National Assembly for Wales

Okay. Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Local Government and Housing Committee. The first item on the agenda today is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. This meeting is being held in a hybrid format. Aside from the adaptations relating to conducting proceedings in that way, all other Standing Order requirements remain in place. The public items of this meeting are being broadcast live on Senedd.tv, and the Record of Proceedings will the published as usual. The meeting is bilingual and simultaneous translation is available. Are there any declarations of interest? No.

We will move on, then, to item 2, which is papers to note. We have several before us today. The first is a letter from the Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee to the Minister for Climate Change regarding the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. Paper 2 is a letter from the Chair of the Finance Committee in relation to the draft budget. Paper 3 is a letter from the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution in relation to the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill, which, of course, we will be conducting evidence sessions in relation to later today in this meeting. Paper 4 is a letter from the Building Communities Trust in relation to community assets. Paper 5 is a letter from the Chair of the Reform Bill Committee in relation to the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill again. Paper 6 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in relation to their report, 'Equality and Human Rights Monitor: Is Wales Fairer? 2023'. Paper 7 is a letter from the Minister for Social Justice and Chief Whip in relation to housing Ukrainian refugees. Paper 8 is a letter and update from the Minister for Finance and Local Government in relation to community assets. Are Members content to note those papers? Yes. Thank you very much. We may well consider the letters in relation to the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill when we consider the evidence that we receive today, later on in this meeting.

Item 3, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the following items of this meeting: items 4 and 7. Is committee content to do so? I see that you are. We will, then, move into private session.

Committee returns to public session for item 5 on our agenda today, which is our fourth evidence session on the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill. I'm very pleased to welcome witnesses from the Welsh Local Government Association, joining us virtually. Perhaps you could introduce yourselves for the record, please, perhaps starting with Huw, then Llinos and then Andrew.

Bore da. Good morning. Huw David, leader of Bridgend County Borough Council, and here as the presiding officer for the WLGA.

Bore da, pawb. Andrew Parkhurst, group leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the WLGA.

Okay. Bore da, and thank you all very much for joining committee this morning. Perhaps I might begin with a few questions, before we turn to other committee members. Firstly, with regard to general principles of the proposed legislation, could you share with committee your general thoughts on the Bill as a whole? Who would like to begin?

I'm happy to begin, Chair, just to say that, obviously, we welcome the Bill. It builds on the Senedd having legislative competence for Senedd and Welsh local government elections, which, of course, we support. We've got a track record of improving and reforming the electoral process together with Welsh Government and other partners, including the Electoral Commission, so there's much to be welcomed and supported in the Bill, and many of the proposed reforms have been developed through extensive engagement between Welsh Government, local authorities and electoral administrators.

Okay. Diolch yn fawr, Huw. Would either Llinos or Andrew like to add anything? Llinos.

Diolch yn fawr, Llinos. Andrew, are you content with what's been said or did you want to add anything?

Yes, thank you, Chair. Just to add that there's a large measure of agreement amongst all the groups in the WLGA on the proposals. There's only a small minor area of slight variance in connection with independent scrutiny of chief executives' pay, but, otherwise, we are pretty much of common mind.

Okay. I'm not sure if we—. Andrew, do you want to just flesh out that area of variance, as you describe it, and your view on that?

Yes, of course, Chair. I'm conscious and my group is conscious that in previous years there have been situations where there have been severe pressures on council tax budgets and consequent increases in council tax. At the same time, there has been a perception that chief executive pay in some quarters has got out of kilter. Really, for that reason, and also to try and ensure a degree of consistency where that is appropriate, it seems reasonable to have a second pair of eyes or independent scrutiny to ensure that what is being proposed for chief executives is realistic and appropriate.

Okay. Thanks, Andrew. We'll come back to those matters later on. Okay, at this stage, let me continue with some questions on the electoral management board and your thoughts on how having a statutory electoral management board would impact on local government, what it would mean for local government in Wales.

Chair, I'm happy to come in if that's—

Yes, please, Huw.

—okay with you. Again, we're supportive of the establishment of a statutory board for a number of reasons, not least because, whilst we have a set of arrangements currently, they're operated on a voluntary basis with no funding to help co-ordinate the planning and management of elections in Wales, and we think it's critical that there is that planning and management of elections in Wales, particularly as we now see the differences across the UK, and having this function on a statutory footing with appropriate resources to support electoral administration professionals will provide much more resilience and build on that strong collaborative working that's already taken place. So, we are supportive.

Okay, Huw. Thank you for that. Anything to add from either Llinos or Andrew?

No, no further comments.

No, okay. In terms of that electoral management board, then, are you content that the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru is the best body to host that electoral management board? Would you have any concerns that the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru is sponsored by Welsh Government? Would that have any implications for independence, in your view?

I think—

No, go on.

Okay. Again, any of you want to add anything to that?

Only just to add that, as a general principle, we are always keen that we don't see the creation of more stand-alone bodies, because obviously that comes at a cost, so, by the functions being potentially transferred to the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales, then, obviously, that will avoid some of the costs that come with creating a new stand-alone body, some of the additional costs, and, as Councillor Medi has outlined, it's difficult for us to think of another body that would be suitable to hold those functions, and I think the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales has certainly demonstrated its operational independence, if that is the concern. Thanks, Chair.

Okay, thank you for that, and we will move on then to Sam Rowlands. Sam.

Thanks, Chair. Morning, all. I appreciate you joining us this morning. I hope you're doing well. I just wanted to ask some questions around the electoral registration without application, so the auto-enrolment element of the Bill, and perhaps you'll be able to share your views on provisions in the Bill around the electoral registration without application and on the Welsh Government's approach to piloting these reforms. I'm keen to hear how you see it from your perspective in local authorities, and also the work of your monitoring officers or electoral returns officers as well.

Chair, I'm happy to begin, if that's okay.

Yes, please, Huw. Yes.

Thanks, Chair. So, obviously there's an association. Just as I know all Members of the Senedd are keen on this, we all want to see greater participation, don't we, in the democratic process in Wales, so anything that increases the level of registration and then participation in elections is an initiative that we would certainly be supportive of. And also we are supportive of the principle of piloting initiatives and reforms because we can learn lessons, can't we, from those pilots, and, when we then need to scale it up for Wales, we can make sure that that's a better system that we're introducing. Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Huw. Sam.

Yes. Thanks, Chair. I appreciate the comments. Just in regard to potential, I guess, confusion, because there are likely, if this goes ahead, to be two different registration systems for those devolved elections, such as for yourselves, local authorities, and for us here in the Senedd, and then the second set of elections with police and crime commissioners and UK general elections. Some have observed that there could be confusion where the voters think they're registered for one set of elections or another set of elections. Do you think that's a fair concern that people might have and how that potentially impacts you in local government with your elections?

Diolch, Llinos. Sam.

Yes, thanks, Chair. Just perhaps to expand on that a little further, one of the areas within the Bill seeks to allow people to not be auto-enrolled for all sorts of different reasons and there is a 45-day window in which they can do that. Now, it looks like that will be the responsibility of electoral returning officers or monitoring officers within your local authorities. I don't know if they've raised any concerns with you directly as to how that may be handled. Is that something you've had feedback on or is there anything that you'd like to share on those points?

Yes, thank you. Thanks, Chair.

Okay, Sam, you're content. Okay, thank you. We will move to Joel James. Joel.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks ever so much for coming in this morning. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions on piloting electoral powers. Obviously, back in 2022, there was a series of pilots looking at flexible voting. I was just keen to get your thoughts on that. What were your initial assessments of that? Did you see that as a success? But then, also, what other pilots would you like to be seen to be done? From speaking with other evidence sessions, they talked about differences in terms of the different types of voting they would like to see piloted and I was just wondering what your thoughts were.

Okay. Who would like to begin?

Huw?

Huw. 

Yes, I'm happy to begin, if that's okay, Chair. Certainly, as I indicated earlier, I'm very supportive of the principle of pilots. I think they're an opportunity to test possible reform, and certainly the pilots were administrated very smoothly, the pilots that took place in 2022. And I know there was an evaluation of those pilots, and I think that that's important. And I think we have to consider further initiatives and ways to encourage greater turnout in elections. So, I welcome those powers, Chair. 

Thanks for that. Are there any specific pilots you'd like to see piloted, for want of a better word?

We'd be interested to obviously see what proposals you and others come up with. Certainly, the pilots that have taken place to try to encourage greater participation by younger people are important, because I think we'd all recognise that participation by younger people in the democratic process is not as high as we would like it to be, and it's important that we develop that pattern of participation early on in people's lives. Thanks, Chair. 

Okay. Perfect. You mentioned there that you are quite supportive of pilots. Obviously, this Bill will allow the Welsh Government to compel local authorities to run pilots. Are you supportive of that provision? And the other thing I'd like to know is: do local authorities have the capacity to do pilots, because one of the concerns raised by the Association of Electoral Administrators is that there's a high turnover of election services managers, and there's been quite a new intake of returning officers and electoral returning officers? So, that—what's the word I'm looking for—experience isn't there in order to, as you said, smoothly run pilots. I was just wondering what your views are on that. 

Llinos.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Does that mean that—? Sorry, Andrew. Go on. Andrew.

Yes, sorry, Chair, to interrupt. I was just going to say that I think compelling returning officers to undertake pilots when it's not within, perhaps, their capacity to do so is problematical. I think there should be a large degree of agreement by the returning officers to participate, rather than being forced. I'd also like to pick up on the point which Councillor David made about young people needing to increase engagement with the electoral process; that's absolutely correct and I fully support that, but I'd go further to say that there are, you know, large sectors of society where the engagement in the electoral process, particularly with the Senedd elections, is not that high. So, if one is considering pilots to increase engagement, I would widen it to those areas where there is particularly low engagement at the moment. Thank you.

Just to be clear in terms of the powers to compel, is it something that you would prefer not to be in the legislation, or not?

Yes, we'd prefer it not to be in the legislation. We would want pilots to be—. For pilots to be successful, we would want there to be that discretion and that capacity for authorities to participate. Otherwise, the risk is those pilots won't be successful.

Okay. Thank you very much. Are you happy, Joel?

Yes.

Okay. Carolyn Thomas.

Good morning. I just want to ask you for some information regarding the voter information platform and your views. So, in your written evidence, you question whether there is actually a need for a platform for the uploading of candidate statements, and that you believe it's more effectively done by political parties themselves. So, can you explain why you have these concerns?

Okay, who would like to answer on that? Llinos.

Okay. Is that the common view of all three of you?

Yes, I think so, Chair. I don't think any of us would want the job of the editorial control of such a platform. I think that would be very difficult to manage, Chair.

