Guidance for Police Area Returning Officers administering a Police and Crime Commissioner election in England and Wales

As part of your planning process you should identify what directions you are planning to issue to Local Returning Officers (LROs), although there may of course be issues that arise at a later stage on which it becomes desirable or necessary for you to give directions at short notice. Should you decide that the use of directions is appropriate, your project plan should include specific plans for developing and issuing directions and a communications strategy to support this process.

If you are considering giving directions or guidance to LROs you should take into account any relevant criteria in the performance standards framework and/or Electoral Commission guidance. The performance standards framework and Commission guidance reflect what we and the UK Electoral Advisory Board (EAB) and the Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) agree that Returning Officers need to do to prepare for and deliver well-run elections. This shared agreement, along with the flexibility in how the standards are achieved, should reduce the potential risk of conflict between the criteria of the standards and any guidance or directions issued by PAROs.

If you do intend to give any guidance or directions that are different or contrary to the criteria of the standards, please contact your local Commission team in the first instance to discuss the implications. This will ensure that we can avoid, as far as possible, unresolved conflicting requirements being placed on LROs and that LROs can be clear as to what is expected of them.

In deciding whether to give a direction on a particular aspect of the election, and what that direction should be, you should aim wherever possible to consult your LROs, so that you can take into account any relevant local factors in making your decisions. This consultation should help to reduce the risk of any directions having unintended consequences and potentially maximise the ability of LROs to comply with them. 

In particular, you should ensure that when you are deciding on any potential directions you intend to give, you have considered and consulted with other ROs on whether and how the direction applies in areas where polls are combined. 

Any consultation on possible directions should be planned for and completed in good time to enable the prompt and timely communication of your decision and any associated directions to LROs, to enable them to plan and prepare for the election accordingly.

If you decide to exercise your power of direction, you should do so with regard to the following principles and aims:

• trust: people should be able to trust the way our elections work
• participation: it should be straightforward for people to participate in our elections (whether as campaigners, candidates or voters) and people should be confident that their vote counts
• consistency across the police area
• transparency
• professionalism
• accurate results in which people can have confidence

You should communicate any directions to LROs at the earliest opportunity, and in particular any requiring them to take specified preparatory steps. You should keep a record of what directions have been given, when, and to whom. 

LROs are legally required to comply with any directions you issue. However, your plans for giving directions should take account of the fact that there may be circumstances where LROs are unable to comply with a direction, for whatever reason. You should therefore ensure that you develop plans to deal with these situations, which may include establishing a process for considering requests for exceptions to your directions. You should keep a record of any instances where you have agreed that a LRO can deviate from a direction.