Parliamentary Elections (Returning Officers’ Charges) (No. 2) Order 2017

(asked on 4th September 2017) - View Source

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reason the Government tabled the Parliamentary Elections (Returning Officers' Charges) (No. 2) Order 2017 to replace the order introduced on 4 May 2017; what the cost of that replacement is; and what lessons have been learnt from that process.


Answered by
Chris Skidmore Portrait
Chris Skidmore
This question was answered on 12th September 2017

A review of all the initial allocations for England, Scotland and Wales identified that a mixture of erroneous and inconsistent data provided by Returning Officers in previous claims, added to some clerical errors in transposing data, led to some of the allocations for 8 June being incorrect.

Cabinet Office produced a revised schedule with amended allocations for the affected constituencies. It was important to get the correct figures published ahead of the general election so that returning officers had clarity on the actual level of funding available to them to assist them in carefully planning their expenses in the run up to the election.

There were no costs associated with the publishing of a revised Charges Order.

Expense claim forms have now been redesigned to assist returning officers to more fully and accurately complete their claim forms. The Association of Electoral Administrators is providing training to elections staff on claims and this appears also to be leading to more accurately completed forms.

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