Who do you think could be responsible for it, then, otherwise? You know, the—. Where do you think it could be placed should it happen? I remember, when I've been campaigning, that people say, 'Not more leaflets', you know—'Another tree gone.' And they seem to come more fast as the election day arrives. As a former postie, as well, I used to get told that. And people will say, 'Is there anywhere we can just look to find the information of people we can vote for altogether?' So, I think that's where it's come from, really. I'm just asking, you know, where you think this could lie. And just somewhere so that candidate statements can be found by the electorate. Just pushing a little bit more on that, if that's okay.

Just another question: do you think it's more concerning as well for you because of, possibly, the numbers at different levels of government? So, if you have elections for town and community councils, there's a lot there, isn't there—a lot of candidates to vote for. County council or Senedd elections are all very different, I suppose, in the amount of numbers, and Members of Parliament. So, is that a consideration as well—just the amount, the numbers of candidates?

Absolutely, because we're talking about, aren't we, in most local authorities in Wales—? Just at a county borough level, we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of candidates aren't we? That's a lot of literature, isn't it, and a lot of content?

Sometimes that detail of what happens locally on the ground sometimes might get a little bit missed, so I just wanted to ease that out of you. Okay, thank you.

Is there an issue, do you think, in terms of independent candidates? We talk about the political parties and what they're able to do in terms of reaching voters and getting their policies across and so on. Obviously, if you're an independent without that organisation behind you, would this—? It's difficult for you to speak for independents, I know, but do you think there's an issue there in terms of this levelling of the playing field a little for independent candidates, or do you not see that?

Okay. Diolch yn fawr, Llinos. Okay, we'll move on to Jayne Bryant. Jayne.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. Bore da, pawb. We really appreciate you coming to give evidence this morning. I'm going to just ask a few questions around accessibility and diversity. And thank you for your paper as well. You've talked this morning around capacity as well and concerns around capacity, but obviously we all know how important it is to make sure disabled people are not disadvantaged when voting in both Senedd and local government elections. What are the challenges, which I'm sure will include that capacity—? What are the challenges faced by returning officers in taking all possible steps to make sure disabled people aren't disadvantaged?

Who would like to respond?

I'm happy to start, Chair, if that's okay with you. I think we'll all be familiar, as elected representatives, with some of the challenges that we face in many of our polling stations. They're rooted in our communities, aren't they, most of our polling stations. Like most buildings in our communities, they can quite often be old and have those challenges around accessibility—steps, narrow doorways, no lift or ramp available. Consequently, improving polling stations can mean having to improve buildings, and that does come at a cost. Of course, sometimes, it's about providing aids and equipment at polling stations as well. So, it's thinking about the cost and value of some of those improvements. Of course, I would say that, quite often, improvements to polling stations can also be permanent improvements to community facilities and buildings that are used all year round. 

Thank you, Huw. Does anybody—Andrew or Llinos—want to add anything?

I was just going to add that there are substantial costs involved in improving the accessibility, as Councillor David has mentioned, and just to reiterate an earlier point that any changes should be fully funded. 

Thank you. We know that section 26 of the Bill removes the requirement to set out the wording of the local government candidates survey in regulations. What are your views on that?

Who would like to—?

Thanks, Chair, I'll come in here, if that's okay, and thanks for the question. We agree with the proposals. We welcome that greater flexibility, so that we can add to some of those questions. Of course, there'll be a set of core questions for candidates across Wales, so that will help with the consistency of data, to explore trends over time, and identify ways that we can try and improve what we do. Thanks, Chair. 

Thanks, Huw. Anything to add from Llinos or Andrew? No. Jayne, are you—

I think that's an important point around that consistency of data. I notice in the paper there was a suggestion around perhaps allowing flexibility to allow more local questions in that candidate survey. I don't know if you want to say a little bit more about that. 

Yes, but still having that, as you identified, Jayne—. Sorry, am I all right to call you Jayne, as a Member of the Senedd?

Yes, definitely. That's my name.

That's fine, Huw. 

That consistency of the core questions will provide the core data that is so important to identify those trends, but having those flexible additional questions, I think, can be helpful as well.

Diolch. Diolch, Cadeirydd.

Diolch yn fawr, Jayne. Sam.

Thanks, Chair. Clearly, within the Bill, there are provisions to abolish the independent remuneration panel, the panel that we'll keep an eye on every year. It's looking to transfer the majority of its functions to the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru. I'm just interested if you have any views on that proposal within the Bill.

As you've described, the functions will be transferred. So, that all-important function about assessing and identifying and making recommendations will still be made independently of local government. I think that's the important point and the important principle that I think we'd all be supportive of—that those recommendations are not made by elected members but by a body independent of the local authority.

Thanks for that. Do you think it's clear who's deciding what when it comes to these matters? I've scribbled down that we've got the democracy and boundary commission, which, as you say, the functions of the independent remuneration panel will be moved into. There's the electoral management board as well. Do you think it's getting a bit messy? Or are you quite comfortable with what's been proposed within this Bill to try and tidy things up?

I think that there are a set of arrangements that, in one sense, we will be improving. So, we've already got, in effect, the equivalent, for example, to the electoral management board, but it's putting that on a statutory footing. I'm sure the people that need to understand it will understand it. I'm not expecting the people of Wales to take a huge interest in some of the more complex arrangements around who administers and who manages the process of administering elections. But I do think that it's a fair point that we will need to be clear to those stakeholders that need to understand the process that changes are being proposed and what that will mean for those important stakeholders.

I think that's a fair point about the people of Wales perhaps not having this as their top priority when it comes to elections in the near future or in the distant future. I just have a concern sometimes that who's pulling what levers to decide what happens where can sometimes be a bit blurry. But, yes, fair point.

And the final point here is that the Welsh Government has stated it will not transfer the power to decide the remuneration of a chief executive to the commission. I just wonder what your views are on that. 

I think Andrew expressed some views earlier. Andrew, do want to perhaps just elaborate a little more?

Yes, thank you, Chair. As I mentioned earlier, the concern is that, particularly at a time when budgets are under pressure and council tax rises are causing concern for residents, there is a danger that chief executive pay could get out of kilter, or have a perception that it's out of kilter, with, perhaps, inappropriate inconsistency around different local authorities. We have seen that happen in the past, where there have been well-publicised instances where there's been almost outrage at the levels of pay. So, having an independent pair of eyes review this, I feel, is important. It's not that I or my group oppose the abolition of the independent remuneration panel and transferring of powers—that's not the point; the point is to retain an element of independent scrutiny.

And just finally, Chair, I have at this point to give my apologies because I have a prior council meeting that I have to attend, so if you might indulge me to leave, I'd be grateful, but I am in agreement with the remaining items on this agenda, so I would be fully supportive of the comments my colleagues make. Thank you.

Okay, Andrew, that's fine. Thank you very much. Thanks for your evidence today. Joel. 

Thank you, Chair. Thanks ever so much for those questions there. I just want to ask a quick question. Obviously, I used to be a councillor myself, and I just wanted to get your idea around perception in the sense of what your perceptions are around the effectiveness of the independent remuneration panel compared with the local boundary commission that we have at the moment for Wales. Because obviously, remuneration has always been a contentious issue, but I always felt the independent remuneration panel was fair in its recommendations. But then sometimes, when we looked at boundary recommendations, I would think to myself, 'Well, I don't think they make sense.' How do you think public reaction would be then as well? When we talk about councillor remuneration, we say, 'Well, it's the independent remuneration panel. We've got no say in it', but, as you all know, being politicians yourselves, people always question boundary commission rules. They say, 'How independent are they?' Do you think that people might think there's a loss of impartiality, maybe, even though there probably won't be, but perception-wise? Thank you.

Thanks, Joel. Would either Huw or Llinos like to offer a view? Llinos.

Thank you.

Sam. 

Just a final point on this matter of the independent remuneration panel functions moving into the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru. As Members of the Senedd, we have a remuneration board that determines similar sorts of things to what happens currently for you with the independent remuneration panel. There's no proposal for the remuneration board to move within this Bill. It seems quite happy to be a separate function altogether. Do you think it's a bit unusual that the Bill seeks to change things for local government, but doesn't seek to change things for us as Senedd Members, or are you not really too bothered about a view on that?

It's not something that I've considered. I think we'd have to give some thought to that. I think the important thing for us is the perception of the independence of the recommendation and the decision. And I believe one of the most effective ways we can demonstrate that to the public is if we change the current system, where, even though, effectively, it's decided independently, there still has to be a report to full council, and it goes into the chamber. I think, for a member of the public, the fact that a vote is taken on the recommendations, even if it's to note it, possibly diminishes the perception of it being independent. And I think a step that could be helpful is if the decision is completely taken out of the hands of Members and it's made independently—a decision is made and the authorities advised of that decision. I think that would be the most effective way of strengthening that perception, because perception is important, of the independence of the setting of pay, and I think that's the case across the board. That would be my personal view, anyway. Thank you, Chair.

Yes. I can see Llinos nodding in agreement as well. Okay.

Can I ask a question on that?

Yes, Carolyn. Yes.

Huw, thank you for prompting me regarding that. I remember that annually, and there would be discussions on who would actually take the remuneration, who wouldn't, who would give it to charity, and it just didn't seem fair for those who really needed that money. And it might put people off standing as well, because, sometimes, to become a councillor, they can't work as well, because they want to do it full time, and it's important to them.

The other issue that was often raised about carers allowance. So, councillors can claim for carers allowance as well as travel, you know, subsistence. But they might be reluctant to do so, because it's published and they're claiming that money. But it's really important to have that carers allowance for some people to be able to stand as well from different backgrounds. So, just your thoughts on that. Those are my thoughts, I'm sorry, I'm putting on you, but is that something that you come across as well as leaders?

I absolutely do, and I couldn't agree more with your point. I think, speaking to the question that we had earlier about how do we improve diversity, we know we've got a job of work to do in local government, just as we do at a national level, about improving diversity. We will not improve diversity unless we take some of the politics out of remuneration. Because we know that the people who are affected most by this are those groups that are most under-represented in local government, those people with caring responsibilities, women, younger people, people on lower incomes, people with families. And so, if we don't get that right, we're not going to make the progress that we need to make in terms of improving diversity in local government and at all levels.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Llinos.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much, Llinos. Thank you, Huw. Thank you, Carolyn. We'll move on to Luke. Luke Fletcher.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. If I could just touch on resettlement payments. Of course, there are provisions within the Bill that will allow for resettlement payments for members of local authorities. I'd be interested just in your views around those resettlement payments, and perhaps as well what impact they might have on diversity of representation within local authorities. I'm not sure who wants to start on this one.

Diolch, Llinos. Huw, anything to add?

I think Councillor Medi has described the challenges very well. And it is a real risk, and we certainly have seen it in the last elections, haven't we, where there were some uncontested elections. And I think that is because the people who are interested, particularly people who are working, who have careers, we're asking them potentially, particularly when we want them to step up to a position of senior responsibility, or even just being a backbencher, we're asking them to make sacrifices in terms of their career, aren't we, in terms of career progression, and possibly giving up work. And that comes at a significant cost. And there will be lots of people in a similar position to Councillor Medi, who will decide that they can't take that risk, and therefore, the risk is that we don't make those strides that we need to make in terms of diversity. Because we want anyone who wants to represent their communities to be able to stand and represent their communities. Finance shouldn't be a barrier to that. We need to eliminate some of those barriers. It's accepted as a principle and I support it as a principle. It's the right principle for Members of the Senedd and Members of the UK Parliament, and I think that same principle should apply to elected representatives at a local government level as well. Thanks, Chair.

