United Kingdom Parliament
Publications & records
Advanced search
 HansardArchivesResearchHOC PublicationsHOL PublicationsCommittees
Select Committee on The Speaker's Committee First Report


1.Appendix 1


Is the Public Aware of Democracy?

Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General to the Speaker's Committee on the Work of the Electoral Commission

Part 1: The Electoral Commission seeks to increase public participation in the democratic process

1.1 The Electoral Commission is an independent body established by Parliament in 2000 to foster public confidence and participation by promoting integrity, involvement and effectiveness in the democratic process. It is responsible for:

  • registering political parties
  • monitoring and publishing significant donations to parties
  • regulating spending by parties on election campaigns
  • reporting on the conduct of elections and referendums
  • reviewing electoral law and procedures, and advising the Government on changes
  • advising those involved on the conduct of elections and referendums
  • reviewing electoral boundaries
  • promoting public awareness of our electoral systems

1.2 The Commission has a statutory duty to promote public awareness of electoral systems in the United Kingdom; systems of local and national government; and the institutions of the European Union.[7]

1.3 The Commission may carry out education and information programmes of its own, or make grants to other bodies, so long as the amount spent does not exceed a limit set by the Secretary of State, currently £7.5m per annum.[8] Actual expenditure was between £6.8 million in 2002-03 and 2003-04, and £7.3 million in 2004-05.

1.4 In its 2004-05 Corporate Plan, the Electoral Commission described its statutory responsibility in terms of a corporate aim to "encourage greater participation in and increased understanding of the democratic process".[9] The objectives supporting this aim were:

  • To undertake a programme of research, which supports the development of targeted voter awareness activities, through understanding what motivates people to register or vote.
  • To create effective advertising and public relations campaigns to encourage and facilitate voting and registration.
  • To develop and implement long term plans for tackling disengagement among 'hard to reach' groups, especially young people, black minority ethnic (BME) communities and support the Youth Voting Networks.
  • To manage the New Initiatives Fund: distributed via grants to support schemes for increasing public awareness and increasing turnout and to facilitate roll out or dissemination of successful pilot projects.
  • To promote public awareness of electoral and democratic systems in the UK and the institutions of the European Union.
  • To develop the profile of the Commission ensuring its responsibilities are understood and to encourage feedback from stakeholders and other interested parties.

1.5 In its first report of 2004, the Speakers Committee considered the Comptroller and Auditor General's examination for 2002-03 of the effectiveness of expenditure by the Electoral Commission aimed at promoting public awareness. A summary of the progress the Commission has made to implement recommendations made in the 2002­03 report is at Annex 2.

Our report covers the Commission's current campaigns and other activity

1.6 While recognising that the Commission's overall performance should not be judged on performance in this area alone, the Speaker's Committee has asked the National Audit Office to revisit the Commission's spending on promoting public awareness. For this report we looked at the Commission's campaigns in 2004 and 2005. The 2004 'Don't do Politics' campaign sought to encourage the electorate to register to vote, and provided information on the European, London Mayoral and local elections taking place in June of that year. In 2005 the Commission ran a spring registration campaign and subsequent General Election campaign. The National Audit Office methodology is described in more detail at Annex 3.

Overall conclusion on value for money

1.7 In our view, the Commission has used its resources in raising public awareness in general effectively when judged by measures such as recall rates and other industry measures for its advertising. There does too, seem to have been an overall positive effect on voter registration. Where the Commission could do more is to pull together the various strands of its work with disaffected groups to ensure that there is no overlap or duplication. Given the Commission's size and the fact that it is not the owner of any of the electoral processes, it should build on and expand its influence on potential voters in hard to reach groups indirectly through partners. And on a wider point, as there is no one lead body responsible for promoting public awareness of democratic processes, either within government or across the wider public sector, there is an ongoing risk to value for money through duplication, omission or uncoordinated activity.

Part 2 The Commission has set objectives for its public awareness work

2.1 This report considers in turn each of the Commission's objectives for its public awareness work and assesses their value for money in terms of the effectiveness with which the Commission's work has contributed to raising public awareness, in terms of people being more aware of political issues and how they affect their own lives; people wanting to take an active part and therefore registering to vote; and taking part in local, national and/or European elections.

