You are responsible for ensuring that the issuing of postal votes is carried out in accordance with legislation, regardless of whether you have outsourced the process.
You should plan to quality-assure the end-to-end postal vote issuing process including:
where outsourcing have a member of staff in attendance where postal votes are being issued, with knowledge of the agreed specifications
checking the correct details are on the stationery and that packs are properly collated
checking the packs at the start and end of polling districts
carrying out random spot checks of at least two postal ballot packs per 250 within polling districts across your area and within each batch
checking that packs being sent overseas contain an appropriate reply envelope
keeping an audit trail of the checks and processes undertaken
You should pay particular attention to checking that:
the ballot paper number(s) on the reverse of the ballot paper(s) exactly match the ballot paper number(s) on accompanying postal voting statement(s)
the name of the elector on the postal voting statement matches the name on the outgoing envelope
all required items are in the outgoing envelope
You should work with your suppliers to ensure that your quality assurance processes are thorough but do not cause any unnecessary delay to the dispatch of the packs.
If you have outsourced the issuing process, discussions to facilitate these checks should occur at the time the contract is negotiated and be reflected in it.