Book Description

This is the eleventh inquiry by the Committee on Standards in Public Life with this particular report reviewing the work of the Electoral Commission. The Commission itself was established as an independent statutory body on 30 November 2000, with a mandate to review or examine such matters as electoral administration, and the conduct of elections and standards of propriety in financing political parties. All these issues have been of recent public concern, and the Committee believes it is important to ask whether the Commission's current mandate, governance arrangements and accountability framework are appropriate for the purpose required of the Commission. The Committee has set out 41 recommendations, including: that the mandate of the Commission should be amended and refocused so that it has two principal statutory duties: (i) as regulator of political party funding and campaign expenditure in the UK; (ii) and as a regulator of electoral administration in Great Britain; further, that is should decentralize responsibility for monitoring and regulating campaign and constituency expenditure in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to regional offices; it should report to Parliament annually on standards of electoral administration; it should have no involvement in electoral boundary matters or have a role in undertaking policy development in relation to electoral legislation; that the Commission should undertake detailed research into the scale of electoral fraud in the UK. The publication is divided into 5 chapters with appendices; Chapter 1: Introduction and context; Chapter 2: Mandate of the Electoral Commission; Chapter 3: Governance of the Electoral Commission; Chapter 4: Accountability of the Electoral Commission; Chapter 5: Integrity of the electoral process