Guidance for the GLRO administering the GLA elections

Your overarching project plan should cover contingency planning and business continuity arrangements. This should link into CROs plans to enable all elements of the delivery of the election to continue in the event of any unexpected issues or disruptions, including the impact of any unscheduled polls and by-elections that may occur.

It is important to keep your contingency plans under review and to re-visit and amend them periodically during the run up to the poll. In doing so, you should consider the success and continuing appropriateness of any existing measures, identify any improvements and expose any gaps.

Your contingency planning should include arrangements for the key areas of risk to the delivery of the election including:

Contractors

You should ensure that any suppliers that you or the CROs use – such as EMS providers and any external print providers – have their own detailed business continuity plans in place. You should be satisfied that their contingency arrangements are sufficient to enable you to perform your duties in the case of any interruptions in service whilst fulfilling their own contractual duties. For more information see our guidance on Managing the procurement process for outsourced work.

Venues

You and the CROs should prepare a list of alternative venues that are available at short notice for each stage of the elections process and brief staff on the contingency arrangements for using these venues that may affect their role. For more information, see our guidance Identify and book suitable venues  and Last minute changes to polling stations.

Staffing

You should monitor staffing levels across the Greater London area, identifying solutions to enable you to respond if a sudden staffing shortage arose in one or more areas due to unavailability of recruited staff or an unexpected increase demand or workload. 

You should liaise with your HR department who can use their expertise to assist you with your planning. Neighbouring authorities with reciprocal agreements in place may also be able to offer additional support in managing any requirements for temporary staff for specific parts of the electoral process. For more information see our guidance on Allocating sufficient staff resources and providing training.

IT

IT plays a key role in many of the processes required to run the election. You should liaise with your IT services to ensure that you have adequate resources and contingency measures in place to allow you to perform your functions in the event of IT failure. This could include:

• improving any measures allowing remote working capabilities 
• having dedicated IT support during the election period
• storing certain files and documents locally to enable them to be accessed more easily
• sourcing any spare or alternative equipment that could be used as a backup, e.g. printers, laptops, routers
• testing any communication links used for the verification, count and result collation process, including contingency processes should IT systems fail.  

Security risks should also be considered as part of your contingency arrangements, setting out how you will continue to deliver the election in the event of theft, fraudulent activity, a cyber-threat or any other security risk as identified in your risk register. You should liaise with the police and business continuity experts from your council to identify risks and put appropriate continuity measures in place. 

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has produced this guidance to help you assess the risks associated with IT and cyber-threats. 

Security of those participating

You should consider your plans to maintain the security of all those involved in each stage of the election, including your staff, candidates, agents and their campaigners. You should liaise with local ROs and the relevant police single point of contact (SPOC) and force elected-official adviser (FEOA) as appropriate to identify local risks and put appropriate measures in place. For more information, see our guidance for CROs on security considerations at electoral events and how to manage attendees at the count. 

Additional security guidance for elections for Returning Officers, candidates and agents is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/security-guidance-for-may-2021-elections.