Okay. Thanks very much. Luke.

If I could move to disqualification regimes as well, separate to resettlement payments, I'd be interested in your views on bringing the disqualification regime for town and community councils in line with the existing regime for members of principal councils. I don't know, Huw, if you would want to start on this one.

I would certainly welcome that. I think we all aspire to those high standards, the highest of standards in public life. And I think those standards should, of course, apply to our town and community councils too, and I say that as a long-standing member of a community council. The high standards are applicable across every level of elected representative government in Wales. 

Quite. Llinos, did you want to add anything on that point? 

Moving to a separate point then around the grace period that's afforded to councillors who are then elected Members of the Senedd, would you support removing that grace period? And I'm thinking in particular here around the impact that that requirement to resign immediately following election might then have on the local authority itself, in the sense of the need then for a by-election and some of the implications that might have. Are there any particular thoughts on that point? Huw, shall we put you on the spot here? 

Thanks. [Laughter.] Thanks, Luke. Yes, I think there is that potential risk. I think the principle of Members of the Senedd and councillors being incredibly busy and being able to focus on one role is an important principle that we're supportive of. I suppose I would say that, for example, if a councillor was elected to the Senedd just a few months before, for example, general local elections, there's possibly a scenario there, isn't there, where you would want that by-election not to take place, but simply hold it when the local elections are due to take place anyway. But generally, we are supportive of the principle.

I think you touched on the implications that I was thinking of, where you might have that general local authority election happening literally a month or two after that election—potentially, probably, a by-election a councillor might take part in, to become a Member of the Senedd. There would of course be financial implications, because you'd have run that by-election and then rerun the whole thing again a couple of months down the line. How do you think that we might be able to guard against that, then, in the legislation?

I think, perhaps, that that potentially could be tweaked to reflect that circumstance, because I think that is a particular circumstance. Because, again, I'm just reflecting on the response we sometimes get on the doorstep, particularly when we've had a series of referenda and general elections and local elections, and Senedd elections in Wales. I think sometimes voters will say, 'Well, not another election.' And by-elections don't always attract the greatest of turnouts, do they, so I think trying to avoid by-elections where there are local elections due to take place very soon afterwards is a scenario that could be considered as that exception to the principle.

Thank you very much for joining us and giving evidence this morning. You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy in the usual way. Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thanks very much for inviting us.

Chair, can I just highlight for the record that I'm a community councillor?

Absolutely, yes. Thank you very much, Joel. We'll make sure that's in the record. Okay. Committee will break briefly, then, and hopefully we will resume at 10:35.

Okay. Welcome back, everyone. We've reached item 6 today, which is our fifth evidence session with regard to the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill, and I'm very pleased to welcome our witnesses joining us here in person: Colin Everett, who's chair of the Wales Electoral Coordination Board, and Catherine Uphill, manager of the Electoral Commission. And joining us virtually is Clare Sim, who is head of member support at the Association of Electoral Administrators. So, welcome to you all very much. Thanks for coming in to give evidence to committee today. Just an initial question from me, then, on general principles, and very generally, could you share with committee your general reflections on the Bill, really?

Bore da, pawb. Bore da, Chair. Thank you for the invitation. If I may say, I'm also speaking for SOLACE, which is the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers. As you know, returning officers are generally chief executives, so they share the same evidence. 

Yes. 

So, perhaps if I could go first. On general principles, we welcome modernisation. We welcome anything that helps consolidate and make sense of what is very complex, fragmented law for elections. There are some positive steps towards digitisation that we can see, and there are some things we particularly welcome, like promoting registration rates and some of the boundary review provisions, where we've learnt from experience. And I think we'd like to say at the outset that it's been a hugely collaborative process with civil servants, and not only are we well versed in the Bill, we're very supportive of and comfortable with most parts, although there will be some areas to talk about. And, of course, there are some areas in here that help avoid divergence between UK and Welsh elections. This will be a constant theme in all the evidence—the risk for voter confusion and administrator error, because the systems are just going like this in some areas. Cath. 

The Electoral Commission welcomes the Bill. It delivers on several positive changes that we've been calling for for a number of years. So, establishing an electoral management board for Wales is something that we've recommended, taking steps to modernise the electoral registration process, and reducing aspects of divergence between reserved, as Colin just mentioned. There is no doubt that these reforms, alongside the other reforms—the Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill and the expected gender quotas legislation—as well as the ongoing work that administrators and electoral registration officers in terms of the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, do present a significant challenge, especially for electoral administrators on the ground who'll be delivering these changes. And we know from our conversations with electoral administrators that some concerns have been raised about the pace and scale of electoral reform. We continue to mention this to the Welsh Government, who are listening, but we would say the reforms are ultimately deliverable as long as they are accompanied by sufficient resources and introduced in sufficient time. And also, the new EMB, the electoral management board, will play an essential role in supporting and co-ordinating this reform.

Okay, Catherine. Thanks very much. Clare, did you want to give a view for the association? 

To repeat mainly what Colin and Cath have said, we do, obviously, welcome aspects of that Bill, and a lot of the things that are included in it are included in our post-election reports that we've called for as well. But it's always weighed up against that divergence issue—that, while we welcome the principle of automatic registration, abolishing the open register and things such as that, limitations exist where it's only introduced for the local government register and not the parliamentary register, which then leads to complications for administrators, but, as well, there's elector confusion, as Colin has already outlined as well. So, while we welcome that, it's constantly then weighing up what are the risks of that divergence process—does it introduce more complication, or does it actually lead to a more robust system, going forward, as well?

Okay, Clare. Thanks very much. We'll come on to various matters as we bring in other committee members and, firstly, Luke Fletcher. 

Diolch, Gadeirydd. If I could start with electoral management boards, first off, do you think that the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru is the appropriate body to host the new electoral management boards? I suppose the point I'm getting at here is: do you foresee it as a problem that the commission itself is a Welsh Government sponsored body, and would you potentially then see any conflicts around the independence of the board?

If I may, Chair, I’ve been the chair of the board since it was set up in 2016-17. I’ve worked closely with Cath and Clare throughout, so we’re very well-versed in this. As we’ve said in the written evidence, it’s the best place to put it with the choice that we have, and we don’t have any questions of principle placing it there. I’m sure you would support the view—as the WLGA leaders said in the first session—that we want to reduce governance and the complexity of the number of bodies in Wales, and there’s a coherence around boundaries, democracy and elections that could work. So, it’s not a problem in principle.

We have, though, set out a few areas where we do expect the transition to work well, and we talk about three principles. Inclusivity—as, now, it involves all the practitioners, who know what they’re doing. It’s collective—we work as one. And it has a degree of independence. So, in practical terms, we would expect the board within the commission to have a high degree of delegation and freedom to think and act, and we’ve given some specifics in here. I’ve got confidence, working with the chair and the chief executive of the commission, that we will make this happen well, so I don’t see a barrier to doing it. But we would expect there to be, probably, a formal memorandum that gives it those things like independence.

There is some anxiety amongst practitioners that it could disappear into a body and not have sufficient expertise. I think we can resolve all those things well, and I think it’s a very workable model. Otherwise, we’d have to create an entirely new body, which I think, on cost and governance, wouldn’t be justifiable.

So, I suppose one important element of that proposed board would be the membership of that board. 

Definitely, and you'll see, in our evidence, we’ve just shared with you some of the things we’ve been saying in private around transition, and I’d like to think, if the Bill becomes the Act, and then the conduct Order is quite light on detail, we’ll then have the space to make this work well. We’ve got a superb collaborative track record in delivering elections and electoral registration, almost without fail in Wales. The Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales are actually picking up a strong legacy, but quite a high performance to take on, and they’re very, very aware of that. But I’m confident with the plans in the background. 

If I could just stick with you for a moment, Colin, in terms of, then, the membership of the proposed board, how does that compare with the current co-ordination board?

At the moment, there's a limited provision in the draft Bill with space then to build it, and that's why I'm saying I think the legislation on membership needs to be minimal so that we can then craft a membership that works. We would highly recommend something like the current, because it’s inclusive and collective. The high risk is with elections, probably more than most professional areas I’m familiar with. It is so complex and detailed and you have to have colleagues like Clare—practitioners versed in the detail—to stop it going wrong. When elections go wrong, it’s normally a small mistake that compounds, so it has got to be a board that’s very practical and expert, and you can see a proposal being that the chair of the board within the commission would have to have experience of elections as a protection, which is a really good idea.

Catherine or Clare, did you want to add anything?

Yes, the Wales Electoral Coordination Board has played a really important role since it was set up in 2017, and we'd like to see this continue with the electoral management board. We do understand the rationale behind the EMB being set up as part of the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru, particularly given the costs involved in establishing an entirely new public body, which wouldn't be feasible at the moment. But, in our opinion, it's essential that the EMB remains independent of both Welsh Government and the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru to ensure there's confidence in the democratic process, and that's retained. So, the Bill does include some provisions to enable this, as Colin has already mentioned, but we think, probably, the Welsh Government should take every opportunity in legislation, guidance and communication with the public to demonstrate that this is separate, and it'll be separate from the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru as well. 

Diolch. Clare, did you want to add anything?

I think our concerns are more to do, as Colin's already touched on, with making sure that the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru has that secretariat support for it, going forward, and has the expertise and knowledge, as Colin has said, to be able to formulate that programme of work that the WECB has carried out for the last few years. But it's having that practical administrator expertise in electoral law that we're most concerned about, because we think that's fundamental. Compare it to the EMB in Scotland, where you've got the secretary there who is a highly qualified, experienced administrator who's able to direct where the work is needed and what the areas of concern are. It can be overcome. There can be positions created within that that can help to overcome that, but it's just making sure that that expertise is there. And not just in Wales as well. They need to have a wider knowledge of, obviously, everything that goes on in terms of reserved polls as well, because everything cuts across with the divergence issues as well. And while we welcome the fact that there's a stipulation that the chair has to have that returning officer experience, we're also concerned that, due to the volume of change in the last few years, they've got up-to-date, practical experience of the challenges and issues that people are experiencing on a day-to-day basis at our own level and at administrator level, to be able to make sure that the issues that are being discussed, and the directions that are potentially being issued, are relevant for everybody as well. 

Thank you for that, Clare. Sticking with the proposed direction-making powers that the board will have, how do you think those powers could be used? I don't know who would like to—.

