R11-9

The Electoral Commission has established, with effect from 1 January 2007, four new regional offices to serve England. The Commission is of the view that these should be given the chance to tackle the issues, particularly the new performance standards issue, before any consideration is given to establishing Regional Electoral Officers in statute. The Commission has committed to review how the new structure has worked after twelve months.
The Government believes that the Commission's new regional arrangements should be allowed to develop. However, the Government notes the recommendations of the CSPL in this area with interest and believes that a review of the Electoral Commission’s regional arrangements is a useful exercise and an appropriate opportunity to assess whether more substantive change along the lines suggested by CSPL is necessary. The Government looks forward to examining the results in due course. The CSPL will also wish to assess the results of that Review against its recommendations.
The Government supports the Commission’s role in seeking to improve performance in electoral administration, which is critical to local democracy. The Electoral Administration Act 2006 provides for the Commission to establish performance standards, then monitor and report publicly on the performance of election officers against those standards. The Government will work with the Commission, to see how its exercise of these powers could be aligned with the relevant aspects of the new performance framework for local government set out in the White Paper Strong and Prosperous Communities. This would include ensuring any performance standards that are introduced, reported and monitored are consistent with the principles of a limited, outcome-focused and less burdensome set of measures which underpin the national indicator set for local government.
The Government recognises that there are no specific sanctions established yet for dealing with under-performing elections officers. The existing power only applies in respect of maintenance of the register (the Electoral Registration Officer), not the running of actual elections (the Returning Officer). We believe that the new standards being developed by the Commission should be given time to bed down. Following this, it would be appropriate to assess whether some form of publication of under-performing election officers is sufficient to generate improvements, or whether further levers prove to be necessary (and, if the latter, what those should be). The Commission should consider how any proposals for intervention or engagement could be co-ordinated with the approach taken in the local government performance framework.
As far as recommendation 13 is concerned, the 2006 Act already requires the Commission to publish reports of authorities’ progress against the performance standards. Parliament did not consider that it was necessary to require that the reports also be laid before Parliament. At this stage, that remains the Government view.
The Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland (CEO) is already required to report annually to the Secretary of State on the delivery of his statutory objectives relating to electoral registration, set out in the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006. Further to the implementation of performance standards in Great Britain, and any subsequent revision in light of experience, the Government will consider in conjunction with the CEO whether it would be appropriate to extend similar performance monitoring arrangements to Northern Ireland. Any such additional standard would need to be appropriate and meaningful in the context of the different registration arrangements which exist there.