Our role
The Electoral Administration Act 2006 lays out our responsibilities as regards performance standards:
- to set and monitor performance standards for electoral services
- to collect information on the costs of electoral services from Electoral Registration Officers, Returning Officers and Referendum Counting Officers
There is no performance management framework currently in place within electoral services, and there is therefore no minimum acceptable standard for how electoral services should be run. For this reason, the Act gives us the responsibility of setting and monitoring the standards.
Our powers
Although we have no powers to intervene directly in underperforming local authorities, we offer support, guidance and shared good practice to contribute to improvements in the electoral register and in the way elections (and referendums) are run.
Our work
The development of our performance standards framework involves two distinct parts, which run concurrently:
- performance standards for electoral registration. These were set in July 2008, following a wide consultation process
- performance standards for elections and referendums. These will be set in December 2008 as a result of performance information collected by Returning Officers(ROs) who carried out local elections in May 2008.