One of the significant differences with it being on a statutory footing is the board can issue directions. It's a very complex area, elections law, where you have a returning officer who's entirely accountable for the delivery of their local or regional election. If they're then directed to do something in a certain way, it can't be in a way that conflicts with their roles and duties. This is what happens in Scotland, and we've done it in Wales so far on a voluntary basis.

A simple direction might be about timing. We might all agree to count at a certain time—quite practical things. But you wouldn't want, probably, an inconsistency across Wales. You would want common practice. There's having the power to do it, but we would always want to do it by consensus, because everybody thought it was the best option, wherever possible. But, of course, the board could have the powers then to hold budgets and do extra things, because it's now a legal entity to support the whole elections process. And there may be a couple of examples that come up later.

Although the statutory footing is important, I would see it behaving and delivering exactly what it's done for the last six, seven years, but with now formal, statutory recognition. 

I'd like to come back to the statutory element in just a moment. I'm just wondering if there are any concerns about some of those directions that the board might take interfering with independence of returning officers and electoral registration officers. 

Some returning officers have raised that question. I wouldn't want to fail to—particularly with the SOLACE role—raise that. We've referenced, though, that directions should be sparingly used. They cannot conflict with the right of a returning officer to do a certain thing where they choose, and they should be as far as possible by consensus. I don't think there have been any major controversies in Scotland, where they've had this for a while. Because we've got the police and crime commissioner elections and a general election at some point, probably towards the end of next year on current planning, we're already thinking how do we co-ordinate those decision-making things on a voluntary basis. So, we're already doing it in practice, so that it works and everybody can see a consistency across Wales. So, sparingly used and by consensus wherever possible. 

Again, I'm sticking with you here, Colin. Apologies if you feel like I'm picking on you at the moment. 

That's all right. That's okay.

We're talking about that movement from the non-statutory footing of the current co-ordination board to what is proposed in this Bill, namely moving the management board to a legal footing. It would be interesting to hear some of your reflections on that, how we get there, and what that will mean. 

We're in discussion now on transition. The voluntary board that will become the statutory board will meet a week Friday and we've got the chair and the chief executive of the democracy and boundary commission joining us talking about transition. We're meeting privately.

In the regulatory impact assessment you'll see there are things about building capacity within the commission. Clare is offering a training programme to some of the existing staff in the team, so they become more knowledgeable in the areas that she's mentioned. So, at the moment there's quite a long plan and a lot of goodwill on the basis that we wouldn't want it to transition until the end of the first quarter of 2025, because if a parliamentary election has to take place by or including January 2025, the last thing we want is a transition of the board during election planning. So, you can see we've got quite a long-term plan, still close to a year and a half to work on. 

I suppose how the Senedd, in whatever capacity, might hold the democracy and boundary commission to account once this is established, to check that these things have been done correctly and that the board is functioning well and has a degree of independence, will be something for you as Senedd Members. 

If only they could tell us when that general election was going to happen. That might make your life a bit easier then.

I'm probably not allowed to share betting tips, Chair. That would be a breach of the code of conduct, I'd imagine.

I wasn't expecting anything on that one. I don't know if Catherine or Clare want to add anything before I hand back to the Chair.

I'd probably say something similar. We're happy that discussions are ongoing with the democracy and boundary commission. I've been involved, as well, similar to Colin, in the WECB since it started, providing the secretariat, and I wouldn't want to see the good work of the WECB being diluted as it becomes the statutory board, so it's important that the transition is managed effectively and I really am encouraged by the conversations that have taken place so far.

Just to add to what has been said, we've had really constructive conversations with the chief executive of the democracy and boundary commission as well, and we're very encouraged that they're aware of what the potential issues could be and are very open to making sure that they address those and make sure that they've got the appropriate resources and support they need from the Welsh Government to make it an effective board going forward. 

Chair, if I may say, the Bill in front of us today is an example where, as a board—. Civil servants working on it with some ministerial direction have become immersed in our board. Because our job is to say, 'Is it legal?', 'Will it work?', 'Can we implement it within resources or within the resources that you can add?' And we've worked so well. So, we don't say whether we like ideas or not on the face of it; it's our professional role to ask, 'Can we make it work as intended?' And it's a really good example of where a collaborative approach can produce legislation. Whatever political debate that you have, you can have confidence that we can make it work in practice, because none of us wants democracy to fail.

It's very good to hear that, Colin, it really is. Because obviously, whenever we're considering legislation, we're always mindful of that law of unintended consequences and the difficulties that that can produce. Working with the on-the-ground experience, that you really know how you can make something work, or how you can set out potential problems and difficulties, I think is absolutely invaluable. So, it's very good to hear that, particularly in an area of responsibility that's so important and significant for an elected body. Thank you very much. Sam.

Thanks, Chair. I want to come on to questions around electoral registration without application. But perhaps just before I do, on the back of Luke's questions on the electoral management board and the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru, we know that, within the Bill, there is provision to abolish the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales and transfer those functions to the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru. I'd perhaps be interested in your view on that, and then, whether you have a view on the fact that the remuneration board for us here in the Senedd isn't being considered within these deliberations at the moment. It seems to be fine to do something with the independent remuneration panel, but the remuneration board for Senedd Members isn't being considered. Do you have a view on that, at all?

Chair, is it okay if we use first-name terms?

Absolutely, Colin, yes.

Thank you, Sam. It's really good to see you again. It's not something that's in the remit of our board, because we deal with elections and electoral registration, but if you asked me for a view as a long-standing public servant, again, it follows that trying to reduce the complexity and cost of governance. It's a question for you about whether there's an inconsistency between local government and the Senedd. What I would say is, building on the leaders—and this is as an experienced retired chief executive—from the last session, I think the days in which contentious chief executive pay in local government will happen have gone, because of the accountabilities that Councillor Huw David mentioned—published pay policies, the interest of auditors and because everybody learned from difficult experience about probity in salary awards. So, I think the landscape has changed, but probably beyond that, it's not something we should comment on today, because it's not in our remit.

That's fair. I understand that. I guess it's a similar position, Clare and Catherine, for you. 

Yes. I've got no view on this aspect.

All right. No problem. Thank you. So, on the electoral registration without application, perhaps we could hear, first of all, your views on the provision around this within the Bill.

We thought, Chair, that perhaps Clare could go first, given that she works so closely with the electoral registration officers who do this on the ground.

Yes, that would be great. Clare.

In terms of registration without application, there are concerns, obviously, in relation to people who are vulnerable, who don't wish to be on the register, such as anonymous electors, which is the reason some may not have registered, potentially coming on to that register. But we appreciate the Bill has tried to address that with the 45-day window for people to make that objection to them being added to the register. 

In terms of the principle of automatic registration, we've always been in favour of that as an association. As I said, though, at the start, I think our biggest concern with the process that's being suggested is that because it only applies to the local government register and doesn't apply to the parliamentary register, which would have to be legislated for by the UK Government, you have this potential issue where you have a system that's already in existence for the parliamentary register, as it is for the local government register at the moment, where electoral registration officers, if they become aware of somebody who should be registered, need to send out an invitation to register within 28 days, they then need to send two reminders, they need to make a personal visit, there's also the potential then to issue a requirement to register and even a civil penalty. If you're automatically registering people for the local register, it's that communication issue of making them aware that they're only registered for the Senedd and local government elections in Wales, but also the fact that you're then sending correspondence almost at the same time, saying, 'I've got to now register you for this', and how you get that communication and don't bring elector confusion and potential disenfranchisement for other polls, which is one of our biggest concerns.

I think we're already starting to see that with the Elections Act at the moment, where online applications to vote have gone live for reserved polls, and I know people who've got a by-election in Wales at the moment are finding that people are using that thinking they've now got a postal vote for the local government by-election. So, that messaging already exists, and that communication and confusion already does, and this would just be another element of that, again, in reverse, though, where people would be registered for a devolved poll, but would be potentially disenfranchised as a result for the reserved poll. I think that is one of our biggest concerns. We're very much supportive of it if it was a joint, collaborative decision in terms of UK Government and Welsh Government both legislating for it, but we've just got concerns and issues over the potential elector confusion, as well as the difficulties for administrators in operating that dual process.

We are also very conscious of when legislation issues a local government register and a parliamentary register. In terms of how they're held in the software systems, it is very much as one register. So, again, there might be some technical implications as well there that need to be addressed to make sure that that's working as it should. But I can hand over to Cath or Colin, because I'm sure they've got further reflections and concerns too.

From the commission's perspective, we welcome some form of automatic registration, and we think there's an urgent need to reform electoral registration in the UK. We recently published research that indicated that there were 400,000 people in Wales who are either not correctly registered or have inaccuracies in their local government register entries. Perhaps they've moved house and that hasn't been reflected in the register. That is a group, obviously, that we want to capture. We know that there's a correlation between demographics and completeness, so the young and those more likely to move home are less likely to be registered. We want things to be done to address that. So, we continue to recommend to all Governments across the UK to explore this. As Clare said, it's important that it's done on a UK basis, but we welcome what's being done in Wales.

There are challenges and things to consider. The data is something that perhaps we'll go on to in a later point, but the data needs to be robust. There's the issue of equivalent changes to the parliamentary register and ensuring voters understand which elections they're being registered for. You'll probably find that most voters wouldn't know that there were two registers, so that's a challenge, and then, obviously, there are the risks with automatically registering for somebody who may want to register to vote anonymously. So, I'd reinforce that, as well.

Chair, we all want to do this. It's going to be really complex, on so many levels, and we do have already a working group of practitioners working with civil servants on how might we do this or pilot it. I know we're talking about pilots generally a little bit later. I think this is one of those ones that if we do do it, if we could be so bold as to encourage the Senedd and Welsh Government together to really push the UK Government to do something similar, because, at the moment, when we have divergence, we've got practice for the parliamentary and the PCC elections over here, and then devolved for local government and Senedd over here, and we are really concerned about voter confusion, voter fatigue.

I think Clare has put in the AEA evidence that there is a risk that, if we do automatic registration for devolved, then parliamentary and PCC voters might inadvertently think it applies for them, and what will happen, when a parliamentary election is called or is due, there’ll be a massive rush in checking the late registrations that could make the system’s administration collapse. That happens anyway; it could be more so. So, having two systems is not really workable, for the voter first—they’re more important—and, as second, for the administrators. You’ll see in our evidence that we’re as frustrated as you at registration rates. Cath and I were saying, on the last survey—which is a little out of date, we’re finishing the canvasses now in the current term—registration of the new, younger franchise was as low as 50 per cent. Well, if we were using data like council tax, benefits, and particularly young people’s schools data here, we have safe, controlled ways of local authorities of capturing and registering, with all the protections that have been described, so it is quite doable with resourcing. But, to repeat the point, we are really concerned about voter confusion.

