Ensuring public confidence when using e-communications
Ensuring public confidence when using e-communications
It is important that recipients of your e-communications trust them and have confidence that they are legitimate, so that they pay attention to the information provided and respond and take necessary action as needed.
Some residents may not be used to being contacted by the ERO or the council through e-communications, so you should think about how you can prepare them for being contacted this way, for example through press releases and social media messages. We have produced canvass resources to support you with public engagement, including social media templates which can be used in the run-up and throughout the canvass to raise awareness. You should also work with the communications team in your council to raise awareness about the canvass.
As well as using e-communications during the canvass, you could consider the benefits of contacting electors through these methods outside the canvass period, for example in the run up to an election.
To help increase confidence that emails are official you should ensure that recipients can clearly identify that they are from you by including your council name in the subject line and your logo in the body of the text. If you are using a generic outbox to send emails, you could also personalise the message to include the householder’s name in the greeting.
You should proactively inform recipients that you are contacting them because you hold their information on your electoral register database so that they can be confident that their data has been used legitimately. Even if you are encouraging residents to reply using an automated response method, you should include dedicated contact details for queries, as well as a link to your website with details of your privacy notice and how recipients can opt out of further e-communications, in order to promote confidence in the legitimacy of the communication and meet all data protection requirements.
We have produced an email canvass communication template to support you when contacting householders by email. The email template can be used for either Route 1 or Route 2 communications. The email template is not prescribed, however we recommend that you use it because it has been tested with the public.