Delivering the annual canvass - Scotland

How should I carry out the second contact attempt?

You will need to make a decision about how to carry out the second contact attempt for all properties that have not supplied the information needed to provide a successful response to the first contact attempt. 

Some questions for you to consider include:

• Will you try another property contact with a paper canvass communication? If so, which one? 
  • If you used a CCB for the first contact attempt, you could decide to use a Canvass Form for the second attempt in order to meet the requirement for the Route 2 process that a Canvass Form be sent as one of the three minimum contact attempts where no response is received. You could also consider combining the delivery of a paper communication with a personal contact to the property.
• Will you use individual contact methods? 
  • Things you should consider when deciding whether to use e-communications.
  • Further advice on using e-communications, including what to do where more than one response is received and what to do with email bounce backs.
• How you will process responses received from different communication methods, including queries from electors? 

You will need to take steps to ensure that any communication channels you use are secure and that any actions taken comply with data protection legislation so that electors will know that individual canvass communications you send are genuine, and can be confident in responding accordingly.

When using an individual contact method as part of Route 2, you must attempt to make contact with each matched individual at the property that you hold contact information for.1  

Using a mixture of e-communications

You can choose to send a mixture of e-communications within a household. However, there is no requirement to use more than one type of e-communication to contact a property so, for example, if you hold email addresses for some individuals and mobile numbers for others, you could decide only to use e-mail contact, in which case you would only need to send the e-communication to those individuals with email addresses.

However, if the contact information for one matched elector is the same as that for another individual in the same property and you have already tried to make contact using that information, for example, if more than one occupier has provided the same telephone number or email address, you do not need to make multiple contact attempts using the same details.

If you decide to attempt to contact individuals by telephone it is important to ensure that a clear audit trail is kept to record that contact attempt - for example, the date and time the call was made, details of who was spoken to, and what (if any) details they confirm or provide. 

The response can be provided by anyone at the property: any individual, including those who were unmatched, may answer the call and provide a response.