 Good morning and welcome to the sixth meeting of 2016. Everyone present is asked to switch off mobile phones and other electronic equipment as they affect the broadcasting system. Some committee members may consult tablets during the meeting because we provide papers in a digital format. Apologies have been received today from Cameron Buchanan. Item 1 is consideration of an affirmative statutory instrument, the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002, designation of persons as Scottish public authorities order 2016. I welcome Jo FitzPatrick, minister for parliamentary business, Andrew Gunn, freedom of information policy officer and Emily Williams, principal legal officer with the Scottish Government. First, we will take evidence in the instrument and in our next agenda item, the minister will move the motion for us to recommend that the instrument is improved. Mr FitzPatrick, do you wish to make an opening statement? Yes, thank you convener. I am very pleased to speak in favour of this motion. Today's order is the second such order laid by this Government. It will further extend the scope of Scotland's freedom of information legislation, which is widely recognised as effectively promoting openness, transparency and accountability. The order proposes to extend freedom of information to a range of organisations, private prison contractors, providers of secure accommodation for children and young people, granted schools, independent special schools and Scottish health innovations limited. Those bodies undertake a range of key public functions, including those relating to security, education, care and health. Bringing those bodies within the scope of freedom of information will increase the public's information rights. Once the order comes into force into effect, the public will have the right to ask those bodies for information under both the Freedom of Information Scotland Act and the Environmental Information Scotland regulations. Scotland's first order under section 5, brought within the scope of FOI, a wide range of arms length organisations established by local authorities to provide leisure, sporting and cultural services. Evidence from the Scottish Information Commissioner on presented in her special report in Parliament last year found that, for most, arms length bodies' request levels stayed the same. The report also found that becoming subject to FOI had not made responding to information requests more or less difficult for the affected bodies. However, the report also noted the importance of allowing adequate time for preparation for designation. It is clearly important, as with any new regulations, to be prepared for its impact from day 1. With that in mind, I am sympathetic towards those responses, particularly from the affected bodies, asking for a delay in the commencement of the order. The order is now proposed to come into effect on 1 September rather than 1 April. Consultation will also shortly be under way on regulations amending the time that is allowed for some bodies to respond to information requests. That is designed to accommodate the closure of schools during holiday periods. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the Scottish Information Commissioner for her commitment to offering to support in the coming months those organisations that are now proposed for inclusion. Once the order comes into force, both ourselves and the commissioner will be closely monitoring its impacts to inform proposals and preparations for future orders. I know that not all, including some who responded to the most recent consultation, are satisfied with the rate of progress in terms of extending coverage. However, I believe that the direction of travel is clear. Indeed, I have already announced the intention to consult on a further order later this year, with the intention of extending FOI to register social landlords. Separately, officials will consider other options for future designation of more bodies, including some of the suggestions that are put forward as part of the recent consultation exercise. I ask the committee to support the motion when the time comes. Thank you very much for that, minister. By the sounds of it, the current extension is not the end of your work from what you have just told us there. We are seeing various moves from south the border in the House of Commons to try and roll back some of the freedom of information legislation there. I take it that it would not be the Scottish Government's intention to follow suit in that regard. I hope that it is clear from the Government's actions in this order, the last order and my indication of future orders that our direction of travel is very different to the direction at Westminster. Thank you very much. I am open to questions. Mr Watson, please. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. Just to expand on the issues and what is supposed to be covered in this change, you mentioned the providers of independent special schools, the private sector, who provide, among other things, contracts for prison, part of the prison service in Scotland. How far do you expect those FOIs to take? Most of those organisations operate either under a subsidiary of a parent company, for instance, Cerco or G4S, and companies like that. How far do you think the FOI information should go? In terms of some of the issues that have been raised in the past by the private operators, the issue about business confidentiality and financial confidentiality of the services that they provide. Could you just expand on what exactly would be covered and how far could someone doing an FOI request on somebody providing a private prison in Scotland? Could they go to the parent company and say that they want information about the details? The information relates to the public sector contracts that are held. Obviously, the legislation needs to be framed in that way. Andy, do you want to add a little bit in terms of... The minister is absolutely right. The extension of coverage is purely in respect of the contract for the provision of a service in respect of HMP Kilmarnock or HMP Addwell in respect of the prisons. It would just cover the contract for that particular service. It wouldn't go further across the CERCO or CEDEX or remit. In relation to the issue about the contract and provision of the contract and the payment for that contract, in relation to CERCO or CEDEX or G4S, in relation to management and other fees that may be charged by the payment organisation, those would not be subject to scrutiny under the FOI request. In relation to the public contract, the element of that would be subject to FOI request? It is possible that there might be some areas that are not clear. Obviously, that is where the Scottish Information Commissioner comes in. That is why it is important that we have that time period to work with the Scottish Information Commissioner so that the bodies that we are trying to cover, all of whom we would have preferred not to be covered, understand their responsibilities. Equally important, the public understands what their rights are. There is a piece of work that we need to do to make sure that that is well understood, and that is one of the reasons why I am keen, particularly in relation to those areas that we are extending coverage. Minister, I welcome the statement that you have made about the phased approach to the extending FOI regulations, particularly the issue about social landlords and bringing them under the FOI request, because there has been a demand for some time to bring organisations' social landlords, particularly in GHA under FOI scrutiny. In relation to some of the future work—I will take this opportunity at the present moment, if you don't mind—in terms of the future work, so that they are clear, would the minister be minded to include