2.2 Because in the United Kingdom there is no central electoral register, it is difficult to track changes in national registration levels over time. It is also difficult to identify the extent of non-registration among different socio-economic groups and in different areas. It should be borne in mind that the Electoral Commission does not in any sense 'own' the electoral register or run elections itself which means that neither voter registration nor voter turnout can be used as a direct, straightforward measure of the Commission's success. Rises and falls in both are functions of other influences too

The Electoral Commission's research programme informs its public awareness activities

2.3 The Electoral Commission both undertakes itself and also commissions research to identify what motivates people to register or vote. This includes an annual "audit" of political engagement, conducted with the Hansard Society. The findings of this research are used to underpin its public awareness work.

2.4 In September 2005, the Commission published a report identifying the nature and extent of non-registration, using work done with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and MORI. This identified a number of key factors which indicated the likelihood of being registered to vote or non-registration. Groups least likely to be registered and therefore unable to vote, are young people, ethnic minorities, itinerant or mobile populations.
2Groupings of unregistered voters
Group% not registered Base
16-17 year-olds 28479
18-24 year-olds 162,211
Inner London 18985
West Midlands 42,498
Indian6 413
Black Caribbean 9225
Black African 37116
At same address six months prior to qualifying date 622,794
At different address six months prior to qualifying date 331,169
Students 22575
Own property outright 36,979
Renting from private landlord or letting agency 271,269

Source: Understanding Electoral Registration, The Electoral Commission, September 2005

2.5 Research for the Commission by MORI in 2003 had identified five 'political typologies' which have been used as the basis for much of the subsequent work on public awareness (Figure 3). The Electoral Commission aimed to target the group of the electorate categorised as the "apolitical disconnected", with a message that "politics is personal and affects everything." The MORI research had also shown that the electorate will be more positive about politics and more likely to vote if they have interacted with their local politicians. In all campaigns the Electoral Commission has attempted to make politics personal.
3Political typologies identified by MORI
Authority Generation Nearly always vote in elections as they believe it is part of being a good citizen
Disaffected Never had any interest in politics or voting
Apolitical disconnected Care about local issues that affect them, such as hospitals and schools, but don't follow politics and likely not to vote
Thwarted idealists Used to be interested in politics but not what it was. All parties are the same.
Political trainspotters Important to vote as it makes a difference. Actively follow politics through the media.

Source: MORI: Public opinion and the 2004 elections. A study of attitudes towards the European Parliament, London Mayor and Assembly elections.

NAO Conclusion on research funded by the Commission

2.6 The research carried out by the Electoral Commission has identified those segments of the population less likely to vote, in a way that is readily understandable to communications experts, electoral experts and the general public. This is a common sense approach which the Commission has been able to use to inform its campaigns.

The Electoral Commission aimed to create effective advertising and public relations campaigns to encourage and facilitate voting and registration

2.7 We examined the campaigns carried out by the Commission for the 2004 European Parliamentary and local elections and the 2005 general election. Both these campaigns were based on the research carried out by the Commission and carried a message that politics is personal and affects everything. The 2005 campaign built on the results of post campaign research for the 2004 campaign.

2.8 The aim of the Electoral Commission's campaigns is that it should encourage the electorate to participate in politics, rather than to be pure information campaigns (one reason being that people respond more positively to information once they see its relevance). The Commission uses research to test the likely public response to different styles and types of advertisement and campaign messages and to provide a framework for individual campaigns.

2.9 Using the research identified above, the Commission planned a mass media campaign, which is the second of its key objectives, to raise awareness of the elections across the electorate, taking account of the different types of voters, identified by the MORI research at Figure 2 above. The "apolitical disconnected" were targeted as a group that could be made to see the relevance of politics to them if the campaign was appropriate.

2.10 The Commission also identified where other bodies were working in raising public awareness, to avoid duplication and ensure best use of resources.

2.11 Finally the Commission considered the approach to the campaigns, including campaign evaluation before and after the event and carried out a risk assessment of the campaigns. These evaluations were used to plan subsequent campaigns and to modify the approach as appropriate to take account of lessons learned.

2.12 The Electoral Commission use the Central Office of Information (COI) to run and manage its national advertising campaigns, under a Service Level Agreement. The arrangement gives the Commission access to media suppliers without needing to use resources to tender for suppliers. COI's media buying power also helps to ensure value for money. The COI regards the Electoral Commission as an "intelligent customer", managing the relationship in a professional way, making the most of the COI's expertise and sector knowledge but also prepared to challenge them where appropriate.

