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There are no plans. However, the Electoral Administration Act 2006 introduced a new, explicit requirement for Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to take all steps that are necessary for the purpose of complying with their duty to maintain the electoral registers. These steps, as set out in the legislation, include sending the canvass form more than once, making house to house inquiries in connection with the canvass, making contact by such other means as the ERO thinks appropriate with a person who does not have an entry in the register, and inspecting any record that the ERO is permitted by law to inspect. These records are those held by the local authority and include council tax, land and property, housing benefit and educational where available. It is for each ERO to decide on the best steps to use in conjunction with their local knowledge to ensure that requirements for making contact with persons and maintaining the register are complied with.The Government remain concerned about the need to address levels of under-registration in Great Britain. To this end, we have recently tabled amendments to the Political Parties and Elections Bill, that will allow the Secretary of State to pilot data matching schemes, under which public authorities will provide registration officers with information to assist them in maintaining an accurate and comprehensive register. In addition, we plan to introduce secondary legislation to enable EROs in areas where there are two-tiers of local government to be able to access data held by the higher tier to help them identify individuals who are not registered to vote. This will mirror arrangements in place for EROs in single tier areas. |