voluntary charitable and other organisations who will be delivering contracts on behalf of public bodies now and in the future? For instance, the joint integration programmes where the charitable and voluntary sector have been asked to deliver through contracted basis, and many of those organisations at the present moment are currently exempt from FOI. Will the minister consider how widely we could get FOI information or coverage of FOI in those organisations? We covered in the last session the issue about extending it to arms-length organisations, but, as we now know, a number of health boards, local authorities and others, are now extending contracts to other bodies that are not currently covered under the current FOI regulations. There were two particular areas that the information commissioner asked us to look at in her special report. One was in terms of function, where there was a public function. If we see that a body is carrying out a public function, we should look at extending. The other was loss of rights, which is the argument in terms of housing associations, for instance, where the commissioner and others had argued that there had been a loss of rights. We need to look at those two things when we are deciding how to extend. However, my officials are looking at a wide range of bodies that we might consider extending to. Obviously, the consultation process for that order was wide enough to allow people to suggest other bodies that we need to look at. We need to make sure that we are doing any extension at a rate in which the information commissioner and ourselves can support those bodies coming in. The experience with the leisure trust was very positive. Like anybody else, it was asked to comply to new regulations that were concerned, but, in practice, there was no reason for them to have been concerned because, with proper preparation, they were able to comply and people now have a better understanding of their rights when they want information from a leisure trust. The same goes for other alloys. Most of the alloys in Scotland are covered because they are wholly owned by, but we need to look at whether there is function and, potentially, loss of rights. Anything else, Andrew? Do you want to add them? No, I just reiterate that we are taking an incremental approach, a factor-based approach, on the actual functions at bodies such as you identify in terms of the statutory underpinnings in terms of the public funding. Certainly, suggestions were made during the consultation exercise, which we will take forward. I welcome the minister's positive response in relation to the alloys situation, where there was a lot of fears initially expressed by organisations. Those fears did not have to materialise, and, hopefully, other organisations that we will bring under the scope of the FOI in the future will take that as a positive step forward, rather than viewing it as a negative one. We look forward to further inclusion of organisations in FOI requests. Minister, thank you very much for this. It is a really positive move, but I wonder if you could just give me a little clarification. When we make an announcement at this, the expectation of the public, perhaps, in making freedom of information requests for the prison service, their expectations might be that everything is in scope, but there are still exemptions in the sector. How can we make it clearer to the public perhaps before they make the FOI request that some information is still exempt and some is not? Often, they embark on the process only to be told at a later stage that that information is exempt. I think that there is always going to be, even if an organisation is entirely covered by FOI, such as a local authority, things that are out with scope. It is the responsibility of the authority to inform the member why it is out of scope and to suggest how it could be brought within the scope. I think that the information commissioner is crucial in terms of an important post that we have, so that, if people disagree with what the authority is saying, they have some place independent to go to, for that to be advocated. Is there a case to try to do in advance to show people the scope and nature of information that is accessible through FOI, and perhaps what isn't or is that something that's— We can maybe have a look at—obviously, this is the second order that we've had in terms of extending, so maybe we should be doing a bit of work around that in terms of making sure that FOI can realise exactly what we're doing to raise awareness of the new rights that FOI have. It's largely up to the authority to make clear—obviously, anything that they can do in advance is beneficial—but an authority, one of the obligations under FOI, is that it will be to produce a publication scheme of everything that they hold and are able to make proactively available. Obviously, anything above and beyond that is subject to request, and in their response that they should either be provided with it or the authority should set out clearly why they are not able to receive the information in terms of identifying the exemptions and setting out why they believe the exemptions apply with ultimate recourse or appeal to the information commission. Andrew Mayer, an important point there about information being proactively released, because I think that one of the maybe unintended benefits of freedom of information is that it's resulted in a lot of public authorities taking the decision to proactively release information in order to reduce the number of FOI requests that are required, so I think that's a positive outcome that was maybe not expected when the legislation was passed, so there's now huge amounts of information out there that people can go and access without having to resort to FOI, and hopefully the new bodies will consider that as well going forward. In which case, we move on to item 2, where we formally consider the motion that this instrument be approved. I'll invite the minister to move motion S4M 1, 5, 2, 3, 5, and the committee has up to 90 minutes to debate the motion with the minister. Please note that officials may not participate in this debate. After the debate, the committee must take a decision on the motion. Minister, can I ask you to move the motion please? That's motion S4M 1, 5, 2, 3, 5. Formally moved. Does anyone wish to enter the debate? In which case, do members agree to motion S4M 1, 5, 2, 3, 5? Thank you very much. Can I suspend the meeting briefly to allow the witnesses to leave? Thank you. We move on to agenda item 3, which is to consider four negative statutory instruments. The first negative instrument is the local government governing Scotland Act 2004, remuneration amendment regulations 2016 at SSI 2016-6. Members will see from the clerks note that the instrument seeks to increase the level of remuneration payable to local authority councillors by 1 per cent, which will increase from 1 April 2016. Do members have any comments? I declare that I have a family member who is currently serving local authority councillor. I have the same declaration, convener. My wife is a serving councillor in North Lancer councillor. Is the committee content to agree that it has no recommendations to make to Parliament in relation to this instrument? Are we agreed? Thank you. The next negative instrument is the Scottish local government elections amendment order 2016 at SSI 2016-7. Members will see from the clerks note that the order makes provision relating to the reduction of the voting age for local elections. In addition, it also makes minor changes in relation to the appointment of polling and count staff. Do members have any comments? Is the committee content to agree that it has no recommendations to make to Parliament in relation to this instrument? Are we agreed? Our third negative instrument