A number of issues were identified with regard to the General Election held in June 2017.
The Council jointly commissioned, with the Electoral Commission, an Independent Investigation to identify how these issues arose and to recommend what it should do to address them. We also produced a report which identifies what action it has already taken and what we will be doing to improve the service. These were considered by Council on 25 September 2017.
Following Dr Smith’s report a further Independent Investigation was commissioned by the Chief Executive into the operational management capability within the elections process. This report concluded that there were a series of issues which resulted in 2017 general election process errors which were not the fault of any one individual. The conclusions of the report were accepted and these issues have since been addressed.
Dr Smith’s report and the Council’s response was accepted and Dr Smith was invited to make a return visit to assess progress in January 2018.
Following his return visit Dr Smith has produced his final report and the Council has responded to it.