Question

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, how much the Electoral Commission plans to spend on television advertising to encourage registration; and how it monitors the effectiveness of such campaigns.

The Electoral Commission’s budget for the production of its television advert ahead of the elections in May 2015 is £263,961, and its budget for purchasing television advertising space is £1,506,733.

The Electoral Commission uses Government Communication Service guidance on communication evaluation – which provides a model for best practise across the public sector - to inform the evaluation of its public awareness campaigns. The overall target for additions to electoral registers in Great Britain during the Commission’s TV campaign is one million.

However, given the nature of the format it is impossible to directly attribute voter registration applications and additions to the electoral register to television advertising.