is the representation of the people absent voting at local government elections Scotland amendment regulations 2016, SSI 2016-8. Members will see from the clerks note that the regulations make further consequential provisions relating to the reduction of the voting age to 16 for local elections. Do members have any comments? Is the committee content to agree that it has no recommendations to make to Parliament in relation to this instrument? Are we agreed? Finally, the last negative instrument is the local government pension scheme Scotland amendment regulations SSI 2016-32. In the clerks note, it states that the regulations make amendments to the local government pension scheme Scotland regulations 2014 to cover the cost capping of employer contributions and the requirement to have a scheme actuary. The definition of revaluation adjustment has also been amended to specify the percentage as being the change in prices. Do members have any comments on this one? Is the committee content to agree that it has no recommendations to make to Parliament in relation to this instrument? Are we all agreed? We now move on to agenda item 4, which is an evidence session from the follow-up from the Scottish local government elections in 2012. I welcome Mary Pitcaithle, convener and Chris Highcock, secretary of the electoral management board for Scotland. Ms Pitcaithle, do you want to make an opening statement? No, there is nothing that I think I need to take the committee's time with this morning. Do we are happy to answer any questions that the committee may have? Okay, thank you very much. Obviously, there were lessons that needed to be learned from the 2012 local government elections, as there always are. Not so many lessons from some previous ones. How are you progressing to ensure that any of the foibles that were in place in 2012 have been ironed out in order that we have a smoother 2017 election as possible? 2012 was actually a very successful election. Obviously, I am not talking about from the point of view of the politicians who maybe did not get the result that they wanted or whatever, but from our point of view, as administrators, everything went very smoothly. We were particularly nervous perhaps beforehand about the e-counting system and whether it would stand up to the rigours of the count, but it did, and we had no concerns about that in the end of the day. I suppose that the biggest lesson for us out of all that was the extent to which preparation is key to the delivery of an efficient, effective and trusted election. We have been putting in a lot of preparation. Every year, we have different elections that we have to deal with. They are all run under different systems, they all get different voting processes for counting. It is not a continuous exercise, but we have devoted time since 2012 in the EMB and, particularly back in the election offices in the local authorities, to just keeping an eye on 2017 and making sure that we were taking on board all the lessons. In terms of those different voting systems and the STV system for local government, can you remind us of how many spoiled ballots there were in 2012? Do we have to ensure that there is a further job of education to ensure that folk understand that STV system and how they use their votes? Gradually, the number of spoiled papers has been reducing at every election. We have always put an eye to that and the need for voter education works very closely with the Electoral Commission to make sure that whatever we feel is necessary is undertaken to ensure that voters understand how to vote in any particular election. It is confusing. People sometimes get confused over how many votes they have and is this an election where they use across or they use numbers or whatever. At the key to it is making sure that we give very clear messages and the commission takes a lead on that, but the message has to be clear to voters about how they can ensure for themselves that they do not run the risk of their vote not being counted. In response to your first question, I do not have the number of spoiled papers from 2012. I do not have the statistics that we have now, but I can certainly pass them on via the clock after the meeting. You talked about the education. How do we ensure that staff at polling places are trained themselves to ensure that they can help a voter in that regard, using the most simple language, of course. Nobody can work at a polling station unless they have been through a proper training course with us. That happens normally in the week before polling day so that it is very current and people have had a very recent experience of being trained in what to say to voters and how to support and assist voters. I will tell you a bit about what is happening in Edinburgh in that respect. We have material that is produced nationally and we tailor that in our local circumstance to ensure that staff who are either presenting officers or polling clerks have the best training that we can give them and the most up-to-date and recent training that is available to them so that there is a consistent message given to voters everywhere. Certainly, the process is that every poll clerk, every presiding officer, goes through a face-to-face training session with trainers and those from the elections team that are delivering the election. For each election, we are cognisant of the different voting systems that are in place for the local elections where it is an STV voting system. The last major one in 2012, polling clerks, polling staff, were told to say to voters, as they handed the paper over, to remember this time its numbers. That has been repeated at subsequent by-elections throughout Scotland, as far as we are aware, since then. The process, the number of poll-bots, we have seen come down it in that period as well. Thank you for that. In terms of the end of the process, the electronic counting that takes place, which often poses some difficulty for party activists in terms of the fact that they cannot really see what is going on, and certainly causes problems particularly in terms of the postal aspects of looking to see where there may be some fraud going on. How do we ensure that those folks who are looking at the countings to make sure that everything is going okay? How can we assure them that everything is being done right to A, take fraud out of the system and B, that electronic counting is completely and utterly trustworthy? If I deal with the point about e-counting and maybe Mr Highcock can deal with the issue about fraud, particularly in relation to absent voting. In terms of e-counting, we have not done this nationally since 2012, but there have been a number of by-elections since then, which have been counted electronically and others that have been counted manually. At each of those opportunities since 2012, we have been at pains to ensure that those attending the by-election count would have as good a view as possible of what is happening. More recently, during the month of January and in February, there has been a whole exercise carried out to ensure that every local authority, every returning officer, has had the opportunity to take a team of their own staff along to Pentland House in Edinburgh, where there is a mock account that can be carried out. That is not a big bulk test of the system, but it is a test of the system that has recently been procured by the Scottish Government to enable us to carry out the count in 2017. As part of that, my experience was that we were very clear about how the observer—whether it is a candidate or an agent or an observer from the commission or elsewhere—would have a clear view at different stages of the process of the votes. If you think back to 2012, you will remember that ballot papers had to be kept flat, unfolded and put into a very odd-looking