NLPG improves electoral registers in Great Britain

02 July 2008, 4:38pm

The NLPG (National Land and Property Gazetteer) is facilitating improvements in the quality of British electoral registers as part of the wider electoral modernisation agenda. Enhancing the integrity and quality of electoral registers is an important step toward assisting effective use of the register and detecting certain types of electoral fraud. The NLPG is a local government project managed by the UK government’s Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and its private sector technology partner, Intelligent Addressing.

The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) recently issued the directive that all electoral registers have to comply with new data standards by 1st of December 2009. The directive sets standards for the formatting of electors’ names, dates of birth and addresses in electoral registers which is based on the UK Address Standard, BS7666, and must include a Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN). In the majority of registers the UPRN will be verified as part of the address validation process using the National Land and Property Gazetteer. The directive follows a recommendation by the Electoral Commission following lengthy consultation with the Ministry of Justice, Political Parties, Electoral Register Officers and software suppliers.

Implementation of the standards is the responsibility of the Electoral Registration Officers in each Local Authority and the MoJ has issued guidance on the process of bringing data up to the required standard. This involves the initiation of a process to convert every electoral register to BS 7666 format and then to match the registers to the NLPG. Any anomalies will be resolved between the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and the Local Authority Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) Custodians in order that the 2009 deadline can be met. Software suppliers will also be involved to ensure their systems can fully support the new standards. Once in place the electoral register data will need to be maintained to the standard, and this is where establishing links with the Local Authority’s LLPG, with access to the NLPG for out of area addresses, will be important.

The data standardisation activity lays the groundwork for the future implementation of the Co-ordinated Online Record of Electors (CORE). The key objectives of CORE is to facilitate effective checking of political party donations and to assist in the detection of certain types of electoral fraud.

“Whilst some authorities already match their Electoral Registers with their LLPGs and hence the NLPG, there are many that do not and we are delighted to be assisting in this process,” said Michael Nicholson, Managing Director of Intelligent Addressing. “CORE will facilitate more efficient and effective access by authorised users to data which they currently gather on a local basis. This is a process that we as custodians of the NLPG understand only too well,” continued Nicholson.

Contact: Gayle Gander, Head of Marketing
+44 (0)207 747 3500
E-mail: ggander@intelligent-addressing.co.uk
www.intelligent-addressing.co.uk

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