NAO Conclusion on whether the Commission has produced effective campaigns

2.13 The Commission's approach to planning and carrying out its campaign follows best practice and should help ensure value for money from this expenditure.

2.14 The Commission uses a mixture of activity and output measures together with outcome based measures, some proxy based. For example, the Commission sets out to conduct and publish regular tracking research. It uses these proxy measures in part due to the difficulty of assessing the direct impact of the Commission's public awareness work in terms of voter registration, because the register is not held centrally and local authorities do not have to respond to the Commission's requests for information. There are difficulties in measuring changes in voter registration and establishing causation as there are a number of organisations working in this area.

2.15 The Commission has therefore used post-campaign tracking to evaluate its campaigns, alongside intermediate measures such as home mover registration returns, and downloads of registration forms from the "aboutmyvote" website. The development ultimately of outcome measures based on registration data would be the most suitable but this is not yet possible. In the meantime the Commission and the NAO will work together on developing more performance measures. The Electoral Administration Bill gives the Commission the opportunity to build further on its relationship with local authorities. Ultimately this could lead to the closer, more accurate monitoring of electoral registration data.

The Commission has developed and is implementing plans for tackling disengagement among hard to reach groups

2.16 In its research, the Commission identified young people and black minority ethnic communities as a target audience, due to the low levels of voter registration among these groups. (See Figure 2 above). A programme of outreach work was specifically aimed at these groups, and was supported with advertising placed in relevant press and radio in the run up to elections.

2.17 As well as its own campaign work and use of grants under the New Initiative Fund, the Commission worked with key organisations including the Prince's Trust, the Local Government Association and the Hansard Society. This enabled the Commission to make use of existing networks and establish new networks to enable them to target identified hard to reach audiences, tailoring its approach to each different body. For instance with the Local Government Association, as part of the Local Democracy steering group, the Commission advises them and helps channel resources and activities in order to avoid replication.

2.18 . This approach should also reduce the risk that arises from the number of other bodies also working in this area of duplication or uncoordinated work. However, as there is no designated lead authority for work in this area, a residual risk of duplication or unco-ordinated activity remains.

2.19 Outreach work is also resource intensive, as much is done on a one-to-one basis or in small groups. The Commission has only limited resources in terms of staff and therefore in terms of numbers of people reached the impact in this area is likely to be small in relation to the size of the input.

2.20 Recognising both these constraints the Commission has decided that to be more effective it will take a strategic role and focus on capacity building with other bodies. This would also enable it to manage the risk of duplication and uncoordinated activity.

2.21 The Commission has also recognised the need to manage effectively the relationships with stakeholders, and produced a strategy to manage this. This recognises the key role that working with others has in its work with hard to reach groups and seeks to maximise the networks already in place, by working through these organisations.

NAO Conclusion on outreach work with hard to reach groups

2.22 Although measuring the impact on these hard to reach groups is difficult, feedback from partners and those involved has been positive. It would be useful to develop ways of assessing the Commission's impact directly, perhaps by small scale surveys and the NAO will work together with the Commission to develop measures. It should be noted that in part the Commission is trying to influence some of the most 'difficult to reach' groups, especially young people who are not engaged in the political process and its work needs to be seen in this light.

The Commission supports schemes for increasing public awareness via the New Initiatives Fund

2.23 The Commission's New Initiatives Fund provides funds for schemes that use innovative ways to raise public awareness. Around £300,000 has been awarded in 2004 - 2005 under this scheme.

2.24 A review of this scheme, carried out by the Commission found that that although feedback on the work done under the New Initiative Fund was positive, the grants tended to go to projects aimed at young people. This overlapped with the target audiences of the outreach work, meaning that other hard to reach groups such as ethnic minorities might be overlooked. The review also identified a risk that grants could be monopolised by organisations experienced at bidding for funding which could receive more money at the expense of others better placed to reach particular groups.

NAO Conclusion on the New Initiative Fund

2.25 The NAO considers that the key step the Commission can take is to bring together all aspects of its outreach work, including projects funded under the New Initiative fund, and ensure that all sections identified as currently disengaged from the democratic process have effort focused upon them. The Commission is addressing this under its new Communications strategy. Given the Commission's size and the fact that it is not the owner of any of the electoral processes, it should build on and expand its influence on potential voters in hard to reach groups indirectly through partners.

