, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
The £80,000 is in respect of the cost of staffing and so on to service the panel at the moment. I'm very interested in the comments you made; I'm sure they'll be very appreciative of the recommendations you're making to put them out of work in the imminent…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I think the view we take on that is that there's obviously engagement with the Electoral Commission over this, and we've also looked at the UK regulatory impact assessment as well. Those are costs that we—. And, of course, there are issues, and, of course…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Yes. It probably doesn't apply to other parts of the UK. They could be, for example, in housing in the City of London, which would be all sorts of different bands. But I understand that. I think the important thing is that the desire to reduce inequalities of…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I agree entirely with that. It's quite interesting, within this Bill, the way we've approached that. Firstly, there are the steps that are taken in terms of information being provided to people. Secondly, there are the steps that are being taken in terms of…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I think the crux is that it would be, I think, inappropriate for us to take the responsibility for doing the translation—that clearly lies with the candidate, whether it's with their political parties or with them individually. But there are other mechanisms…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, it's the best information I have that that is the sort of range, et cetera, but again, in terms of the technicalities of this—.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
The voter platform, I think, is a very important initiative in terms of information to voters, to citizens within Wales and so on, but on the technical side, again, I'll defer to Michael.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
From this whole sort of digitisation process, there are opportunities that will emerge, I think, in the future, in terms of the ability to use technology, the location of that technology, the ability to vote in different places and so on. Those are things for…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
In terms of disabled voters, of course, there's been quite a bit of work done on that, and, of course, it applies across the UK for Westminster elections as well; so, there's been learning in terms of how that works. There are also issues that are mutual…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
The first thing is that we'll want to be transparent on this. What these things cost is obviously important, but we have to make sure that the pilots are effective, because our electoral system is of the highest importance—ensuring that it has the confidence…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I'll bring Michael in in a minute. From my perspective, what we want the pilots to do is to try to simulate how an election might take place within, say, a paired constituency and how the systems actually operate, the extent to which they're successful and…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Absolutely, and I think that's work to be done. That's the purpose of having the pilots, actually, to get some idea of things—essentially, how automatic registration would work, the sending out of the letters and so on, the responses that come back, the…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I think that would depend on the sort of models that are chosen for the pilots themselves. I don't know whether there's been any more work on the detail of what those pilots might amount to.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I think the key with the automatic registration is designing the system piloting. I'd say that, as you know, the Bill makes provision for pilots on a broad range from bodies such as the Electoral Commission, from Welsh Ministers and from local government as…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I think because it's very much work in progress, but I'll go over to the technical experts on that. Is that you, Michael?
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I think, as more information comes, if there's information that adds to our understanding of the analysis of the cost and so on, well, that's important and that is available. And there will be, of course, other areas as time goes on as well where additional…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, I think it's ultimately going to be up to the commission itself to determine that, but, obviously, there's engagement over that. Michael.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, only that the costs of the board itself, the electoral management board, have been assessed, as you've seen within the assessment, and those will be incorporated within the overall costs of the democracy and boundary commission for Wales. So, on the…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Our estimate over the 10-year cycle is, for the electoral management board itself, I think £1.4 million, which I suppose works out at around about 140K per annum, and, of course, these are costs that are incorporated within the overall democracy and boundary…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I think we're very aware—. There are two major electoral reform pieces of legislation, obviously—the one relating to Senedd reform and this, which is to do with the electoral system itself. They're both independent pieces of legislation, so they both stand in…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Taking that in reverse order, within the Bill, of course, there are provisions in respect of the sort of reporting that normally takes place post elections in terms of the systems that are in place, how that has worked. There's obviously provision in respect…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
I'm satisfied, and I think it covers, really, all the substantive areas. Of course, there was a lot of engagement over it and, again, with very specialist bodies that are engaged within these processes as well. In terms of things that have emerged from it…
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
They will be within the normal range that there is when we introduce regulations. Regulations, if they have very specific costs that go to them, would have those identified within them.
, Finance Committee
Financial implications of the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Bill: Evidence session
Well, there will be areas of secondary legislation, and of course there will be work in respect of the conduct Order itself. I think each of those sets of regulations, when they come, will have a specific costing that goes with them. At this stage, it's…