receptacle that was a ballot box for that occasion. When they came out, there were quite a number of complaints that they were so tidy and stacked carefully and beautifully in those ballot boxes that nobody could see very much of what they looked like. This time round, ballot papers will be folded and will be put into normal ballot boxes, so that is much more familiar for the voter, obviously. At the end of the process, when those ballot boxes come back to our respective count centres, the ballot papers will be unfolded. There is then an opportunity for people to see at that stage what is happening when the ballot papers are unfolded. I know how good elected members and agents are at being able to take an awful lot of information out of a scan of that sort of process. There will then be an opportunity to look at the papers as they go through the scanner, so each paper goes through a scanner in a relatively short period of time, but enough time for people to see that paper. Obviously, when any potentially spoil paper, or any paper that throws up any question as to its validity, or as to the voter's intention, is shown on a large screen. I think that I am taking everybody back to the experience of 2012. It comes up on the large screen and, again, there is an opportunity to look at that paper in a lot of detail. We try to build into the process as many opportunities as possible for observers, including candidates and agents, to have a proper look at things. Can I take you to postal voting in that regard? Obviously, there is the match-up of the signatures, which, again, if there is doubt, go to individual invigilators, if I remember rightly. Obviously, at certain points, people's signatures may change, they may become a little less steady and a little more shaky, but there are some folk who, obviously, are a bit naughty and fill in papers for others and sign for others. Sometimes that process itself is done very, very quickly indeed, and it does not give those folks there the opportunity to put a halt to something if they think that there is something not quite right. How do we ensure that we get the opportunity for observers to say, hang on a second, I do not think that this is quite there? The process—I think that you talked about the integrity of the postal voting process, as you point out. That is reliant on the verification of signatures and dates of birth on the postal vote statements that are sent in with the ballot papers that come back. There is an encouragement for all return officers to make sure that observers are given a full opportunity to observe and to ask about the process as it is on-going. Usually, the matching of the signatures is done electronically, so that the system will scan the postal vote statement and compare that signature with the reference signature that exists in the system. It is only ever rejected if a human being looks at that and makes an assessment by eye of the quality of the signature. The people doing that have generally been through training. We have had the forensic services from the police to train us on signature recognition to understand what is a good signature and what is a bad signature. You mentioned the deterioration of signatures over time, and we are particularly aware of that with the elderly and the infirm. We have been going through a process now that every signature is renewed after five years. As our signature ages, people get a reminder and they have to complete a new form with a fresh signature and date of birth. Those signatures are now gradually getting refreshed, so that has been going on for the last couple of years. However, the key thing there is that it is making sure that people are given the opportunity to intervene and to ask questions as that goes on. If it is something that is an issue at any particular opening, we will look at that, but we have no complaints that I am aware of that people have been prevented from asking questions. No, I have not heard that either, but I would say that if somebody feels that it is all happening too quickly and perhaps people are getting into a rhythm and getting into a process where they are not necessarily explaining to anybody or listening exactly what they are doing, then I think that just speak to one of the officials and make sure that your concern is expressed. I do not think that last year I heard anybody actually sit behind me or stand behind me and watch what I was doing, but the screens do face the public. Those who are entitled to be there in the process are there, so the screens are there. I would not put any barrier to anybody standing on my shoulder really to see over my shoulder what I am doing. I would be more than happy to explain that and why a signature is being rejected or a date of birth is being rejected. We only reject where we feel that it is absolutely necessary. For example, the example of an older person whose signature may have changed, we will always look at what is the date of birth as well. Sometimes people say that this person is in their 90s or even over 100. The signature is not the same, but it is substantially the same. It follows the same pen path and it has the same characteristics. That would be fine. I find that it is younger people whose signatures change most. It is incredible how, between the age of maybe 18 when they originally applied for an absent vote and 21 when they are casting their vote, their signature has gone terribly floury or whatever. It can be quite difficult to see that the signature is the same, but we have had some training in that. It is always our intention to include votes rather than to exclude them. There is a tension between making it inclusive and making sure that the system has the right degree of integrity, but the focus is always on including votes rather than excluding them. We could probably have a debate about that as well, but let us not go there at the present moment. Now that the electoral registration officer is entitled to write to somebody whose vote has been rejected, I have found that that has had a huge impact on the number of signatures that are doubtful. Thank you for that. That is very useful. John Wilson, please. Good morning. Just to go back to the issue about the spoiled ballot papers for local government elections, I know that that question always comes up because of the Po-Hampton 2007. I have done some anorak analysis of the situation comparing it to Northern Ireland electoral system and found that in Po-Hampton 2007, particularly for local government elections, there were less spoiled papers as a proportion to the ones in Northern Ireland, which had a similar type of system for almost 30 years. There is an issue there, and it is one of those concerns that always comes up. Has there been anorak analysis done by the electoral management board in relation to the number of spoiled papers between 2007 and 2012, so that it is quite clear that the numbers are reducing? Yes, absolutely. We had a relatively small number of spoiled papers in 2012, certainly a lot less than in 2007. Voters were using the system for the second time, so it was much more familiar to them. Much more effort had been put into voter education, but it was also two separate papers, so the mistake that people made in 2007, when everything was on the one paper, I think, was able to be remedied. My follow-up question to that is the number of spoiled papers that are deliberately spoiled, not the ones that are actually ones where people have put an X instead of a one or a two, because I have been at counts where people have written novellas in the back of a ballot paper, but just put an arrow in the box of the person who is writing the novella about, and it is just trying to break that down in terms of the number of spoiled ballot papers due to deliberately spoiled ballot papers compared to