland. I would not normally have made that change at this relatively late stage, but the convener of the Electoral Management Board for Scotland has requested it, and the change is to the benefit of the voter, so I decided to bring forward that amendment.

10:00  

The changes are relatively minor, albeit important, and they will clearly not have a significant effect on candidates, electoral administrators or others in relation to preparing the elections in May. Therefore, I do not consider that the Gould principle is relevant in this case, and the Electoral Commission has indicated its agreement on that assessment.

I hope that the committee will agree that the provisions are positive changes that will benefit voters, candidates and administrators, and that it will therefore support the order.

Once again, I am happy to answer any questions that the committee might have.

Thank you, minister. Before we come to questions, I invite Elena Whitham to put something on the record.

For the consideration of this agenda item, I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I am still a sitting councillor in East Ayrshire Council.

I am grateful for that. I apologise for not inviting you to put that on the record before I invited the minister to present his opening statement.

Minister, I will home in on a couple of points that it might be helpful to get some clarification on. What are the implications of the proposed changes for the transparency of election expenses in local government elections?

I do not believe that there will be any impact. Candidates’ expenses, returns and declarations are already available for public inspection for two years following their receipt by the returning officer, and copies can be requested on payment of a fee. The new requirement for returning officers to send copies of candidates’ expenses, returns and declarations to the Electoral Commission, if requested, allows for the commission to request copies without payment of a fee.

We should also formally put on the record that, if the order is agreed to, the intention is that it will affect any polling on or after 5 May, which includes the forthcoming local elections—hence the minister’s evidence with regard to the Gould principle not being relevant.

I have a question about paragraph 10 of the policy note that you have delivered. I am fully aware that the answer to this question may not rest with you, minister, but I hope that it will rest with the others who are here today. It is about the commission’s duties with respect to compliance. I understand that, when the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 came in, the extensions that are being sought were specifically excluded from the commission’s monitoring and compliance role. Are you or those around you aware of why they were specifically excluded at the time?

I will ask Iain Hockenhull to give you a more detailed answer to that question. We can take it from there.

That is very helpful.

Good morning. Essentially, that act is UK legislation. At the time, the Scottish Parliament elections were within the control of the UK Government. The change in that provision was made in relation to UK elections and Scottish Parliament elections, but Scottish local government elections were devolved, so Scottish legislation would have been required to make the same change.

I am not sure why no one has made the change until now. It is probably a reflection of the point that the minister has made that, in practice, the commission is already fulfilling that role. The change formalises a role that the commission has been performing since that date. Therefore, there is probably not a great, pressing need for it, but the commission was keen for the role to be made formal in the instrument, and we have responded to that.

That is very helpful.

Ironically, I have had that conversation with officials as well. My question was why this has not been done before now. It simply appears to be yet another one of those quirks of local government elections, which we experienced in the previous session.

That was sort of my understanding from reading through the legislative consent memorandum at the time. It is nice to be able to get this on a more formal statutory setting after some 22 years, if it is agreed to. That is very helpful.

My other question relates to the statement that there are no cost implications. Does that extend as far as the monitoring role that will become a statutory requirement for the Electoral Commission? Has that been considered?

Yes. In discussions that we have had with the Electoral Commission, it has indicated that, as it has already carried out that role on an informal basis, it does not anticipate that any additional expenditure will be incurred. The hope is that, as it goes down the more formal route, it will be business as usual for it. The whole process is simply to enable the role to be part of the formal process, instead of the Electoral Commission almost being an afterthought. That is not a place where we want to be. The aim is to formalise the whole process.

Putting it on a statutory footing also helps in the movement away from the Government having to ask the Electoral Commission to do that.

Indeed. It also gives us the opportunity for transparency. It looks and feels a lot better.

I am grateful for that.

I am aware that a number of committee members have questions about the poll card situation. I will pass over to Edward Mountain.

I welcome the fact that you are bringing the issues back to the committee as a result of listening to a previous evidence session. I gently remind you that I raised the issue of the level of expenses. I hope that you will deal with that at a future committee meeting.

I turn to the issue of poll cards. Is this another quirk that has slipped past? It seems to make sense to bring the position into line with what happens in Scottish Parliament elections

You are probably correct, Mr Mountain; it is probably another of those quirks. Local government elections are exactly what it says on the tin. They are run separately by local authorities in each of the 32 local authority areas. They are locally run. We have taken another look at many of the changes, and this is one of those. We have come to the conclusion that it is a better way of working.

I am always happy to listen to you, Mr Mountain, and to any ideas that you have. We may not always agree, but we have developed a reasonably good friendship over the years and are able to work with one another.

At the risk of damaging your political career, I say that I think that it is a good idea to bring the issuing of poll cards forward. There is a level of agreement—let us hope that we can also reach agreement on election expenses for councillors.

Minister, given the on-going Covid-19 pandemic, are there any plans to bring forward the deadline for postal votes at the local government elections, as was done for the Scottish Parliament election in 2021? Any change might affect voters’ ability to register for an absentee vote, so the sooner that can be decided, the better.

