ERO/Local authority: / Sheffield
John Tomlinson
01142734093
Authority profile: / Type: Metropolitan District
Population: 563,749 (ONS mid-2014 population estimates)
Household numbers: 237,000 (ONS 2015 household projections)
Electoral Register size: 388,352 (ONS as at 1 December 2015)
Issue to address and expected impact / Sheffield have a large student population and were concerned that the cost of canvassing student properties and halls of residence would increase significantly under IER. They wanted to find a way to encourage online registration by students and reduce the number of door knocks required.
Summary of approach / The Electoral Services Manager was also a student during the IER transition and knew that universities collected all the information required to register to vote from their students each year, with the exception of their NI number and opt out preference.
Following initial meetings, Sheffield University was keen to take part in a pilot to encourage online student registration.
The Electoral Services Team worked with the University to include a page in their online Student Registration System which offered students the chance to register to vote. The team were very clear from the start that the electoral registration element of the system should not interfere with the University’s own registration process, and were mindful that the University needed to collect the data that they required before moving onto electoral registration.
The solution was for students to complete an electoral registration page at the end of the student registration process. Students are asked if they wish to register to vote in Sheffield and when they click ‘yes’ they move to a new page, but this page is prepopulated with information already collected earlier in the process and simply requires students to enter their NI number,to indicate whether they want a postal vote and whether they want to opt out of the edited register. An important element of the design was making sure that, while asking for all the same information as the Government’s online registration system, the format and artworking for the electoral registration page remained the same as on the rest of the system - in that way there was no psychological break between the student registration and electoral registration elements. The Electoral Services Team believe that this is why links to the Government’s online registration system with its separate branding achieves fewer registrations in similar situations.
Another important point to note from a data protection perspective is that the ‘data collector’ changes at this stage from being the University, to the University acting as data collector on behalf of the ERO. This relationship is set out in a contract between the two organisations. This distinction is explained on the page.
The Electoral Services Team then transfer and upload this information onto the Council servers in a single download in October. Once the download is completed the University purge the students’ NI numbers from their systems. For the remaining further and higher education students in the city, including those at Sheffield University who do not make an application through the student registration system, the canvass takes place as usual with the issuing of ITRs and reminders including, where necessary, a personal visit.
Measurable impact / Registration levels among eligible students at Sheffield University have been significantly higher than at Sheffield Hallam, a neighbouring university that does not currently offer the same functionality in its student registration processes.
Sheffield University
Total Number of students in SCC area 25,353
Total Eligible to Register 18,349
Number on Register 1 March 2015 11,939
Percentage of eligible students registered 65%
Sheffield Hallam
Total Number of students in SCC area 19,041
Total Eligible to Register 17,290
Number on Register 1 March 2015 2,304
Percentage of eligible students registered 13%
Associated costs and savings delivered / Development costs
The ERO has spent around £4000 on initial development work and will spend a further £2000 per year to maintain the system. This is in comparison to a conservative estimate of approximately £4.50 per head to register students by sending them ITRs and carrying out follow-up action where necessary.
The ERO is now working with Sheffield Hallam University to develop a similar system and is hoping to use the money saved on student registration to undertake more work on participation in BME communities.
Canvassing Cost
Assumptions: ITR including postage 35p; Return rate of 10% per posting; door knock average cost of £5 per elector
Total number of students due an ITR (18,349 + 17,290) / 35,639
Initial ITR(35,639 x £0.35) / £ 12,474
1st reminder ITR(32,075 x£0.35) / £ 11,226
2nd reminder ITR(28,868 x £0.35) / £ 10,104
Door knock(25,981 x £5.00) / £ 129,905
Total Cost / £163,709
Average costper student / £4.59
Principles met / /
- Accessibility – Does the practice improve accessibility to the electoral process?
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- Public confidence – Does the practice improve public confidence in the electoral process?
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- Efficiency – Does the practice make an existing process less resource intensive while maintaining or increasing the quality of service?
- Consistency – Does the practice promote consistency of outcome and opportunity across an area?
/ Innovation – Does the practice use new or improved methods to achieve an improvement in
quality of service?
/ Replicability/Scalability – Does the practice have potential to be replicated by others and could it be scaled across the wider electoral community?
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