ballot papers that are incorrectly marked. We are always looking for the voter's intention, and if the voter's intention can be clear, then we would allow that vote to be counted. It is only when it is unclear that it would not count, or where it has made no mark, or where it has signed the paper and therefore potentially could be identified, or where it has made more than one mark, so it has made two or three crosses, none of which would convey a first preference, for example. So there are very clear rules that govern the grounds on which a vote can be rejected, and the analysis is done on that basis. It is how many of each of those categories do you have, so we would have very clear statistics that would show that. As to whether or not somebody intends their vote to be spoiled because they write something on it, sometimes they write stuff on it, but actually they have also made a clear vote, so they might have expressed some rude comments or whatever, but there is also a clear vote in favour of their preferred candidate. In which case, unless they could be identified by what they have written, we would just ignore that. In relation to the request for abstent or postal vote applications, have you seen an increase in the number of requests, or has that remained constant? Or has there been a constant increase? The increase was particularly marked in the lead-up to the independence referendum in 2014, where the proportion of postal votes grew very dramatically. As a consequence, that level has stayed quite high and has not by large increased. It has been a slight blip where people have requested to go back to an in-person vote, but there certainly was a definite uptick in postal applications as a result of the independence referendum. One of the questions that the convener asked in relation to the polling station, when someone goes in, Mr Highcock, you have made reference to the fact that polling clerks would indicate to the voters that the voting system was a numerical voting system rather than just across. Are you clear that the information that is being provided to absent voters through the postal ballot system is sufficient to make voters aware that they have to do a numerical voting system rather than just across in the ballot box? The main information that is contained at the top of the ballot paper, and of course the ballot paper follows exactly the specification from the legislation, so it will say very clearly that the voter is not to use across and is to use numbers. We would also potentially, if we use a one-piece mailer for our postal ballots, there would be information on that in a graphic form that would show voters expressing their preferences and numbers. One of the issues that comes up frequently in the AMB's reports and the Electoral Commission's reports are issues regarding the role of political parties of raising awareness of the process and also the date of the election, because despite the 85 per cent turnout in 2014 referendum, we saw the Westminster election as a drop compared to previous local government elections. I have noticed that more and more local authorities are prohibiting the display of street furniture posters, and it seems to be something that the majority of local authorities now prohibit the use of street furniture to advertise the election campaign. That was one of the main indicators to many of the public that our election was actually taking place. Has there been any discussion about how you are asking political parties to raise awareness, but at the same time, you are restricting the right of political parties to advertise that there is an election take place? The decisions that are taken on the use of street furniture are taken by the local authority as the local authority. There is nothing to do with returning officers. We would still have the opportunity to ensure that, as returning officers, there is information. For example, we would potentially use radio adverts. We would have banners across the high street that refer to the date of the election. We would do things of that nature, alongside the work that is done by the Electoral Commission with the brochures that end up on everybody's doorstep. There is a whole range of ways in which, as returning officers, separate to our responsibilities to our local authorities, we would try to raise awareness. We have discussed it in answer to your specific question at the political party's panel. There has been discussion about that, but it is a matter for each local authority. Last time, more than two thirds of authorities had elected not to allow the use of lampposts, etc. There are very good reasons for that, but it means that there have to be other opportunities to ensure that the date is widely known. We return officers to have a responsibility to promote participation, and there is a widespread effort to do that. As Mary says, often we will use street furniture. We put lampposts around Edinburgh to highlight the fact that the electoral event is about to happen and to encourage people to contact if they are not registered and how to participate on the day if that is necessary. At the moment, a lot of focus goes on the participation of 16 or 17-year-olds with the extension of the franchise, with work going on at the moment throughout Scotland to make people aware in schools of the electoral events and how to make sure that they are on the registers and to work through that. Just for the record, the spoil ballot papers in elections were 2,300, 0.77%, 2,700, 1.83%, and 2,012, 1.71%. Willie Coffey, please. I wonder if I could just ask about the electronic voting system again. The last one I was at is local council by election. It was about a year ago and it was incredibly efficient and very quick, but I felt that there was a loss of the ability amongst candidates and agents to see the process unfolding. Papers were pretty much bundled up and thrown into the sausage machine and the result came out. It was kind of impossible to see the papers. As I recall, I think that they were even stacked face down so that folk could not see the information. Is there a requirement in that respect to be face down or face up or is it optional? There is no requirement that once the polls have closed, there is no requirement to keep the ballot papers face down at all, so that the ballot papers will be face up. Ballot papers are kept face down at postal vote openings because the voting is still in the way and the requirement to keep the partner voting secret until polls close. Once the polls have closed, everyone is in liberty and encouraged to keep the ballot papers face up to allow the scrutiny of observers and candidates and agents. In the scanning process, the paper is face up. It will come out of the scanner at the point where you would be most able to see it face up, but it is quite fast, yes. That is why there are other opportunities such as when the papers are being unfolded at the receipt of the box, so what we would call the ballot box opening area. There are different processes that allow you to have a look at that. I have not used an electronic system for a by-election at all. I think that people have appreciated the chance to be able to see it in the traditional way of being opened at the table and being counted, but I know that if you anticipate a tight result in a by-election, for example, then doing that would simply not be reasonable at all, so people would use the electronic system for a by-election as well. What that tends to mean is that more people are trying to crowd round a table to see what is happening at the scanning system. That is exactly what happened with the one that was possible for any of the parties to have a look at. It would have been helpful for us to have a more traditional opening process to see the gathering up into the sausage