This section contains guidance on how to develop your plans for a recall petition, including incorporating considerations for recall petitions into your routine planning for elections.
It also contains guidance on the venues required for key processes and the staffing and training that will be needed.
Delivering a recall petition will bring with it its own particular challenges. Your work to deliver a well-run petition will come under considerable scrutiny – from campaigners, electors and the media, including through social media. Therefore, having robust plans in place are crucial to ensure you are able to deliver a well-run petition.
The same general planning assumptions can be applied as for an election. Your project plan should include the deliverables and tasks necessary for the administration of the petition. Your plan should also identify the resources required to carry out the petition.
As at elections, you should establish a project team to support you, and prepare a schedule of meetings which can be used to allocate tasks and monitor progress.
Your plan should cover contingency planning and business continuity arrangements, and you should also identify risks and mitigations in a risk register, which should be kept under review.
You should also plan how you will liaise with the relevant ERO(s) to obtain relevant registration and absent voter data from them. More information is set out in our guidance for liaising with EROs.
You should also consult the fees and charges set out in the Recall Petition (Petition Officers' Charges) Regulations and reconcile projected costs for activities against the available budget.