Local Authority Visits

We visited six Local Authorities across the country: Ayrshire, London Borough of Hackney, Pembrokeshire, St Edmundsbury, Bradford Metropolitan District Council and Bristol City Council, thereby including at least one authority with historically high levels of registration, one with low levels of registration, an urban authority and a rural authority. We conducted semi-structured interviews with electoral administration staff to get an understanding of the "ground level" issues around registration, with senior management of the authorities, where available (we spoke to Chief Executives at 4 authorities and other senior staff at the other 2), to understand strategic issues and with councillors to talk about registration from a political perspective. We reviewed any local registration campaigns, and considered whether they assessed their value for money. Our visits coincided with the annual canvass and so provided timely insights into the current approach.

Survey of Electoral Registration Officers

Electoral Registration Officers have responsibility for production of the electoral register in their area. There is considerable scope for variation in how this is done because of different local demands and constraints. Our short survey of Electoral Registration Officers, including both factual and opinion based questions provided comparable quantitative and qualitative data on registration across of the country.

Stakeholder Analysis

To reflect the wide interest in electoral registration we conducted a broad appraisal of opinions and evidence on the subject. This appraisal was in the form of a combination of generic and specific questions for each recipient. We received input from the Electoral Commission in finalising our list of interested parties in order to ensure maximum coverage and were particularly interested in gaining input from:

• The Electoral Commission itself
• The Department for Constitutional Affairs
• The Speaker's Committee
• Parties with an interest in specific groups, such as Operation Black Vote, the Ministry of Defence (service personnel) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (overseas residents)
• The Association of Electoral Administrators

Northern Ireland visit

In line with the scope of our study our visit to Northern Ireland did not consider the impact of the fundamental electoral registration reform there, although an understanding of this change was fundamental to understanding registration there. Instead we considered the refocusing of attention from a mass annual canvass to more focussed campaigning by talking both to representatives from the Electoral Office of Northern Ireland (EONI) and the Electoral Commission's office in Belfast and staff of the Belfast area office of EONI. We also examined how the Commission and EONI propose to monitor the ongoing accuracy of the register.

Review of existing literature

We reviewed major reports and research relevant to electoral registration. In particular we looked at the work of the Electoral Commission but we also looked at any relevant international work, for example by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (part of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe) and the Australian and Canadian Audit Offices.

Through this we gained an understanding of the registration framework and position, to be able to assess the current analysis and benchmark against international best/good practice.