The Electoral Commission works to promote public awareness of electoral and democratic systems in the UK and the institutions of the European Union

2.26 The Commission measure the success of its work to promote public awareness of the democratic process by considering:

  • the recognition rates of the advertising;
  • the level of agreement with the campaign message;
  • the reported impact on the electorate (such as claimed voting record and discussing politics);
  • the number of registrations (remembering the difficulties with taking this figure at face value); and
  • the number of visits to the website and calls to the call centre.

2.27 The first three of these measures are collected by tracking research currently carried out by Ipsos, a market research company. The tracking research shows that the Commission's campaigns were having a positive effect on recognition over time.[10]

Figure 4: The Electoral Commission's TV recognition rating is improving over time
Registration 2004 Elections 2004Registration 2005 Elections 2005IPSOS Norm
% Cut-through42 5754 6958
TVRs272 411305 519500

Note: Ipsos, who carried out the tracing research, quote a "norm" of 58 per cent for 500 TVRs. A TVR (television rating) is an audience measurement based on reach or "opportunities to see". One TVR represents 1 per cent of the target audience. The Electoral Commission's 411 TVRs for the 2004 Elections means that 41.4 per cent saw the advert an average of 10 times each (or 20.55 per cent saw the advert 20 times each)

Source: Central office of Information

2.28 In addition the COI provided figures showing expenditure and cut through the audience showing that the Commission's campaigns are being effective.

Figure 5: Recognition of Electoral Commission campaigns
Average for Comparison Electoral Commission
% Cut through Expenditure% Cut through Expenditure[11]
Initial campaign60% £2.25 million 64% (2004)£2.8 million
Follow up campaign 70 to 75%£2 million 76% (2005)£3.5 million

Source: Central Office of Information

Television advertising achieved a high recognition rate

2.29 The Electoral Commission used television advertising for its June 2004 campaigns with the aim of reaching as large an audience as possible. The Commission conducted tracking research after each campaign[12]. When compared to the "norm" for established brand names of 58 per cent the 57 per cent who saw the Electoral Commissions'' campaign looks encouraging[13].

2.30 The Electoral Commission increased the number of television adverts used in the final run up to the General Election, and this is reflected in the highest recognition rate ever achieved for the 2004 and 2005 campaigns (69 per cent of respondents recognised the adverts, compared to 57 per cent in 2004).

Radio and press advertising achieved a lower recall rate but was necessary to reach some target audiences

2.31 In the June 2004 campaign, the Electoral Commission's press advertising, costing £1.5 million, proved to be less successful. Eleven per cent of people surveyed could remember the press adverts, whereas branded goods would expect a recognition rate between 15 and 20 per cent. Focus groups carried out after the campaign found that the adverts failed to stand out and contained too much text.

2.32 For the 2005 campaigns, the Electoral Commission's radio adverts had some success, with 18 per cent of respondents having heard them at least once. The Commission reviewed its press advertising, although the press adverts still achieved relatively low recognition rates with 12 per cent of respondents remembering them, almost as low as in 2004. Online adverts achieved a recognition rate of 16 per cent. These figures are slightly below 16 per cent, which is considered excellent by COI, as a 7 per cent recognition level for online advertising is classified as 'good'.

2.33 To target ethnic minority groups, the Electoral Commission also used press and online advertising in BME specific media. The Electoral Commission confirmed that, although recognition rates achieved by press and online promotions are lower than were achieved by other media, it considers that these are the best methods to reach particular difficult to reach target audiences (especially young people). The Commission plans to continue using press and radio advertising as appropriate to target these audiences. It is likely they will also be required for regional campaigns, where it is not possible to use television advertising.

Other media were cost-effective for raising public awareness

2.34 As part of the June 2004 campaign the Electoral Commission targeted home movers, renters and students (i.e. those identified as 'hard to reach' - see Figure 2) by using the Royal Mail redirection service, online banner advertising and advertisements in the renter media (such as Loot). The campaign ran over a three month period using national advertising, leaflets, a voter website, a free helpline and public relations work.