If we could say, one thing that we get quite annoyed about sometimes, if I can be blunt, is that, when there’s a discussion about registration, it’s always down to us. Well, as I put in our evidence, unless we make an administrative mistake, there are only three reasons why people don’t register: they don’t know how—they’re not aware—they’re not interested, and, in some cases, they evade registration. The amount of work we have to do to chase the minority—. That’s not meant as an excuse, it’s just to say that the truth is that the small failure rate—other than the young persons' franchise, which is still growing in understanding and popularity—is largely down to those things. We can only do so much. So, automatic registration could turn that on its head, provided people have a right to appeal or—. We’re very worried about vulnerable people, who have a reason not to be disclosed on a register, having due protection. So, I'm trying to introduce some, not quite human rights, but some more legal, accessibility complexities. It’s not just all about systems and data and capacity. There’s more to it than that.

Could I add another point as well, if that’s okay? We think it’s probably something Welsh Government should be careful not to oversell, automatic registration, because you still need to encourage people that there’s a need to participate, because, obviously, if they’re not registered for one, they’d still need to participate by completing an invitation to register for the other. So, yes, saying it’s automatic registration per se is probably a bit risky.

Okay. Sam.

Yes. Thanks, Chair, and thanks for those responses, and I think, on Colin’s latter point about reasons why people may not register, there’s also a responsibility on us as politicians to make it interesting for them to want to register and to want to come out to vote. So, there are responsibilities in all sorts of places to encourage people to vote, aren’t there?

Just a couple of points, then, from those responses, first of all. I think, right at the start of the contribution from Clare, there was a mention of the 45-day window. I’d be interested to understand your thoughts around that as a proposal. Is 45 days a reasonable timescale for people who may want to register anonymously or not at all? And then, where does the liability—? Are you comfortable in terms of any liability issues, from an administrative point of view, if that goes wrong for those who want to remain anonymous, and for often very good reasons why they’d want to be anonymous, quite sensitive reasons at times. And then—. Let’s go for that one there first, and I’ll come back with another question, if that’s okay.

In terms of the 45 days, it’s difficult to put a number on something, and you’d expect that, if somebody’s got issues, the fact that they’d have 45 days to inform the electoral registration officer of their concerns would be a sufficient period of time, but I think we’ve still got concerns that, because we’re talking about vulnerable people who are in challenging circumstances, maybe no period of time is actually suitable in that respect, that they’ve got other issues, other priorities, other concerns beyond responding to correspondence saying they’re going to be automatically registered. So, I think it would be useful if that could actually be piloted to work out if it was sufficient or not as part of the potential pilot schemes that are being addressed at the moment by Welsh Government.

I think, in terms of the liability aspect, if the legislation is there to protect the electoral registration officer that, if they’ve sent out that correspondence and they haven’t had a reply, they are therefore obligated to automatically register that person, I don’t think there would be any liability there, but I think, from a sort of humanity side, we’ve had it previously where you’ve got people who want to register but don’t want their name appearing even as an anonymous elector, have got concerns about appearing on any sort of formal or official documentation in any way, shape or form. It's trying to make sure that you're not putting somebody who is already in a very vulnerable position into an even more difficult position, going forward, as well.

So, it doesn't feel like a very strong answer, I appreciate that, but I think it's just a bit of an unknown quantity, given that nobody has massive numbers of anonymous electors, generally speaking, in most local authority areas in Wales. So, we don't know how big an issue that is—is it that people who aren’t registered because of that reason should then get picked up through this channel, which would then lead to a bigger issue there, or are the numbers sufficient as to who are anonymous electors currently? So, again, it should be sufficient because it feels like a relatively long period of time for somebody to inform the electoral registration officer. It’s just the concerns, though, that you’ve got electors who are vulnerable and you do not want them to appear on the register at any point if that is not their wish.

And perhaps I could expand on that point a little further as well. My understanding also is that there isn't currently set out a frequency as to how often someone would have to register their desire not to be automatically registered on the electoral register. So, I believe it's being considered as within each electoral cycle or perhaps once every five years. I wonder if you had a view as to how often that should be, for people to register a desire not to be on the register automatically.

Are we talking about the open register, so opting out of the open register?

So, for people to be auto-enrolled onto the electoral register, my understanding is that that process—if I were to register myself anonymously, that would be reviewed at a certain frequency. I'm wondering if you have a view as to how often that frequency should be.

If someone registered anonymously, which, I guess, in this case, would be if they had notified the electoral registration officer as a result of having correspondence that they'd be automatically registered, they would then have to fill in an anonymous elector declaration and application form and the requirement for that currently is for them to re-apply every 12 months to renew that declaration, with reminders being sent out nine to 10 months after they'd been initially registered. So, I think that would continue to be the precedent that would be appropriate, going forward, because they already exist for the parliamentary register as well. 

Yes, that's great, thank you. And, I guess, to your previous point, we don't know how many people who are currently not registered would be undertaking that process and I guess there's a potential administrative burden there—is that something you're concerned about?

Potentially, yes. It's an unknown quantity and, as I said, the number of anonymous electors in Wales is very low, so there could, potentially—as a result of sending out these letters automatically registering people, there could potentially be large numbers of anonymous electors. It's quite a difficult process to register anonymously as well, which could be challenging for them to complete too.

I think, Chair, if I can follow up Sam's question, there is a high probability that a proportion of the people who evade—and that's not the right word, but—evade, for good reason, registration currently, is for that very reason that they want to remain anonymous and they're vulnerable and they haven't got confidence in the system, so automatic registration would unearth potential voters who we would have to protect. Removing the open register, though, would at least give a degree of protection, because that won't be accessible in the same way, even if somebody who should be classed as vulnerable was named on the register, there's still limited access to that data, so there's a degree of a backstop there.

Can I just come back on that point then?

Yes, certainly, Sam.

On the open register then, so, you believe, Colin, that the open register should be removed for Welsh elections—is that right?

Yes. I'd question why it was ever an open register in the first place, because, of course, it will be accessible and available to candidates and parties for appropriate election purposes. If it's for the purposes of registration and voting and participation, why would it be public? Other records that we hold around a person's identity and their residence, as councils, aren't open to the public, like council tax registers—only for specific, prescribed purposes.

Okay, thank you. And is that a view shared by Catherine and Clare?

Yes. We've long recommended that the open register should be for electoral purposes only and a limited range of security and crime prevention purposes as well.

And we also agree that the open register should be abolished, but, again, I think it's just a point about that limitation, that it would only be people who are only on the local government register that would benefit from that happening. If you're on the parliamentary register, again, it's that communication issue of making sure that they're still opting out on the parliamentary register to stop their data unintentionally finding itself to third parties who buy that register as it currently is. So, again, we're very supportive of it, but we'd really welcome that the UK Government follow your lead in that respect so that everybody no longer has to worry about their data being forwarded on. 

Okay. Thank you. I think you've probably answered a couple of the questions I had lined up and I'm a bit conscious of time, Chair, so I'm happy to pause there and perhaps if I need to come back with any, I can do later on. 

Yes, okay, Sam. Yes, that's fine. Jayne. 

Diolch, Cadeirydd. Yes, just to follow up, just, firstly, on the automatic registration, just around—. We're talking about vulnerable people as well, and I was just wondering about that added dimension of people who have English as a second language and might not understand the process, because that's another group of people who we should be aware of and be conscious of. Is that something that's on your radar at the moment?

Yes. The commission provides information and resources in various languages, so that could assist. But, yes, it's definitely something that we'd need to think about. We've also done work with partner organisations in the past around anonymous registration. We've worked, for example, with Women's Aid to make them aware of the process so that they can tell their users and clients how it works and to keep an eye out for these kinds of letters, I suppose, it would be in the future, the invitation to register. So, we'd grow that, really, if this was introduced.

Okay. Brilliant. Thank you. The other point was that you've touched on your real concern around voter confusion; I really do understand that. But how—? I don't know, you've said a couple of things, but how do you think the Welsh Government could help to mitigate that, or what could they do? What do you think could be done?

We keep using this term—it sounds like a nice term—'divergence'. Voting and registration can be confusing for people generally, but when we get a divergence in practice—. If we think now about the police and crime commissioner elections in May, you have to produce photo ID, and you can only vote if you're registered and you're 18 on the day or before, which is a complete turnaround to what young people and other people have had in recent devolved elections, and that's before we get to automatic registration. We rely on many organisations, the commission particularly, for public information. I imagine that common sense will prevail and people will get to a default that they'll get used to taking photo ID to any election in case, but it is all about publicity and information, because why should people remember that one election is different to another and are they entitled to vote or not? We can't do enough on information. Of course, we send out all the formal information, such as poll cards, things you'll be very familiar with, with that data, but, again, it's the classical problem: people who are interested read it; people who are not don't. So, we do have some really big complexities. Cath, you're probably best to say what the commission can do even more of, given that we have all of these media campaigns that run between us. 

Yes. We, obviously, prior to elections, run a public awareness campaign, which tells people how to register and highlights the dates by which they need to do that. We'd continue that. Yes, that's something that we do. We also explain to people how to vote at elections with the material that we produce. And obviously, we're doing more and more with social media as well, prior to elections. And even now, to try and explain the divergence, you'll see tweets and things popping up on Instagram as well, I'm sure, trying to explain to people how things will be working in future to address this issue of divergence.

And also a big focused campaign. So, you'll remember when we moved—which we all welcomed—to the franchise of voting from 16, with, then, Senedd and local government elections next up, which were both, obviously, devolved elections, the Welsh Government very supportively funded youth engagement officers with each council. We worked really hard with schools, colleges, young people, young persons' representative groups, school councils, you name it, to really get interest and awareness. But that was easier, in a way, because there was a target age group. We knew who we were dealing with. This is more dispersed, because it can affect any voter now, who could get confused. And that's something we're going to have to live with while we've got change and divergence. 

I think the one thing we would say, though, is that what we're concerned about, with what we're seeing now with online apps and votes with reserved polls and then picking up the fact that people aren't then actually filling in a paper application for devolved, is the need for resourcing and funding for local authorities to be able to target those people who have misunderstood. So, before you come to scheduled Senedd elections, in that instance, you'd expect there to be funding to be able to address the fact that you are going to have electors who only have a postal vote for reserved polls, for the parliamentary and PCC elections. So, in the same way that, if this was brought in, you might have people only registered for those polls, you'd expect there to be a targeted write-out to anybody who hasn't registered for parliamentary prior to those polls to give them the ability not to be disenfranchised. So, while, obviously, we welcome the work by the Electoral Commission of that wider campaign, I think to reduce that confusion and prevent disenfranchisement, it needs to have funding and resource for local authorities to be able to target people who have misunderstood, to kind of address that before a major poll to stop disenfranchisement.

Without making it sound like a Pandora's box—you probably know what we've got now—there's a different system for registering for a postal vote for reserved and non-reserved, and some people believe that by doing one, they've done both. And we will get logjams of demand when an election comes up where they're not entitled because they'll become suddenly aware, and it will put a massive administrative burden—. It doesn't matter just what amount of resources you throw at it, the timescales are so tight to turn them around.

Like you say, it's not an individual's fault that they filled in one form, they should think that, actually, that is—. They can also have a postal vote for elections, unless they—

It's an understandable thing people would assume, yes.

