Combined Authority and Combined County Authority Returning Officer guidance for Combined Authority Mayoral elections

The following guidance has been produced to support Combined Authority Returning Officers and Combined County Returning Officers (CAROs/CCAROs) in planning for and delivering a combined authority mayoral election or combined county authority mayoral election respectively in England.

For the purpose of combined county authority mayoral elections, references in this guidance to combined authorities should therefore, unless specifically indicated otherwise, be read as references to combined county authorities. 

It has been developed in close consultation with the UK Electoral Coordination and Advisory Board (ECAB), the Elections, Registration and Referendums Working Group (ERRWG) and the Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA). It reflects the CARO’s/CCARO's legal obligations and what we, the ECAB, the ERRWG and the AEA believe that CAROs/CCAROs should expect of their staff in preparing for and delivering CAM/CCAM elections.

How to use this guidance

This guidance is directed toward the CARO/CCARO and the duties they carry out. As these duties may, in practice, be carried out by deputies and/or appointed staff, we use the term ‘you’ throughout this guidance to mean the CARO/CCARO and whoever is carrying out the CARO’s/CCARO's functions on their behalf.

Throughout this guidance we use ‘must’ to refer to a specific legal requirement and ‘may / should’ for recommended practice.  

You should liaise with stakeholders, particularly local Returning Officers (ROs) across the combined authority  to inform your planning to ensure consistency across the combined authority area. 

This guidance covers your roles and responsibilities as CARO/CCARO, the particular context and circumstances of combined authority elections, planning for the election, and highlights aspects of the election process where early preparations can be undertaken.

It also covers specific parts of the elections process that you are responsible for delivering, including:  

• the nominations process
• candidates’ election addresses
• administering the poll
• verifying and counting the votes, result collation and the declaration of the result
• after the declaration of the result

Where the guidance is different for combined polls the information will be contained in an expanding section. This means that next to the relevant heading there is an icon with a + which will expand to show the relevant guidance.

To help you use this guidance we have produced a Q&A document that should answer any initial queries you may have.

This guidance does not cover your role and responsibilities as any other Returning Officer or Counting Officer. You can find guidance for Returning Officers administering local elections in England on the relevant pages of the Commission’s website. 

This guidance is supplemented by resources which can be accessed through links contained in the guidance. 

Should you have any questions about our guidance or any other matter relating to the administration of elections, our local Commission teams are available to provide on-going support. We also provide an out-of-hours advice service to deal with urgent electoral administration queries in the run up to and immediately following any scheduled elections. Further information on the provision of our out-of-hours service will be provided through our Bulletin for electoral administrators.