machine. That will certainly be the difference this time from 2012, when the papers came out of the boxes very neat and were able to just be bundled straight into the scanner. You know, just lift a bundle and put it in. This time round, they will all have to be opened up, not un-enveloped, but opened up. That will be an opportunity for people to see. We will certainly be stressing to those who are doing that, that they should make sure that they do that face-up. There is always a tension between how long these things take and what degree of scrutiny it is possible for observers. The board has been involved recently in some work with the Electro-Office of Northern Ireland looking at their count process, where all the STV counts are done manually. They literally take days because you are having to go through the various stages and transfer in votes. If you want the count concluded within a reasonable timeframe, the electronic count is the way to go. Certainly, the administrators in Northern Ireland will be very keen to have an electronic count. It is others that are less keen to move beyond that. The real-time display system is a bit confusing. It might just be me that is confused, but it did not seem to me to be updating in real-time. It looked as though it was doing in phases and steps. At one point, it just stopped all together, despite papers still processing their way through it. People were confused about what it was telling them and how up-to-date it was. I think that it needs to be clearly communicated to observers exactly what is being displayed. The display stops once 80 per cent of the ballot papers have been scanned, because the leader on the first preferences does not always win the election in a by-election. Second preferences can come into play, and it might look like someone is very much in the lead, but then, when the other transfers go through, they may be disappointed. We never updated until finally, though, it just stopped and never changed. That went down at that point. For the system that is currently in development and being tested at the moment, ready for the 2017 elections, the information display has been enhanced greatly, so there is a whole different measure of information that will be displayed. There are new reports that will be produced, so that is one of the criticisms and one of the observations of the system that has been taken into account in the specifications for the new system that will be in place in May 2017. I advise members that, in August, there will be a bulk test of the system in Perth, so they will be given an opportunity to go on to that and to see how it will work. Before we move off, Mr Coffey and I talked about folk crowding around tables. One of the things that has happened in my night of the woods is that council are now taking place in smaller places than they did previously, which creates that difficulty of crowding. Probably, I would say, adds to the tension of the entire process for everyone, I would say, because people are elbowing one another to try and observe what is going on. Do you make any recommendations to your fellow returning officers about the size of venues for counts? If you don't, do you think that you should? No, we do, and we discuss it with them as well other than specific recommendations, but we would always discuss with them the benefit of ensuring that their count centre is quite simply big enough to be able to cope with what they will have to accommodate all the machines, as well as all the racking, and, most importantly, the people who are entitled to observe the whole process. I think that sometimes the availability of venues has to come into play, and you will find that there are potentially not the same opportunities as we used to have when sports centres, for example, were cost-driven. Not in my experience at all, because the cost of most counts would be covered, but for local government elections, those sorts of costs are covered by the local authority themselves. I am not aware of any decisions being cost-driven, but more about availability. I will follow on from what Willie Coffey asked about. It is about the new e-counting system. It says in our notes that it has been specified and built to build on what happened in 2012. You have touched on some of the things that are going to change, but I wondered what improvements were doing to be necessary and how that affected the specification. Is it going to be very different or minor? One of the issues in 2012 was perceived at the time to be a very successful event. There were no questions about integrity, no major complaints about the process and everyone was happy with what had gone on by and large. Our concern was to try to repeat that process as far as possible and to enhancements where we could. Working with the Scottish Government the contract for the 2017 elections and provision of the e-counting system has been managed in quite a difficult procurement process—difficult in terms of a complex and rigorous procurement process. We have now appointed the contractors to deliver that at CGI. It used to be Logica, the major provider. They are in partnership with IDOX, who are the same software providers that did the system in 2012. They have the experience and they know exactly how it went in 2012 and are working through the process now to deliver it in 2017. A lot of the system and the process is the same. It is the process and the protocols that have been employed in local authorities that have had by-elections since then. People understand what is involved. Observers are used to that system and return officers and staff are used to that system. A lot of the changes that are coming in are really about reporting and information and what is available to observers, particularly changing the process that the ballot papers will be put in boxes folded. That will give a great opportunity to see what is coming out of the boxes. It is certainly something that we are having to look at as well because the opening of the boxes and the unfolding of the papers will take time to prepare them for scanning, but that is an opportunity for observers to scrutinise what is on the papers at that point. Undoubtedly, it slows down the whole process, so the counts will take longer than they did in 2012. The view was that it was better to err on the side of the account being a bit longer but with more opportunity for scrutiny. It is also much more voter friendly, to be honest. Voters were not particularly comfortable with being asked to keep their ballot paper flat. There were some concerns expressed in polling stations that meant that people might be able to see how people had voted. There were concerns that the ballot boxes did not look as secure as the traditional ballot boxes that we used. From that point of view, erring on the side of putting the interests of the voter first and also for those who are observing at the count at the end, it was felt that the trade-off between that change potentially slowing things down a fair bit. We will have to resource with people that whole opening process, which is a whole new step in the count, which will slow us down and add to cost as well. However, it was felt that that was a more appropriate change to make that would help the voter and help observers as well. I am interested in your views on the modernisation of the electoral law and the impact of Scotland in relation to the individual electoral registration. There has been a lot of concern about missing voters and that there could be possibly hundreds of thousands of voters, especially private-reader students and minorities, who could be missed off the system and on five it could be about 15,000 voters. What has been done to address that and to minimise the impact? There has been a huge amount of work done to ensure that everybody who is entitled