Yes, absolutely. I can understand that. What data do you think the Welsh Government could use in its pilots of electoral registration without applications?

So, data is currently used in terms of the annual canvass. Administrators do a data match as part of that process and they're using local data—. There's a national data-matching process, but there's also a local data-matching process. So, current systems—they'd be using council tax records, schools admissions data. The key thing is that it needs to be robust, accurate and up to date, I would say; but those are the local ones. There may be scope for data such as health board data to be used, but I think this would need to be looked at in a pilot and investigated further. The commission has been doing some feasibility studies about registration, and that explores how national data sets could be used as well. So, that's the kind of data that's coming through from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and His Majesty's Passport Office, but whether the electoral registration officers would have access to that is another issue.

Because whatever law was passed, we'd still be subject to all of the normal data protection substantive legislation, which is a safeguard. But from experience, I would say, if you're data matching within the gift of a council, where you're trying to identify a person and an address, council tax, benefits and possibly school-age data, you're not really sharing particularly sensitive data, because it's name and residency, but that's more controlled to make sure you follow all the law and practice without the risk of an accidental breach. Although we have good—. In Wales we have this thing called the Wales accord on the sharing of personal information on data sharing. The moment you start sharing with partner organisations, inevitably you increase the risk of error or data breakdown, and the last thing any of us would want is that a really well-thought-through scheme crashed with public confidence early on because of an accidental data breach or some intervention. So, that is something we'd need to really test really robustly and pilot.

Diolch, Cadeirydd.

Thank you, Jayne. Could I just ask, in terms of the open register and its removal, do you think that might/should happen in advance of this legislation and the coming about of automatic registration?

I suppose, Chair—. As a principle, we could do it any time, it's not dependent on the other thing. But I think as Clare has said, it's not just the administration of it. If both registers, the reserved and non-reserved, are very, very accurate, the one still remains open for public access alongside the one that remains closed, so a lot of that data is accessible anyway, and that's our concern. We've half achieved it for Wales and we would argue very strongly, if the principle is a shared one, why it's not a UK-Welsh agreement, because if the argument is robust, it's robust for both Governments. And I'm not sure if it's something that's been debated seriously at a UK level, appreciating there's a long pipeline for legislation to be passed, but it might be an observation that you might want to raise, because we know there are a lot of good ministerial understandings and accords across both Governments, just the legislation doesn't actually conform. We're going ahead here in Wales.

Sure. Would you see it as problematic in any way in practical terms, if a UK Government decided to deal with some of these potential confusion issues in Wales, that for UK elections in Wales, there would be that same register produced by automatic registration—you know, just for general elections in Wales rather than in all of the UK? Would that present practical problems, do you think, or is that doable?

My experience is that UK Government sees it as one set of elections consistently across devolved countries—where they apply wouldn't change, because they see it as a home nations election.

Yes, so you'd have to either have that change for all of the UK, for general elections, or probably nothing, then, as far as Wales—

And, Chair, you know, there have been long-standing calls from many people for quite a root-and-branch review of quite a lot of electoral law practice but in one piece. There was a big commission a handful of years ago that said legislative provision for elections is one of the most complex, because it's scattered over generations of Acts and devolved and non-devolved—. I think if there was some goodwill, there would be a lot of alignment on a lot of these things, because the last thing we want to do is to have voter confusion.

Yes. So, you could have almost a piece of consolidating legislation.

Yes.

Okay. Thanks for that. Joel—Joel James.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks ever so much for coming in this morning, now. It's been quite illuminating, especially with Jayne's question about the data you use, because I know, from my own local authority, that I still get a letter every year asking me to confirm if the details are correct that they hold. When we're talking about automatic registration, I can imagine it's quite a minefield of data, actually, that they have to go through to determine that people are there, and obviously then that opens up to concerns then about—. That's one of the things that the UK Government was trying to address in terms of coercion and that, so people have the right to vote as they feel, rather than being told who to vote for and who to register for, and that. I suppose I wanted to touch upon the pilot. We've briefly touched upon elements of it, and I just wanted to know, roughly, what your views are and what sort of pilots the Welsh Government should be looking to run, to try and streamline this process, if that makes sense.

It's a really interesting area, Chair, and I was listening to your last session with the WLGA leaders. If we're very practical about this, the degree of piloting that we're able or allowed to do is only limited by two things: it's legislation and digitalisation. The legislation, actually—. Whatever we pass for Wales, there is still primary legislation for elections, so it has a reduced space for experimentation.

So, going to the question, the two things we've already experimented with, which were mentioned in the last session on early voting, to really pull out the principles, are really only time and place. There is no provision, for example, for remote digital voting by the electorate. So, they either vote by post or they go somewhere to vote. If they want to vote over two or three days or they want to vote in a different place, that was the point of the pilots that we had for the last local elections, but you also need a digital platform. So, if we took an extreme example, if, in years to come, we'd invested in a truly digital, shared register across all 22 local authorities, anybody who didn't have a postal vote could theoretically, if they were entitled to, vote anywhere in Wales on polling days, which would maximise, perhaps, access for people. That's quite a big step forward on digitalisation. But if we look at what we did with the pilots, and I thought the Blaenau Gwent one was particularly interesting, trying to reach the young vote, which was centralising a place, in Ebbw Vale, and a longer voting time, particularly to try and reach young people and students, where that was their place of study. So, we actually learnt a lot from those pilots, but ultimately, depending on your view, you could argue that the optimal model would be complete digitalisation of the electoral process from the voter's point of view, where they could vote anywhere or any time within a certain window, but none of that's on the table from either Government. So, we are quite constrained, and election timetables are very, very tight. So, if we wanted to do voting over three days, you're taking away two days of the electoral planning, rather than just having one polling day. And we've got to be careful the whole process doesn't crash because we try and squeeze too much into the existing timescale. So, we're quite open about pilots, but we have to recognise that, by law or digital limits, there are limits on our capacity to do things.

My final point, without overdoing it, is the current system is not broken. It's not the most accessible for everybody, but if we look at the huge increase in postal votes over recent years, where, for some councils, it's a fifth, a fourth or a quarter, and we have high turnouts from postal voters, and we think about turnouts on big elections where there is a big public interest, the system, although old-fashioned, still does generally work. So, I think we've got to be careful about what it is we are looking for, rather than throw cost and pressure, at a risk of failure, on to electoral administrators to try something where we're not clear yet about the objectives. 

In terms of the Electoral Commission's view on pilots, we don't have a view on what pilots should be taken forward. We think this is something for Welsh Government and the Senedd to discuss, and to obviously take into account the capacity within local authorities as well, whilst maintaining a whole range of authorities that can take part, really. 

Okay—

Joel, shall we just ask Clare if she wanted to add anything? Clare, did you want to add anything?

Just to echo what Colin said, it's to make sure—. We haven't got views as to what particular things that you should piloting, and we think that's very much the remit for Welsh Government to decide. But it's having what is the vision for elections in Wales over the next 10 years, and making sure that those pilots are not sort of short-term fixes for things, but feeding into that wider framework of where you actually want to get to in terms of what the delivery of those elections or the electoral registration process is going to be, and allowing sufficient time for appropriate piloting to take place over a period of time, not trying to get to the next election, and then trying to rush through things, but having that sort of wider vision of what we are trying to achieve, and then what pilots would be most appropriate. If we are looking for an online solution, for instance, it's looking at that over a prolonged period of time, rather than, maybe, quick fixes to certain things as well. 

And a further point Chair—the risk of pilots is that we can't afford to pilot something that, if it goes wrong, disenfranchises people. So, if you take the early voting, if people were able to vote for three days in a place, in the pilots, and the final day was the normal polling day, and the pilot had gone wrong two days before, they still would have had the chance to vote on the day. But if you pilot something on the polling day itself, and there's no other scope, and it went wrong, we could disenfranchise people, have to abandon an election or have an election petition. So, we've got to be so careful about trialling things before we do them for real. 

Thanks for that, Colin. I'll just bring in Sam a minute, Joel. Sam. 

Thank you, Chair. It just struck me, in your contribution, then, Colin, when you talked about being able to vote anytime, anywhere—of course, you can already do that; I could vote on top of Eiffel Tower in Paris at midnight, as long as it's within two weeks before the election and I have my postal vote with me. I'm just wondering whether you think we don't make enough of promoting the benefits of postal voting, particularly for younger people. We talk about early voting, for three days before, or whatever a pilot might be. That already exists. You can do it for up to two weeks before, usually, in an election, anywhere you fancy—on a train somewhere, or at a local leisure centre; you can do it there, if you wanted to, with your postal vote. I understand some of the ambition around pilots, but I'm just wondering whether part of the solution to what the desired outcome is already exists in the form of a postal vote, and perhaps we're not, as politicians, shouting about these things enough. 

I'd agree, Chair, because the postal vote system is very well established. We do have high proportions, and from my experience as a returning officer, the proportion of people who have one, who actually use them and vote, is very, very high—it can be up to 70, 80 per cent on a low overall turnout. So, it is a safe system—I don't know if Clare and Cath have a different view—it doesn't seem to be increasing much as a base. But, of course, many people now just have one as a convenience, because they don't know what they'll be doing that day. So, as I said, the system's not broken. Perhaps we could increase awareness more of that opportunity. 

Yes, we need to have a range of opportunities, don't we, for people to do it? Proxy voting is another thing that we can promote. There's information on the website, but perhaps we need to look at that. And like I said, we have campaigns, prior to elections, to tell people about these things. But, yes, there's probably more that could be done to raise awareness of those methods. 

Thank you. Carolyn. 

Just regarding postal votes, it's just changing with the Royal Mail failing to deliver letters on time. That might be an issue. But, I guess, if it's several bits of mail going to one centre, it's not as bad as the individual mail getting to people. But I think that is an issue. The other issue that was raised to me is that they can be complicated— postal votes—for some people. I remember an elderly people saying her husband used to do it for her, and he was no longer there to help. Or just other people saying, 'It feels a bit complicated, reading through everything.' So, maybe promoting proxy voting as well—. So, I just wanted to raise that as an issue. 

Postal votes have their risks, because—and this is not a comment on Royal Mail at all—we can't guarantee they'll be received or returned. People have ample time to complete them. It's one of our frustrations that people have one and choose to drop them into polling stations on the day of the poll, which defeats the intention—in good number. And, of course, there are the risks of maybe coercion, in a domestic situation, of how people vote, and there are, of course, new rules being brought in around the handling of postal votes by certain people, such as candidates. But, generally, it's a workable system; we do have a low failure rate. It's what they call 'the identifier', the form that you fill in. That's always been a concern and maybe it could be simplified, but generally it works well as part of the wider system. 

Jayne.

