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

LROs are responsible for the production of ballot papers for their voting area. You may take on responsibility for printing ballot papers in any or all voting areas by giving direction to the relevant LRO. 

If you intend to take on this responsibility you should notify the relevant LROs at the outset of the election planning process, and provide them with information as soon as possible about when and how ballot papers will be delivered to them for issue in postal ballot packs and use in polling stations. If you do decide to issue a direction to print the ballot papers yourself, then data protection considerations and effective management of contractors and suppliers will be critical.

If LROs have retained responsibility for the printing of PCC ballot papers, once the deadline for withdrawal of nominations has passed, you will need to give clear and timely information to LROs about the final details of the ballot paper to enable them to confirm the exact specifications with their printers and commence printing. This includes the precise size and layout, and candidate details (i.e. name, address information, description (if any) and emblem (if any)). 

You may wish to give specific guidance or directions to local Returning Officers as you think appropriate, to ensure that the form and content of the ballot papers issued at the election meet the legislative requirements and is consistent across the whole of the police area. 

You should have processes in place to ensure that LROs print the ballot papers correctly, including that the candidate details on the ballot paper are reproduced accurately, and that the correct emblems and font type and size have been used. You should provide a template ballot paper that LROs can use as a basis for printing the ballot papers in their voting area, and against which they can check printing proofs and final versions of the ballot papers.

You should also consider putting in place a process to proof check LROs ballot papers yourself before printing commences in order to satisfy yourself that all the ballot papers across the police area will be printed correctly.

The ballot papers cannot be produced in any language other than English, or, in Wales, in English and Welsh, or other than in the prescribed format. However, both the enlarged hand-copy and the display copies of the ballot paper must have the instructions for voters printed at the top of the paper, and these words may be translated into languages other than English and Welsh.

You can find more information on the production of ballot papers, including the official mark, the printing of candidates’ details and data protection considerations in our LRO guidance for PCC elections on the Production of ballot papers.

Secure transfer of information

You will need to ensure your plans outline the processes and safeguards you will have in place regarding the transfer and security of the data between yourself and LROs.

You will need to ensure there is an agreement in place between you and each LRO in the police area for the secure data transfer and destruction of data. Our data protection guidance contains more detailed advice on storing personal data securely and maintaining your document retention policy, including what it should contain.

Although data protection legislation does not require a written agreement when sharing data between data controllers, it is strongly recommended that you agree a data sharing protocol with other LROs in the police area. 

You can find more information on managing contractors and suppliers in our LRO guidance for PCC elections. 

If you are taking on the responsibility for printing ballot papers and intend to send data to a contractor to produce ballot papers for the election, you are using a data processor.   

As a data controller, data protection legislation imposes a legal obligation when using a processor to formalise the working relationship in a contract which sets out:    

• the subject matter, nature and purpose of the processing; 
• the obligations and rights of the data controller; 
• duration of the processing; and 
• the types of personal data and categories of data subjects

In addition, the contract must set out specific obligations on the processor, including that they:

• comply with your instructions 
• are subject to a duty of confidentiality 
• keep personal data secure and notify you of any breach 
• maintain written records of the processing activities they carry out for you 
• only use a sub-processor with your consent 
• submit to audits and inspections and provide you with whatever information you need to ensure compliance with data protection requirements 
• delete or return all personal data to you as requested at the end of the contract

You can find more information on your legal obligations when using a data processor in our data protection guidance.