to register to vote is able to do so and is encouraged to do so as well. From memory, my colleague EROs on the EMB have stressed that, before anybody would come off the register, there would have been nine contacts with them or nine attempted contacts with them. Sometimes we are discovering that the people just are not there, so they might have been there before, but they have moved or they have left the country or they do not wish to be registered rather than that they have not been captured in the process. There may be people who have been missed, but over that process of contacting them nine times, the view is that that is quite a rigorous exercise in trying to capture people, but certainly the numbers are down. That could be people expressing their decision not to register. The whole process around registration is designed to ensure that people can vote and can register to vote, but also to ensure that people who are not entitled to do not register as well. It is an opt-in process. Obviously, the only way to ensure that the register is as complete as possible is to potentially move to an opt-out process, but that is not the way in which registration has gone. It is much more in IER terms about claiming your vote and people may decide not to claim their vote. The state of the register now is everyone who is currently registered. There is evidence to prove that those people exist. On the basis that they identify the evidence that they provided through departments of work and pensions or other information, we know that everyone on the register really does exist, whereas before there was not that evidence. As Mary said, each of those people who have now come off the register have been contacted with actual people going to the door and knocking on occasion, trying to find where they are. The issues around students and others, that has been addressed through work with the universities and making sure that students particularly are clear that where they are registered, they may be registered in two places where they register at parental homes and at universities, but now with the IER, as I said, we know that these people do exist. The background to IER has been about improving the integrity of the register. It is not about excluding people. It is about making sure that those people are there and should be there. If we look at that university situation in particular, where in halls of residence previously certain universities used to register everyone to ensure that they were on the register, that of course is not happening anymore. That is right. It is the individual's responsibility now, just as it is in a household. And talking to others or even for ourselves in terms of our own political activity, sometimes trying to get to somebody in a hall of residence is not nearly impossible. I think that it is very difficult to ensure that those folks have got the right and know their right to be able to register to vote. Maybe that is a little bit of a regressive step, and I do not know if you would comment on that. I think that we would just be anxious to do what we could to ensure that our electoral registration officer colleagues are able to complete the register as much as is possible for them. For example, we would support them in giving them access to information about young voters in our area. That gives them a good start. They know who to expect in the 16-17 population to come on the register. They can chase up those who do not. I think that they find that kind of support from local authorities very helpful. Obviously, in terms of trying to find folks and trying to get them to register, there are very obvious places where it is more difficult to get people to register to vote. Of course, sometimes those places also have low turnouts. George Street harbour in my constituency is very difficult in terms of the housing and the transients of the population. Some of the populations are not so transient, mainly socially excluded areas, where registration is not so high. Do you think that your colleagues do enough in terms of targeting the resource that they have to ensure that they go into those areas to explain and to help folk and to let them know about their rights in terms of registration? I think that it is not just the Electoral Registration Office colleagues. It is the Electoral Commission. I have a large role in that. They certainly have a campaign every year in the legal speech electoral event to focus on registration. That is targeted on particularly segments of society who have traditionally lower registration rates. They take it a great effort to look at those people who are new on the register at young people, at those in the forces, at those who are overseas voters and others. There is a lot of material that is particularly targeted on those sectors of the population. The return officers and electoral registration officers also do things and target the information at particular areas. At the moment, there is a lot of work going on into schools and that we hope will filter out to broader parts of the society. We also target particular areas of the cities and other communities. I think that the schools are fine. Now that we are moving to votes at 16, it is much easier to start folk on a path, if you like. However, it is people who have, for whatever reason, are not on the register, who may have been on the register previously and come off. They may have moved and not done anything about it. Folk who get the official letter through their door and think, oh, I am not even going to open that. Those people exist. We do know that this is more likely in certain areas and others. What I would be keen to see and to get your reassurance on is that the targeting is being done right to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to register and everybody then has the right to cast a vote. By virtue of the fact that the EROs have to follow up those who follow off the register and try to get them back on. If it is true that in certain areas those numbers would be more significant than in others, that is where the majority of their work will be done. From my point of view, I expect to report regularly from our community learning and development teams about what they have been doing to ensure that people understand what the deadlines are for registration, etc. I have had a very heartening report recently from my leaving care team in the council and the social work service who have made very, very worthwhile efforts to ensure that care leavers are registering to vote. They might not have been caught at school, but we will make sure that we speak to them. Those have resulted in high levels of registration from a group that would traditionally potentially be excluded or would not choose to go out of their way to register. Those are the sorts of things. It is a whole community effort, really, not just the EROs. We would do whatever we could to support them. I would expect nothing less from corporate parents. To follow up on that issue about the registration numbers, Mary, you indicated that the registration numbers are down. Can you tell me what you are comparing that with? We know in the lead-up to the referendum in 2014 that there was a record number of new registrations to vote. Are you comparing it to the 2014 referendum? Clearly, some figures were banding around that almost half a million new people had registered to vote in that referendum. It would be interesting to find out what level of drop-off we are talking about. The convener made reference to certain communities, and I have been involved in the local government committee for a number of years. I have examined the issue about the 5 per cent, the 20 per cent of particular communities who do not register to vote. That was a consistent factor. However, my understanding is that, in the