2.35 The Royal Mail redirection service enabled the Electoral Commission to achieve a known 11,730 registrations from 184 local authorities. It was likely that more registration forms were returned, but the Electoral Commission were only able to estimate a figure of 26,000 registrations, as not all of the local authorities provided feedback. This exercise cost the Electoral Commission £140,539, equivalent to £5.40 per registration (based on the extrapolated figure for the number of registrations). This cost per response compares favourably with the average government cost of £20 per response.

NAO conclusions on the Commission's effectiveness in raising public awareness

2.36 The ultimate measures of success for the Commission's work would be the levels of voter registration rising and voter turnout increasing. But this cannot happen before the Commission has engaged the interest of the viewer or listener, so recall rates for its advertising are also important indicators. The television campaigns have scored well against industry norms in terms of recall. Press and radio were less effective: the Commission maintain that these media are especially important for hard to reach groups and for regionally-based campaigns, where using television advertising is not an option. The use of these other media should be kept under review to ensure that the continued investment is worthwhile.

2.37 The Electoral Commission considers its campaigns to have been successful, in particular the "Don't do Politics" campaign. The Electoral Commission's qualitative research carried out after the 2004 campaign found that the electorate identified with this message. Because of the success, the Electoral Commission will carry on with this theme for future campaigns. The Commission does need to monitor the response to these adverts to ensure that the public's response remains positive.

2.38 Whilst the Electoral Commission aim to encourage people to register to vote, it is very difficult for them to measure changes in non-registration levels over time because of the lack of a centrally held electoral register. This also makes it harder to determine the impact of a registration campaign on registration levels. However, in its 2005 General Election report, the Electoral Commission stated that the number registered to vote had fallen slightly by 0.35 per cent since 2000. However, it is not possible to establish the extent of non-registration robustly without comparing population and registration data and taking eligibility into account; also, if there was indeed this slight decrease, it may have been due to population changes or "cleansing" of the registers by some local authorities. More thought needs to be given to developing locally based campaigns in partnership with local authorities to increase registration and to build on successful projects like that focused on people moving house. The current Electoral Administration Bill will allow Returning officers and Electoral Registration officers to carry out public awareness work, offering the Commission an opportunity to improve its partnership working at local level.

2.39 It is difficult to gauge changes in registration levels, but voter turnout for the European and General elections has increased:

  • In the European elections held in June 2004, turnout was 39 per cent[14]compared to 24 per cent in 1999 which was a record low for a national election[15];
  • In the London Mayoral and London Assembly elections held in June 2004, turnout was 36 per cent[16] compared to 33.5 per cent in 2000[17]
  • In the 2005 General Election, turnout was 61 per cent compared to 59 per cent in 2001.

2.40 The Electoral Commission's "Don't do Politics" campaign was one of a number of influences on turnout in the European elections, (other factors included canvassing by political parties and the fact that European elections were consistent with local elections). The difficulty of influencing voter turnout is illustrated by the Electoral Commission's own research which found that there was no significant difference in the claimed voting record of those who had and had not seen the Commission's advertising[18]. While the advertising did raise public awareness, the Commission believes that a shift in propensity to vote is much harder to generate and affected by a number of factors, such as the political context, political party campaigning, perceptions of how effective one's vote is, and the perceived closeness of an upcoming election.

The Commission seeks to raise its profile, to ensure that its responsibilities are understood and to encourage feedback from stakeholders and others.

2.41 The Electoral Commission is the only body within the UK to have a statutory duty to promote public awareness of the democratic process, but government departments and public sector organisations have taken on responsibility for public awareness work. Some charities and other organisations have also become involved in encouraging people to participate more in politics and voting.

2.42 We spoke to the Hansard Society, the Prince's Trust, the Central Office of Information, and the Local Government Association about the work of the Electoral Commission. We also spoke to London Elects and the UK Office of the European Parliament, who worked with the Electoral Commission to help promote the June 2004 elections.

2.43 Some stakeholders suggested that the Commission could do more. The Local Government Association expressed the view that the Electoral Commission could do more to promote public awareness at the local level; for example, in local council elections, by tailoring materials to the circumstances within a particular area. This is consistent with the research showing that voters are more likely to be positive about politics if they are engaged with their local politicians, and if they can see how politics has an impact on their local community. By continuing to build on relationships with electoral administrators this would enable them to add a local element to the Commission's national perspective.

