Tag Archives: Electoral Commission

Berryhill & Hanley East Candidate Chances Hit By Late Changes In Electoral Guidance.

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Press Release

Due to a late notification in electoral guidance, a City Councillor will be handicapped with his hopes to seek re-election.

Adrian Knapper who represents the Berryhill and Hanley East Ward had submitted his nomination paper on time with the City Council Election Office with the intention of standing under the dual banner of two political parties ““ The Labour Party and The Co-operative Party who have a longstanding arrangement of working together.

The nomination were accepted and in previous years the procedure was that the wording ‘The Labour and Co-operative Party Candidate’ would be printed on the ballot paper along with the traditional ‘Labour Rose Emblem.’

Due to guidance issued to the City Council Election Office and because of an error the Electoral Commission have just discovered in changes it made to legislation (the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act) the names of candidates who stand in local elections under a joint party candidates will not be allowed to use a party logo displayed against their name.

Mr Knapper said

“I have been informed by the election office at the City Council that I will not be allowed to have the Labour Rose Logo by my name on the ballot paper.”

“This may cause some confusion for members of the Public who are looking to vote for me, as the Labour Candidate.”

Unfortunately, the situation cannot be changed as the Electoral Commission discovered their error after the deadline for the submission of nomination forms. This was the fault of officials at the Ministry of Justice who drafted changes to section 28B of the legislation and the Electoral Commission who failed to spot the problem until the latter part of last week. (Thursday 14th April 2010.)

Adrian Knapper added:

“My name will remain on the ballot paper.”

“I am deeply disappointed that late changes of guidance rules prevent me from having the Labour Logo on the ballot paper, but I remain the official candidate for the Labour Party in the local elections.”

The description of the Political organisations of both the Labour and Co-operative Party is a clear indication of Adrian Knapper strong values and principles of being a candidate who wants to work to improve the quality of life for all within the City of Stoke-on-Trent.

Electoral review of Stoke-on-Trent

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The Boundary Committee for England section of the Electoral Commission has today published its draft recommendations on the future electoral arrangements for the City of Stoke-on-Trent.

They propose 44 (down from 60) councillors covering 38 wards (up from 20). 33 wards will have one councillor, 4 wards 2 councillors and 1 ward 3 councillors.

Curiously, although they talk about electoral fairness the glaringly unfair proposals seem to have passed them by.

I hope consideration of these proposals by councillors proceeds without delay. We cannot leave it until after the 6th May local council elections. The deadline for submitting representations (letters in support or against the proposals) is 11th June 2010. So that Full Council can debate and hopefully this time agree a clear and united way forward not later than the first week of June, discussion of the draft recommendations cannot be delayed. I have today written to both the Council Leader and the Chief Executive asking that the process of formulating our response begins immediately.

My initial concern is that it ought to be obvious that the draft recommendations fail to take account of the Governance Commission’s recommendation for SINGLE Member wards. Full Council almost a year ago approved in principle all of the Governance Commission’s recomendations. Are we now going to be expected to turn that decision upside down?

More important than that, the Boundary Committee appear to be oblivious to the inequality embedded in their draft recommendations. How on earth can it be right that 33 councillors represent some 4,200 voters in wards more than half the geographical size of the present wards while 9 councillors will have twice the number of electors to represent and 3 councillors wil have three times the number to represent. Where is the electoral fairness there? Why should 11 councillors be e xpected to carry out far more ward work than the other 33?

Multi member ward councillors would be further disadvantaged financially, having to cover larger election manifesto and ward newsletter costs, not to mention the greater geographical distributuion of their larger electorates.

I have yet to study the draft recommendations in detail but the multi-member ward with 3 councillors covers Norton, Baddeley Green and Milton. That suggests a bizarre attempt to draw ward boundaries around “natural” communities. I’m surprised they didn’t propose just one City-wide ward!

Their draft recommendations fail to note how disgruntled many residents will feel with some multi-member wards allowed when they would have liked to retain multi-member wards and yet find themselves in a single member ward. I have campagined for single member wards since my last re-election in 2007 but I am well aware that the RAs within my ward support multi-member wards.

These idiosyncratic draft recommendations will give support to those who argued that the whole process was the wrong way round and should have started with the identification of “natural” wards and then counted those to see how near + or – they were to whatever number of councillors was deemed appropriate ie 45 or whatever.

There is a real danger that far and wide critics of the City Council will take the view that yet again Stoke-on-Trent is incapable of a clean, clear move forward! But this time, it is NOT the City Council’s doing. That makes it all the more important that we formulate a clear, united response in suport of the principle of one member one ward that we agreed twelve months ago.

Boundary review of Stoke-on-Trent

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By Nicky Davis


Archie Gall from Boundary Reviews at the Electoral Commission has kindly sent me some information relating to what will happen following the Minister’s intervention in our election system.

I did ask:

“Could you please explain what justification anybody can possibly have for denying the electorate of our city our right to vote in a 2010 local election?”

But he steered well clear of that:

“I cannot comment on the rationale for the Minister’s intentions”

The Electoral Commission will consider at its June meeting whether to direct the Boundary Committee to undertake an electoral review of Stoke.  I’m assuming they will.

What they then do is covered by section 13 of the Local Government Act 1992 (amended).  They follow their guidance document which incorporates the provisions of this act.  I invite comments any of you may have on reading this.  I have a few:

Sections 2.2-2.4 are on why they conduct electoral reviews.  This  notably does not include because a minister has weighed in and ordered it.

Section 3.10 states ‘We cannot make recommendations for changes to how often local authorities hold elections… …local authorities are now responsible for resolving to change their electoral cycle.’ Or a minister apparently!

In sections 4.1-4.2 they claim to ‘consult’ and want ‘locally-generated proposals’.  Apparently not in our case, since our council voted NOT to change to whole council elections, that is our locally generated decision, it’s just not the one the government dictators favour.

In section 4.7 they promise to publish our submissions on the web.  Good.  Wouldn’t it be good if our council had done that with our submissions to the consultation on whole council elections.

Apparently according to section 6.2, they take into account canals, especially where there are no bridges.  Now from this I can happily conclude that SERCO can no way be involved.

I haven’t anywhere found a reference to cancelling any scheduled elections, there are references to changes but in the FAQs at the end these refer to there sometimes being a necessity to have elections earlier than scheduled elections.

I am not having a go at the Boundary Reviews people at all here, quite the contrary, the impression I get is that Archie Gall genuinely wants to be helpful and the fact that he has bothered to answer my email puts him way ahead of John Healey and Hazel Blears in my estimation.  I’m just pointing out that their normal mode of operation seems geared towards decisions made at local level, which is contrary to what is being done to us.

We have had rather poor experience of ‘consultation’ and a distinct lack of local democracy, with the likes of other people weighing in and telling us what will be done to us, rather than asking us.  But hopefully the boundary committee could be different?

He does say:

“The Committee does not start reviews with preconceived views on any of these matters.  Instead, it relies on local interested parties to inform its decision-making, by providing evidence and argument… …If the Committee is directed to undertake a review of Stoke, I look forward to your contribution to the debate on what might be the most appropriate electoral arrangements for the City.”

That’s good in itself and I think we should contribute.  But I suppose there is always the usual possibility of what we think being overruled by other powers.

Nevertheless it can be another opportunity for us to demand our 2010 local election to go ahead.

And for those of us who want to stick with election by thirds, do we get to say so?  And for those of you who want whole council elections, do you get to say so?  And do we get to comment on number of councillors in total and per ward and ward boundaries?  Or are these things taken as decided because a minister has intervened?

I suppose we are about to find out.