lead-up to the referendum in 2014, we saw a record number of registrations, particularly from those communities that did not traditionally register to vote. That would be the case. Across the country, the numbers of people who registered were the highest ever. The electorate on referendum day was the highest ever electorate. The increase was fairly consistent. There would still have been fewer people registered as a percentage of the population in some parts of the country than in others, but generally there was an increase. We are looking at that as a high watermark. What has happened since then with the roll-out of individual registration has had the result of seeing the figures drop. I think that what is important is what will be the figure at polling day, because there are still opportunities for people to vote. The electoral commission and local authorities are currently— A verification. Surely it would be four weeks before polling day, because that is the last date for registration. Absolutely. Yes, I have, but what would be the number of people entitled to vote as at polling day? The lead-up to that deadline for registration is a very busy period. I think that we are hoping not necessarily as busy as it was in September 2014, when we had offices open during the night to process those who turned up at the last minute. The figure at the moment is not going to be the same as the figure at the registration deadline. There are still people being captured. As more and more information is in the media about when polling day is, the electoral commission is about to have a campaign that will make a specific point of saying what the registration deadline is, and I think that their strap line is, you will not be able to vote unless you vote, unless you register. Sometimes people just do not understand the connection between the two. I think that there is increasingly a move, as Mary Senn under IAR, right across the UK that registration is no longer a once-a-year event. It is not just that the canvas happens and then that is it. There is a feeling more increasingly that it is an event-driven process. Over the year, there can be ebbs and flows in the registration, and the proximity of an election or a referendum can drive new registrations onto the register. Was there any thought given to perhaps issuing postal vote application forms almost as a standard practice, even in the reminder process? You were saying that there are sometimes line reminders, Mary, to people to register. Do we ever issue postal application forms? All the forms for registration include a box to tick if you want a postal vote. I mean the form to people and again it is still an opt-in process. It is. I mean political parties, I think it is up to the individual whether they want to request a postal vote. Postal vote as a process brings a lot of work to return officers and others. I think that political parties like the postal vote process. It tends to support turn-out. The turn-out of postal voters generally holds up even when the other turn-out is lower down. I know that political parties make an effort themselves to provide postal voting application forms on their own format to voters. The system could probably intervene to really improve turnout if it systematically issued postal vote applications. I think that would be a major policy direction if we were to promote universal postal voting, which is beyond our re-emittering. A lot of the times you are writing anyway with invitations to register, so why don't postal vote application form in with a letter? I think that people might then regard it as almost an encouragement to do this, whereas that is not our role. Our role is to facilitate it if people choose to do that. I am going to play devil's advocate. I always do, as folk know. Yesterday, some of the anoraks among us watched primaries taking place in New Hampshire in the United States, with some polling stations there, with huge queues as the polls closed, where folk had the right to register on the day, not only to register to go for a certain party, but also to register to vote on the day. Could we cope with something like that here if somebody was to turn up on a polling day who wanted to exercise a vote who was not on the register? If there is sufficient time to institute a change as significant as that, we would have to cope with it. We would be able to cope with it. There would need to be greater use of electronic registers, for example. There would need to be all sorts of changes to our processes made. Anything of that nature that was introduced without a significant lead-in time would be risky. Having said that, I remember speaking to colleagues from Canada about the process that they have, where there is the potential to register right up until polling day. There is also associated with that a much greater focus on people being able to prove who they are by the use of driving licences or identity cards, for example. The evidence that I saw suggested that that tends to exclude certain groups much more than others. It is much easier for some people to come in, open their wallet and bring out driving licences and all sorts of forms of identification. It is much more difficult for others. The groups that you were speaking of earlier are likely to be excluded. Anything that requires a greater degree of identification can work against certain groups in the community who are able to supply that type of identification. Potentially, some form of national identity scheme is associated with something— Now that you are playing devil's advocate, I speak to you. Mr Halicock, did you want to come in there? No, just to agree. Another point is that the date of registration to participate in an election varies tremendously in different parts of the world. It was interesting to look at the European elections in 2014 to notice that, in some countries, the deadline for registration is actually in December prior to the May elections, and there is a very broad sway of what the point is when the line is drawn on who can vote. Finally, Ms Pick-Aithle, you talked about if we moved to an electronic register. We are still immensely paper-based in terms of conducting elections here. Do you think that you could cope with changes in that regard? I would say that those changes are probably almost, well, not probably, they are inevitable. I was a member of the Arbosnot commission some years ago, which was set up by the Scottish Government and the UK Government to look at voting systems and boundaries. One of the conclusions that we reached was that, by this time—looking ahead, that was probably at least 10, maybe 15 years ago—by this time, we would all be voting electronically, the registers would all be electronically, everything would be done electronically. We could not conceive that it is still being a paper-based system in the way that it is now, but the reality is that issues around integrity and security will always have to be considered as paramount in any move towards a much more electronic-based system. I am not sufficiently technically knowledgeable to know how far away we are from being able to do that, but there is only one country in the world who has moved to full online voting. I think that that is Estonia or Latvia. It is one of these Eastern European countries. They would say that it is absolutely fine and it is foolproof, but there are other situations where countries have piloted those sorts of things and have decided that it is not yet sufficiently robust to be able to satisfy people as to the integrity of that and the fact that the election, as some political parties would argue, can be easily stolen. I understand that Estonia has 100 per cent Wi-Fi cover, so it is maybe them. I thank you very much for a very useful evidence session today, and I now close this meeting.