Agenda and minutes

In opening the meeting, the Chair stated that he wished to place on record his thanks to Councillor Jane Nightingale for her past work as the former Chair of this Committee.  He also thanked all of the former Members of the Committee for the contributions they had made to the work of the Committee during 2014/15, namely Councillors John Cooke, Nuala Fennelly, Deborah Hutchinson, Hilary McNamee and Dave Shaw.  The Chair concluded by welcoming Councillor James Hart, the Committee’s new Vice-Chair, to the meeting.

No declarations were made at the meeting.

With regard to Minute Number 13 (Electoral Services Update on Key Issues Report) from the meeting held on 17th March 2015, Councillor Charlie Hogarth referred to the seventh bullet pointed paragraph on page 3 and pointed out that this should, in fact, read ‘Councillor Charlie Hogarth queried whether the street ‘Lawn Garth’ could be moved from NH Polling District into the Polling District NA with Kirkstone Close, to vote at the Polling Station on Queens Drive.  In response, Trina Barber from the Elections Team confirmed that this query would be looked into as part of the Autumn Canvass.

Subject to the above amendment, it was

RESOLVED that the minutes of the Elections and Democratic Structures Committee meeting held on 17th March 2015 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

The Committee received a report which provided an evaluation of the Parliamentary General, Borough Council and Parish Council elections held on 7 May 2015 and highlighted the key processes for improvements to be incorporated into the Elections Project Plan.  The report also updated Members on the on-going implementation of Individual Electoral Registration.

Evaluation of the Parliamentary General, Borough Council and Parish Council elections held on 7 May 2015

The Assistant Director of Legal & Democratic Services introduced the report by explaining that feedback from Members on the running of the elections would be welcomed and that this would be taken into account in preparing for future Elections.  An internal review had been carried out of the election arrangements and the key recommendations arising from this were detailed in Appendix 1 of the report.

The Assistant Director of Legal & Democratic Services confirmed that the Elections in Doncaster this year had been the largest combination of polls since 1979.  It was reported that, overall, the elections had been successfully delivered, and much of this success was due to the huge efforts of the staff in the Elections Team, with a significant contribution also being made by individuals and teams throughout the Council.  It was noted, however, that the combination of polls had stretched the Council’s resources and there was some evidence that it had led to some confusion on the part of the electorate.  It was therefore likely that senior commentators, including some Chief Executives, would be making representations to the Cabinet Office and others, asking them to limit the number of polls that could be combined on a single day.

The Assistant Director of Legal & Democratic Services then referred to the review of the May 2015 elections that was being undertaken and summarised the areas identified for improvement together with key recommendations, as detailed in the Appendix to the report, which the Committee was requested to consider and comment on accordingly.  Discussion followed, during which Members raised  various questions and/or commented on a range of issues in relation to the running of the Elections, as summarised below:-

·         Security/integrity – the Assistant Director of Legal & Democratic Services confirmed that some complaints had been received in the run up to the elections in relation to the use of social media, imprints on printed material and emails and content of election material.  While these incidents had not in most cases amounted to breaches of any electoral rules, it was nevertheless important to remind individuals of the need to be careful.  In response to a question, the Assistant Director advised that the Police were the responsible body for enforcing such matters.

·         In response to a question as to whether the computer software used for scanning postal vote statements was able to recognise inconsistencies in people’s signatures, the Officers explained that the final decision on any apparent signature anomalies was made by the staff using the scanning software.

·         Councillor Pat Haith advised that she was aware of an instance where a voter had been told by the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.