2.44 The Electoral Commission's campaigns can be adapted by the local Electoral Returning Officers, but only if the returning officers wish to use Electoral Commission campaign materials, such as leaflets and posters. Whilst all materials are publicised and available to all administrators on an equal basis year round, take up varies across the UK. The Electoral Commission also publishes guidance for electoral administrators on its website.

2.45 Suggestions were also made by stakeholders that people are receptive to receiving information about European Institutions and that the Electoral Commission could do more to promote public awareness of European institutions. The latest Eurobarometer survey found that 19 per cent of people in the EU claimed to have no knowledge of the EU and around one third of respondent felt that there was not enough coverage on TV, press or radio. However, it is recognised that this will be challenging to achieve as the Commission's research (Public Opinion and the 2004 elections) shows a significant lack of interest amongst the general population in European elections. The Commission also tends to dedicate its resources to pending electoral events and in the absence of a European vote e.g. the proposed referendum, has not dedicated resources to such a campaign.

2.46 Currently the Electoral Commission's campaigns encourage people to find out for themselves more information about particular institutions on its website. The Commission also uses its Outreach work to tell young people about European institutions. However, only a small proportion of the electorate visit the website and use the call centres to find out more.

NAO conclusions on the Commission's effectiveness in raising its profile and getting its responsibilities understood

2.47 Whilst the Electoral Commission has a statutory duty to promote public awareness of the democratic processes, it does not have overall responsibility for work in this area and no government department or organisation has overall responsibility for promoting voter registration or voter awareness. This can lead to several different organisations all carrying out similar activities. For example the Department for Constitutional Affairs planned to carry out work to encourage electoral registration in 2006. There was no formal mechanism to inform the Commission of this. As there is no overall strategy or leadership there is the risk of overlap and unnecessary duplication of effort or omission of key areas. The electorate could also become confused if similar messages are coming from different bodies or worse if they receive conflicting information.

2.48 The Electoral Commission recognises that the risks associated with the lack of strategic oversight for voter awareness and other electoral matters. In order to mitigate this risk, it sits on steering groups which aim to develop common goals. However these steering groups are usually set up for a particular activity. For example, for the 2006 London registration campaign the DCA set up a formal project board which includes the Commission. There is no forum for a general discussion about the strategy and direction for voter awareness work, away from work for specific campaigns. This may be in part due to the lack of a clear lead responsibility.

2.49 We found that the Electoral Commission has a good reputation as an independent body with a statutory duty to promote public awareness. In particular, the Electoral Commission is seen to be the organisation best placed to promote public awareness because it has funds specifically for this purpose and is likely, due to its independent status, to be trusted by the general public. This puts the Commission in an ideal position to provide impartial information to the electorate without the risk of being thought to have a hidden agenda.


7   Section 13(1) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (an extract is at Annex 1). Back

8   The annual limit is specified by order made by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury, under section 13(6) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Back

9   Electoral Commission Corporate Plan 2004-05 to 2008-09, HC 797, 22 July 2004. Comparable objectives in the Commission's 2005-06 Corporate Plan are to: make a demonstrable contribution to increased public awareness of the electoral process; carry out a review of the effectiveness and results of community-based public awareness work; and maintain and enhance the Commission's position as an independent, authoritative body with a key role in public life to safeguard and promote the democratic process. Back

10   Ipsos survey between 500 and 600 people at key stages during the campaign to determine whether there have been any changes in recognition or reported behaviour. Ipsos carried out tracking research for each of the main campaigns in 2004 and 2005. Back

11   Expenditure is expenditure with the COI Back

12   See Figure 4 for results of the tracking research. Back

13   Ipsos, who carried out the tracking research, quote a "norm" of 58 per cent for 500 TVRs. The Electoral Commission achieved 57 per cent with 411 TVRs. A TVR (television rating) is an audience measurement based on reach or "opportunities to see". One TVR represents 1 per cent of the target audience. The Electoral Commission's 411 TVRs means that 41.4 per cent saw the advert an average of 10 times each (or 20.55 per cent saw the advert 20 times each).  Back

14   Appendix, Table A1, page 124 of "The 2004 European Parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom". by the Electoral Commission, December 2004  Back

15   Paragraph 4.2, page 101 as above  Back

16   Taken from the Guardian Error! Bookmark not defined.  Back

17   Taken from the London Elects website Error! Bookmark not defined.  Back

18   Page 24, Ipsos report  Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2006
Prepared 1 August 2006