We live in exceptional circumstances. What happened in the 2021 election was driven by the need to ensure adequate time for administrators to process a possible surge in demand for postal votes due to the pandemic. Given the increase in postal voters last May, we do not anticipate a similar increase this year, as many people who will want to vote by post will already have that facility in place. I have been voting by post since 2007. That was mainly a quirk of my being so busy in my working life, but I won an election that year and—although not being superstitious—just decided to remain a postal voter, and I have been winning elections ever since.

We do not anticipate encountering the same issue as last year. Postal voters will already be down to vote by post. Bringing forward the deadline would reduce the amount of time that people would have in which to apply for a postal vote. We do not anticipate there being any more postal voters than last year. We already have a solid group of individuals who have indicated that they wish to vote that way.

There was a significant rise in postal votes for the Holyrood election, but there are a number of people who are unclear as to whether they registered for one election or for continuing postal votes. Indeed, I have spoken to members of the public who have been slightly caught out with that in a by-election. Has any analysis been done of the figures for people who signed up for the Holyrood election alone rather than for continuing postal votes up to the number of years that are permitted?

As you are aware, convener, registration to vote is a rolling poll and we keep updating our information all the time. The communication will say that the individual is a postal voter and ask whether they wish to retain their postal vote. It is up to each individual to ensure that that happens.

I do not believe that any analysis has been done, but I am saying that from hearsay. I ask Iain Hockenhull to give you some solid facts on the matter.

We have asked electoral registration officers to provide us with some updated figures on the levels of postal voting. Last year’s drive got postal voting registration up to around 23 per cent of the population. As you said, some people choose to register a postal vote only for a one-off occurrence, so we anticipate a bit of drop-off because of that. We hope that most people have gone for a continuing postal vote, but we do not know the exact split, so we have asked for the data to see what the current level is.

The concern about the substantial increase that was achieved last year was that electoral registration officers would not have enough time to process all the additional applications, which is why we modified the deadline. Having spoken to EROs, we do not anticipate as big a surge this year, because of the work that was done last year, even though not all the requests were for a continuing postal vote. That is why we are not suggesting a change to the deadline.

I am grateful for that.

The minister said that election offices in each local authority area will remind individuals to ensure that their voter registration is still valid and at the address where they stay, remind them that they have a postal vote and ask whether they wish to retain it. Is there a uniform approach to that throughout Scotland? The Electoral Management Board for Scotland is involved with each local government election, but are there 32 ways that that happens in Scotland—one per local authority—or is there a more standardised approach?

I do not expect the minister to have the answer at his fingertips, but I ask in case the committee wants in future to examine the management of postal votes throughout Scotland. I am not saying that it will, but the convener’s question was interesting.

Actually, it is a good question, Mr Doris, and I would be interested in the answer myself. I assume that it is a standardised approach across all 32 local authorities, but I ask Iain Hockenhull whether he can give us further information.

Several EROs cover more than one local authority. I am desperately trying to remember how many electoral registration officers there are. I think that it is around 12 or 16—colleagues might be about to tell me—but I cannot remember the exact number. In effect, electoral registration officers follow similar approaches. They have a variety of systems—there are at least two and probably three systems in use—but, in essence, they follow the same processes, guided by the Electoral Management Board.

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I will ask a final question to ensure that it is on the record. The period for scrutiny was shortened because of the urgency of the legislation, and a relatively small number of groups were consulted on it. The policy document says that there was support for the change. From the consultation, was there any disagreement about the early issuing of poll cards?

I will also say something so that I can get it on the record. Information on the proposed changes was shared with the Electoral Commission, the Electoral Management Board for Scotland, the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Scottish Assessors Association’s electoral registration committee, the Society of Local Authority Lawyers and Administrators in Scotland, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, political parties that are represented in the Scottish Parliament and community groups that represent people with protected characteristics.

It is worth stressing that the change was requested by the convener of the Electoral Management Board. The board approached us and asked us to make the change. When we looked at the matter, as we are doing in our discussion at the moment, we thought that it made sense to make the change, so, on the Electoral Management Board’s say-so, we decided to progress with it.

Is that the normal way that I like to go about business? Probably not, but I do not believe that the change will make any difference to elections, candidates or administrators. The change also makes sense.

I will bring in Iain Hockenhull to say whether anyone said anything during the consultation that could be construed as negative.

I do not think that anyone did. We think that the changes affect only the Electoral Commission and the Electoral Management Board, both of which actively requested the changes. We do not think that the impact on anyone else will be notable.

By the way, a colleague has highlighted to me that there are 15 electoral registration officers. I am sorry for inflating their numbers.

Thank you for putting that on the record.

As members have no more questions, I thank the minister and his officials, as ever, for their evidence.

The minister will remain present for item 5. I invite him to move motion S6M-02576.

Motion moved,

That the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee recommends that the Scottish Local Government Elections Amendment Order 2022 be approved.—[George Adam]

Motion agreed to.

Are members content for me to sign off the committee’s report to the Parliament on the instrument?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank the minister and his officials for attending this morning’s meeting, and I close the public part of the meeting.

10:19 Meeting continued in private until 10:56.