The admission by a senior civil servant that the Labour government had lost control of public expenditure in three departments shows how the example I gave in December was but part of a wider pattern:
A significant increase in the pay of some Returning Officers was quietly introduced by the then Labour government ahead of this year’s general election but no estimate was made as to what the costs would be … The government has admitted in response to a series of freedom of information requests that no trace can be found of any calculations being made as to what the change in rules would cost.
Somewhat worryingly though, this spending of extra money without knowing how much it would be took place in the Ministry of Justice, which isn’t one of the three departments said civil servant was talking about.
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4 Comments
What were they paying them extra for? Managing the counts ‘extra carefully’?
AT – perhaps it was performance-related pay linked to the result.
You know, guys, you could just follow the link Mark posted to his earlier article where he [i]tells[/i] you what they were paid extra for. 😉
If you do, you’ll find it was essentially for doing the same job as before, either better or worse. Kind of like a banker’s bonus really…
Just to give you the experience of my local returning officer.
The fee they got (about £30,000 or was it £40,000?) from what I remember was for an election in which:-
Myself and my agent were not invited to the opening of the postal ballots (which is a legal requirement).
I was turned away from my local polling station from voting when I went to vote. It took about 2 hours to be issued with replacement ballot papers. I then went back and voted. After checking the marked register I was not counted as having voted.
I queried this with the Returning Officer, he said they didn’t bother to record people who voted this way as it caused too much work on polling day.
Many Lib Dem supporters signed up to postal votes didn’t receive them (or replacements).
The Returning Officer (formerly the Chief Exec on a six-figure salary) has now “retired” and donated his Returning Officer fee to charity, although it’s obvious the above had an effect on the result. Wirral Council honoured him by spending at least £2k (probably £3k if officer overtime is included) in awarding him Freedom of the Borough.
However each year for the last few years I’ve signed up for a postal vote and its mysteriously never arrived. Mysteriously replacement postal ballots haven’t arrived either. When queried about why they change things electoral staff just say councillors told them they had to do things that way. Aren’t electoral staff answerable to the courts, not local politicians (many of whom are candidates) though?
I don’t think I have known 1 election in the last 4 years I have stood that hasn’t been marred by legal breaches by the local authority, serious election offences (the Phil Woolas-style meddling, imprint offences, large amounts of election spending deliberately left off expenses returns to bring them under the limit) or other things going on that shouldn’t.
Personally we didn’t think it was fair last year that local candidates could massively spend over the limits by splitting it as part of the General Election expenditure, but that’s life in a joint election I suppose..
I realise the above may sound a little like sour grapes, but having had the experience of being a Returning Officer in a few student union elections it’s alarming when candidates do things like bribing those voting for them with paid jobs.
Do we wonder why politicians are the way they are when the system encourages cheating and lying on the basis that “we can’t criticise the other parties (or the local authority) for election offences under a “gentleman’s agreement” as they’ll then do the same to us”? (almost a direct quote from our previous local party Chair).
When will this country have free, fair and open elections? How can Joe Public have confidence in the result?