Thank you. I think there are ways, perhaps, it could be simplified, because often people ring up and say, 'I've lost my envelope', or, 'Which envelope do I put, in what way?'. I think there are ways around that that it could be simplified. But, I think the other point around—. I think it's important about raising awareness and using postal votes—that's really good. But it's also around how easy it is, and the consistency across Wales, to register for a postal vote, because there are differences, or there have been differences, around some local authorities doing it one way, others doing it another way. I think, trying to get some kind of consistency and making it as easy as possible to access those postal votes is a positive thing as well.

And I think, Chair, feedback of that type is really helpful; that's exactly why we have something like this board and the EMB, to try as far as possible recommend what we think is the best practice at that time.

That's great. Clare, do come in if there's anything you want to add. Don't feel you have to, but if you do want to add anything, at any time, now or for the rest of this session, please do. Okay. Thanks very much.

We'll move on, then. We go back to Joel, I think, to begin with.

Yes, because there are still a few questions I'd like to ask. I suppose the issue is that—and we've had quite good discussion here about postal votes, and, as Colin mentioned, the turnout is quite high if you have a postal vote—in a note from the Electoral Commission submission regarding the 2022 pilots, turnout was still relatively low there, even though people had the option. So, maybe the question is do we actually have the facilities in place now to maximise voting. It's just that people just aren't engaged. So, the problem is, even if you are then giving people more flexible voting options, they're still not engaged with the process; it's not going to necessarily help.

But, I wanted to talk then about the part of the legislation now that wants the Welsh Government to be able to compel local authorities to do pilots, and I just wanted to get your views, then, and if you think there are any negatives that come from that. I know, Clare, in your submission you mentioned there concerns about—what's the word I'm looking for?—basically the high turnover of electoral staff. Expertise—that's the word I'm looking for—and the concern there about the lack of expertise to get this done smoothly. I just wanted to get everyone's views on that, really, because I know, from conversations—and you mentioned this earlier, Colin—about the need to have consensus, really, to bring everyone with you rather than just telling people to do it. I'm just keen to know your views on that.

I'm happy to go first, Chair, and I'm surprised the leaders were a little timid on this one. We would strongly recommend not to have powers to compel. It's on two levels: we could compel somebody who isn't ready or has the capacity to do it, and it fails, but secondly, on principle, why would we compel? A pilot is meant to be something that somebody takes on enthusiastically, and, in my honest experience of local government, having worked with one of the MSs here as my deputy leader, we've piloted lots of things, as have other councils, but you've got to have capacity, enthusiasm, belief. And the ask of that early voting pilot was quite a big one for the councils. Fine, it might have been resourced, but it's still more work, hidden work, and risk, and we had four councils come forward who had the confidence to do it, and they did it well. I appreciate it was questioned around value for money, but what it did prove is that systematically it could work, the digital, the access—it could work. So, we know now that we can do it again without having to rerun a pilot if we needed to.

So, I couldn't speak strongly enough against the principle, even if it's an absolutely reserved power that no Minister would want to draw on. It's completely counterintuitive, and I think, for me, it doesn't recognise the relationship of partnership that local government and Welsh Government should have.

I would echo that, really. The Welsh Government needs to consider the adverse effects of compelling a local authority, because there could be significant capacity issues, as we've alluded to already—for example, new staff, or a new RO. I do think early planning and communication prior to and during the process of planning the pilot could help to assure local authorities and increase capacity, if that's the aim.

And just to add as well, I think the volume of work that administrators are experiencing at the moment as a result of the Elections Act 2022, which I appreciate is a UK Government-led Act, but the amount of change and the amount of work that that is involving, and the complexities for administrators at the moment, we would worry that introducing and compelling people to add an additional burden on top of that would potentially break some teams. So, again, as Colin and Cath have already outlined, that's where our concerns come in. There are a lot of new electoral services staff in Wales. The number of vacancies we are experiencing across the board in the UK in terms of electoral administrators is probably at an all-time high at the moment, with people leaving the profession in quite high numbers, because the pressure and the responsibilities are increasing and getting too much for some people. So, I think the powers to compel just worry us that you're putting people who are already almost at breaking point potentially in a more difficult position than they need to be. And adding to that, you've still got relatively new returning officers in quite a lot of authorities in Wales as well, and putting that additional pressure on them, when they haven't actually asked for it, would just concern us, as to the deliverability of those pilots and whether then they'd be effective as a result anyway.

I think we share some of the sense of today's discussions with the previous witnesses as well, in that, if we had limited resources to spend, where would we spend it? So, actually, I think, for us, driving harder again on reaching young people to register, through engagement, would be a better use of resources than maybe piloting something where there isn't an awareness or an interest and the pilot just doesn't hit the spot. I think careful use of how we target parts of the population that we want to engage would be a better investment and one that local authorities feel that they can do, because they've got the reach to local communities on a local level.

Okay. Thank you, all, very much on that point; I think that's quite clear. Joel.

Thank you, Chair. Just one final question, really, and I suppose it's mainly aimed at Catherine, really. It's about the increased role of the Electoral Commission in terms of evaluating pilots and making recommendations, and everything. I just wanted to get your overall thoughts on that, if possible.

We're content with the provisions to evaluate the pilots—it's something that we've done for other pilots in the past, and for the advanced voting pilots. The Bill extends our role in piloting to these provisions. So, yes, we're content with that.

And there are good provisions around the EMB as well, around quality assurance and planning.

And you say that the Electoral Commission has the—[Interruption.] Sorry about that. It helps me hear better, because when I speak, it just funnels straight back into my hearing, and I don't really like the way I sound. So, I'll turn it off.

So, with that, you'd think the Electoral Commission would have the capacity to take on that extra work, then?

Yes, we absorb that. We've got a research team who are versed in doing these things, and we've got a track record of providing evaluation, based on evidence, and through surveys and research with electoral administrators, campaigners, voters.

Okay. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Could I just come back to the pilots, very briefly? You mentioned the Blaenau Gwent one, for example, Colin, so that, in the local college, there was a polling station, and that was available for a few days. So, rather than disperse polling stations around the Ebbw Vale area, there was just that one. So, from what you said, that led to a better turnout amongst younger voters than would otherwise probably have been the case.

I don't think turnout was proven, Chair. We proved that it could work—that laying on the system could work. Did it work for those who didn't choose—? We had a digital register in the place that covered the whole of the Blaenau Gwent area. But unless we move to something on a whole-Wales basis, where you could vote anywhere—. So, if I go back to when I was working in Flintshire, had we had a pilot in Coleg Cambria, in Connah's Quay, we would have had probably Wrexham, Denbighshire, and possibly other students, who weren't actually entitled to vote because it was outside of their registration area. So, you can see some of the benefits in the limits. I don't think there was evidence—. We wouldn't have had a baseline, anyway, that increased turnout, but it did prove that we could do it. If we then reach people to be more interested in registering, it would then, I'm sure, increase turnout.

I suppose it would be possible to compare the turnout there with other parts of Wales, for those younger voters at that election, but I guess that's a piece of work—

I think, given that younger voting was so new at the time, we just don't have any trends to compare. 

You wouldn't have a baseline, but you could compare what happened there to other parts of Wales, I guess. Okay. Jayne. 

Diolch, Cadeirydd. Just on that accessibility issue, section 25 of the Bill places that additional duty on the Electoral Commission around reporting on the steps taken by returning officers to assist disabled people in voting. Obviously, we talk about equity and making sure that people are able to have the same opportunities. What are your views on, perhaps, some of the challenges at polling stations and other things that might be needed to support, but also the impact that that could have on returning officers? 

The commission thinks that everybody should have the ability to register and place their vote without any barriers. That goes without saying. We think it's good to align these provisions with what's happening already through the elections Act. So, obviously, making a system that is available to all disabled voters that they understand is going to be the same for every election is really important. We think the Welsh Government are going to be doing more in secondary legislation to bring this forward. So, the new duty will give ROs the flexibility to provide what their electorate needs in terms of the polling stations. So, that's good. The Electoral Commission's guidance sets out the minimum standards that would be required. I do think, probably, the EMB would have a role as well in discussing how this can be brought together on an all-Wales basis to make sure there's consistency in approach, obviously based—. But ROs, ultimately, know their electorate best. 

This is quite a fraught area at a UK level, because nobody disagrees with the principle, but what does it mean in practice? And I think some of the leaders said in the last session, some of their polling stations—they're not ideal, but they're the only choice we've got—are barely accessible on the basics for disability access. But I think this is more about—and perhaps some of the evidence you've had from the Royal National Institute of Blind People about assisted voting and particular facilities, actually, in a polling station once you've arrived—. I'm sure Clare will have a view, but some of the challenges here are logistics. If you have more kit, you have to get it there, and it's a lot of things for people to administrate on a complex day. And polling stations don't often lend themselves well because they're not very big or they're not very modern, and then there's cost for usage. 

So, trying to find out what that minimum set of standards is is going to be quite a task, where we meet the principle, but, equally, we have something that works. I'm sure Clare will have a view, Chair, because this is the sort of feedback on the ground where you worry you've overloaded a presiding officer in a polling station with too much to set up before they open to care for the voters who come through the door.

Clare. 

I think, as Colin has alluded to, one of the biggest challenges—. And every authority in Wales will probably have undertaken their polling district reviews to work out the suitability of their polling places and polling stations. A lot of polling station buildings that we use tend not to lend themselves necessarily to being fully accessible in the ways that we would like them to be, and then you end up with that issue of do you no longer use certain polling stations and do you look for alternative venues that offer full accessibility. But then, do you place a barrier in front of an elector who then has to travel further to a polling station in order to have a more accessible venue? So, I think that is one of the biggest challenges in terms of making those decision calls at the moment as to what are suitable venues, and what are the impacts on electors then if you need to make them travel further to access those venues. 

In terms of the actual equipment and resources, the Electoral Commission guidance is being used very much, as Cath said, as the minimum standard as to what should be in every polling station, and then exuding that expertise within the authority to understand the electorate, to understand what things could be offered on a case-by-case basis, looking in terms of what electors themselves may wish to use in a polling station—so, for anyone who's got a vision impairment, a device that could read the ballot paper to them that they've got on their phone and they use day to day. It's making people aware that they could use that in the polling station, so make sure that that publicity is there, that they're with something that they are comfortable with and used to using, to make sure that that is put at the forefront, as well as an expectation on returning officers to provide that equipment. But, again, it's the funding and the resourcing to make sure that they can provide that resource at polling stations. But it is that complication, as Colin has said, as well, about how do you get that equipment there, how do you publicise it, how do you contact electors that you're aware may need additional assistance to make sure you're providing the appropriate equipment for them, but using that commission guidance as a backstop to make sure that you're covered off on everything you could possibly provide as the minimum, and then using experience, year on year, to work out what individual polling stations might need in your area to best inform your provision going forward as well. 

Okay, Clare. Thank you very much for that. Jayne, are you content?

I am, yes.

You are. Okay. Carolyn. 

