Guidance for Returning Officers administering a Greater London Authority (GLA) election

You should identify support staff and ensure they are available to assist with any public enquiries you may receive in the run-up to the election. There may be opportunities to utilise your council’s existing support staff to perform this role.

You should also liaise closely with the ERO and BRO at the other boroughs or the City of London to ensure that it is clear how public enquiries across the whole of the constituency will be received and responded to. Whatever arrangements you put in place, you should ensure that they support the delivery of a consistent, high-quality service to all electors, regardless of where in the constituency they live.

The support staff that you utilise should be trained to understand that there are various barriers that disabled electors may face when accessing information or voting in a polling station. Disabled voters may contact you to identify a particular area that they need support with in the polling station. You can find more information on understanding barriers to voting in our guidance.

Managing enquiries from the public

You should set up a dedicated team to deal with a range of basic enquiries, such as questions about whether or not a person is registered to vote, postal and proxy voting and the location of polling stations. You will need to work with the EROs in your constituency (where they are not also the BRO) as appropriate to facilitate this. 

Staff dealing with public enquiries should receive training to deal with them and also be provided with:

• agreed responses to frequently asked questions
• a list of the locations of polling stations
• details of key dates in the election timetable 
• details of the process in place to escalate more complex enquiries to the election team

Processing applications

The ERO should consider whether they will need any additional support staff to assist with the processing of registration and absent vote applications in the lead-up to the election – and in particular in the lead-up to the registration deadline on the 12th working day before the poll. You should liaise with the EROs in your constituency to understand how they will manage the likely increase in applications close to deadlines, so that all staff involved in the election and the managing of queries have a clear understanding and can inform electors appropriately.

Further information on processing registration and absent vote applications in the lead-up to an election can be found in the Running Electoral Registration and Absent voting sections of our guidance for EROs.

Receiving postal votes at the council offices 

Only people authorised to act on your behalf can receive postal votes returned by hand to you. You should consider whether to authorise additional support staff to assist with the receipt of completed postal votes that are returned by members of the public to council offices. 

You should keep a record of the people you have authorised to act on your behalf and receive postal votes returned by hand.

Our guidance about the procedure to be followed when postal votes are handed in to the Returning Officer at council buildings has more information.