Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electorial Commission

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-10.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, which local authority databases may be consulted by local authority electoral registration officers for the purpose of data matching for the electoral register.

Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) are entitled to access any records kept in any form by the local authority which appointed them, for the purpose of meeting their registration duties. These records may include, for example, council tax, social services and education records. Access to these records serves a dual purpose: to identify potential new electors and to check that registered electors continue to be eligible to be registered.

As direct access to records is limited to records held by the appointing authority, in those parts of England where there are two tiers of local government, EROs are currently unable to directly access county council records (such as education records). The Commission understands that the Government is planning to legislate to enable records held by county councils to be shared with EROs for the purposes of maintaining and improving the accuracy and completeness of electoral registers.