Thank you. I remember, during COVID, with the regulations there, there was quite a lot of change, wasn't there, of polling stations, and also a little bit of confusion as to where it would be at the time. So, publicity is really important. And some people don't like change, either—they've got to know where they're going, and, even if they've got some disability, they know what to expect, so they feel comfortable about going. It's just an observation. 

Can I just as well—? Before I get on to my questions, you were saying that you'd like to reach young people and prioritise that. Was a survey done with young people as to what would encourage them to vote prior to the last election?

We do a lot of work with young people through partner groups, and the research from previous elections indicates the levels of understanding of the process. So, yes, every election report the commission produces includes information about that. But, yes, we know that there is a lack of engagement, and they do say sometimes through the groups that we run that they don't know where to go for information, and the methods, perhaps, that we communicate are not the methods that are most suited to certain groups. So, yes, there's more work that needs to be done, and political education in schools is something that we are keen to encourage—when I say 'political', small 'p' political. And obviously we've been working to produce democratic engagement resources for schools that teachers can use, and they're all available on our website and we're working to encourage the uptake of that. 

I visited a school who had an election with a ballot box—it was really interesting—about what would be a priority in their school, whether it would be outdoor education, sport et cetera; it was interesting.

So, I'll move on now to the online voter information platform and your views on it. I just think sometimes, young people, they just like to have instant information on the phone, don't they, as well. But would they search? I don't know. But just your views on it, really. 

I think this is a really interesting one. You’d question why this is in the legislation. Does it need to be? This is something that you could develop as practice. It should only be in legislation if there’s a requirement—and we’ll get to candidate statements, if that was a requirement for a candidate to be valid.

I think our general view is it’s quite a cluttered field of information already. What is it we’re trying to project? It is electoral registration or is it an election itself? Our view would be that we need to use better what we’ve got, and reach people in a different way, because a substantive block of the public who are an electorate understand the system and participate when they choose to. So, again, it’s a minority that we’re trying to access. So, registration—we’ve already talked about the system of how we do that. When it comes to an election, is it public awareness or is it public interest? We know, whether it’s your own party campaign or individual campaigning, the way the media takes off, and you then have all these wonderful campaigns from not just the Electoral Commission, but so many organisations, it’s hard to believe sometimes that a major election hasn’t, in awareness terms, reached everybody in some shape or form.

So, we would question the need for this. And again, unless people know it’s there, even if they want it, how are they going to access it? So, it’s the same challenge as any other website. So, we would question its benefit cost per person. I think we’d rather have targeted work based on some of the things you’ve been exploring with us today. We do have very strong views on candidate statements, but you might want to separate that one out. 

Well, that is the next question. So, who should host and manage a platform, should there be one? And should a platform include personal statements from candidates, and how would that be managed in practice?

Catherine and I were chatting on the way in, and I think it goes back to, perhaps, one of Luke's questions earlier—if we have this formal EMB and you wanted a national independent body with expertise to host something, potentially, if there was a new public awareness platform, being a neutral body, it could host it, we suppose.

But, when it comes to candidate statements, you'll see our evidence is quite strong on this. It would be impossible, and I'm not dramatising this, for electoral administrators to be able to receive, check for compliance—there would have to be checking for compliance on the size of the statement, its truthfulness and particularly that it didn't breach any law for rules, for defamation for example, because some candidates like to talk openly about others. It would be impossible, particularly in a local election, when you have such a tight timescale, with lots of nominations coming in quite close to the wire, when you're fielding hundreds of community and principal council candidates. It's impossible; we'd say 'no', we couldn't do it. And if this goes ahead, it will need, in our view, to be a self-posting system, hosted probably nationally by a.n.other, and not a requirement. Because, if it's a requirement, theoretically, somebody not producing a statement in good time that is compliant, would then have to have their nomination disqualified. 

So, it's a good idea to have candidate statements, but we don't think the proposal is workable. And given what was said in the last session, the reach of social media now, which, of course, can be free or very, very cost-effective, and the requirements for digital imprints and controls now around parties, which make it a safer place to be, has far more reach and influence. We have also referenced, if council X were to host candidate statements for its area, even if it was able to process them, which it couldn't, and somebody makes a challenge on that statement, even if we are indemnified, it would reflect badly on that authority that they'd hosted something that wasn't compliant because of a mistake or pressure of time. 

The only facility currently where it's an open offer with a national platform is the PCC elections, where the Home Office host a platform. When you're dealing with four, five, six, seven, eight candidates in a whole region, it still takes quite a lot of time, but it's easy. But you couldn't replicate it on a big scale. And public usage of that site and requests for printed versions of what's on it is very low. So, that's not really made a huge difference when candidates for PCCs will still rely on all the things that you would expect parties and candidates to do.

So, we question the need for a platform at all on awareness, really uncomfortable about how candidate statements will work, it's not feasible for us to do it and we wouldn't want to host a platform for them. So, I need to be really straight with you, because one of our jobs is to say—. If something just isn't doable on risk, we'd be failing you if we said, 'Oh well, we'll give it a go or we'll pilot it.' It won't work. 

So, no point asking my last question then, John, Chair, which was: what role could you see returning officers having in the management of a voter information platform? You've answered that already, so that's okay. And Clare, did you have anything you wanted to add?

Without repeating pretty much everything that Colin's just said, I think that we're very strong about candidate statements that if—. The original intention—going back a few years, of course—is that they'd form part of the nomination process, and the burden that would place on electoral administrators and returning officers would be significant, for all the reasons Colin's outlined, just due to the volumes in comparison to a PCC election. And if we're not, therefore, having a formalised process for submitting candidate statements, it does raise questions as to whether things in existence like Democracy Club, who've done brilliant work to establish platforms where they collate all the information as to what elections are happening, where people's polling stations are—candidates can submit their own statements if they wish to that platform—whether that is actually a more appropriate way, going forward, that takes the cost and the burden away from elections teams, from the returning officers and from Welsh Government, when a platform already exists that kind of does what I think is being envisaged that this platform will do, but just maybe giving that more of a status and awareness, so candidates are aware that there's a resource for them to upload statements to, and a greater awareness among the public that that resource exists as well.  

Thank you, Clare. 

Cath's got a view particularly on social media guidance, given we've got undue influence in here too, for which, of course, social media can be a platform. I think we think that more advice and regulation around formal campaigning on social media is perhaps the way to counterbalance this. 

Yes, and obviously we've got the digital imprints rules, which apply UK-wide now and they've just come into force, so parties are going to start to recognise the need to add that information, and then, hopefully, that'll start to regulate the stuff that's put on to social media. Can I just add as well? I think that, if there were to be an online platform, it would need to be developed in a way that doesn't duplicate the commission's existing statutory duties around voter awareness and information. So, that's important. Also, there's still a need to provide paper information for those who are digitally excluded, so, even if there was an online platform, we'd still have to produce leaflets and booklets explaining the process.

Okay. Thank you very much for that, Catherine. Colin, could I just return very briefly to the proposal for direction-making powers in relation to pilots? You couldn't envisage a situation, could you, where—? I guess you could have a pilot on an all-Wales basis, couldn't you? Arguably, is that really a pilot or not? But, I mean, if you could and Welsh Government felt it was valuable to do that, and say every local authority in Wales but one was agreeable to taking part and the objection of the one would stop it happening, is there a possible case there for direction-making—? I'm just trying to think of a scenario where maybe there is a case to have that in reserve, as it were. No?

It's a very good question, Chair, because we know that, generally, the way things work between Welsh Government and local government is co-productive, and I'd like to think that, even if it's a power, it's an absolute last resort, and that would be an extreme where you might need some provision. So, we're more resisting it on principle. If you wanted to recommend that there should be some absolute reserve—. But it should be for exceptional circumstances and maybe, thinking of the partnership council working arrangement, where every other effort has failed and it's an obstruction to what's largely a consensus. So, that would be, I think, a fair point, yes.

Okay. Sam.

Thank you, Chair. Just on that point, on the compelling, quite strong initial evidence given—and you've been very strong on the online voter information platform as well—I'm just interested to know, in the development of this Bill, how much you have been engaged with by Welsh Government, and how much you've been listened to in terms of the development of the Bill.

Hugely. We might not agree on something, but that doesn't mean we haven't worked on it, and I appreciate that, with civil servants, there might have been an expectation, a ministerial expectation, that certain things are put up for appropriate scrutiny, such as this. So, you can see we're comfortable with almost everything, and if our job is saying, 'Can we make it work safely, can we resource it, possibly with extra capacity here and there?', we're generally giving you a clean bill of health on this Bill. But I raise that point again: don't legislate for things you don't need to. So, if, over time, we found a way of doing a voter platform, why does that need to be in legislation? Are we overcooking this? Because it's quite a medley, as a Bill, where there are some core things like auto-registration that are really, really important for us to do. No, I can't compliment civil servants enough on this and the other Bill and the potential third Bill in the background—the amount of co-production and joint working has been probably greater than I've experienced on most things in the past. 

Yes, I would echo that. We always do have good relationships with Welsh Government officials. They'll call upon us for expertise and advice as they're drafting provisions and consultations and seek our views. It's very good.

Okay. Thanks, Chair.

Thanks, Sam. Clare, are you content with that aspect as well?

Yes. Exactly the same as well. And we note—it's in our written evidence as well—that we can see where points of concern that we've raised regarding automatic registration have been picked up in the actual draft of the legislation as well. So, very co-operative, and very understanding that, while certain things, you appreciate, can't always be taken on board, everything is made to make sure it's as workable as it possibly can be at all levels as well, which we're very appreciative of.

As an illustration, Chair, the regulatory impact assessment for this and the Bill that's running through the other committee at the moment—. There are quite complex things to track, and officials came to the Welsh Local Government Association and we created a small task and finish group for each to really get into the detail to produce the best that we could without bothering all 22 councils with a big, complex survey. It was another good example of co-production that we think is model practice.

Okay. Well, thanks very much for that. Is there anything else you'd like to add, any of you, to the evidence that you've given to committee today?

I think, if I may, Chair, one thing—we don't need to discuss it in detail—that we haven't talked about is the provisions around boundary reviews, specifically for local authority and community areas. And we would like to say that we really welcome what's in here, because, for those of you who've been local councillors, you don't have to go too far back to remember that this process with the then boundary commission was hugely contested and led to things really running into the sand. I think the provisions where we've learned about timescale process, and particularly for a Minister to be able to make sensible modifications towards the end, rather than accept or reject, are really, really welcome things that we would ask you to support, because they are based on experience, and a difficult experience. So, we just thought we'd say we're really supportive of those.

If I could just mention timing, I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but it's essential for us that the legislation and any secondary legislation as well are brought in in good time, so that we can produce our guidance, and then the electoral community can have sufficient time to prepare. We know Welsh Government have signalled a commitment to this, so, yes, just to reinforce that.

Okay. Nothing you wanted to add, Clare?

No, that's everything from me. Thank you.

Okay. Well, thank you all very much for giving evidence to committee today. You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy in the usual way, but it's been very useful. Diolch yn fawr. Thank you very much.