Brother receives letter from local MP

[MichaelAwkward]

The problem is my brother fell by the wayside. I think he had a nervous breakdown and is unable to cope. He stopped caring after a number of illnesses that effected his ability to get a job. He had a number of embolism and suffers from an incurable situation which forces him to lose his balance etc. Basically he's at the stage where lost the will to live or care but is too afraid to kill himself. None of this however has any bearing on the fact he is unable or unwilling to be tied down to one place or particular residence. He's not violent or trouble to anyone or anything like that. He just wants to "go his way" and be left alone.

Use either of these forms:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/428075/ITR-N-E.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/428065/ITR-A-E.pdf

Or just fill out the normal online/offline form for your brother. He only actually needs to sign the offline one. If you get him registered (any way), he will be left alone. If you don't, he won't.

 

[Mr-White]

Because the electoral register isn't just used for voting. It's the most up to date record of who lives where that the gov has.

I only did it just because it helps your credit rating

MW

 

[Aldav]

I don't understand why you need to register to vote if you have no intention of voting. I'm registered, don't know when but have never voted. I do however constantly receive phone calls and junk mail especially around election time.

MW

Because it's a legal requirement that, if asked to register, you must do so unless you do not fit the requirement criteria. Most people will fit. The actual electoral roll, can only be used for purposes specified in law, including, for example, jury selection. Hence, mandatory inclusion, so we can all be required to do our 'civic duty'.

But you won't get junkmail etc as a result of bring on the official electoral roll, because it's not available for that, or to commercial users. However, an 'extract' of the full list, variously called the 'open' or 'edited' register is produced from the full electoral roll.

You are not required to be included on that, but irritatingly, the default position is that you will be unless you explicitly opt out. That can (or used to be, at least) be done on the annual HEF (Household Enquiry Form) the electoral officer at the council sends out, or can be done explicitly by each elector notifying the council directly.

It's that edited roll that can be acquired for commercial purposes and, by the way, isn't used for governmental purposes like voting, or jury service, or even credit checks (which is another statutory use of the full register).

From what I can tell, the ONLY purpose of that edited register is to give commercial users easy access to the names and addresses of anyone that either can't be bothered to opt out, or isn't aware that they can and should, if they don't want junkmail.

You mentioned phone calls, too. You may be asked for phone and email details on the mandatory HEF or registration forms, but I believe that's for council convenience and not a legally required bit of info. If you do provide it, it shouldn't be on the edited list. However, personally, I just don't provide either. They can't screw up, lose, or get hacked for info they don't have in the first place.

What you can't stop, however, is purchasers of the edited list combining it with data from other sources, like phone or email.

 

[LeeUK]

I've had this letter/form to re-register to vote. Two were posted through the post and a third copy was hand delivered last Sunday. Talk about being desperate and needy. Still have until 22nd to register and i'll wait until then to do it.

 

[anything I don't mind]

A) For a myriad of reasons. It's quite obvious that a council would want to know who lives in the area they control.
B) Census is done every 10 years, LAs need much more up to date data than that.
C) Not everyone over the age of 18 pays council tax.

People under the age of 18 can't vote either. Councils only need to know who is paying the bill, why do they need to know anything more?

There is no reason other than nanny state reasons that the state needs people who don't vote on the electoral register. Maybe 50 years ago it had some use outside of the voting. These days people are in 10 databases and have multiple bank accounts and store cards and direct debits. The digital age has made the electoral role redundant.

 

[Burnsy2023]

People under the age of 18 can't vote either. Councils only need to know who is paying the bill, why do they need to know anything more?

There is no reason other than nanny state reasons that the state needs people who don't vote on the electoral register. Maybe 50 years ago it had some use outside of the voting. These days people are in 10 databases and have multiple bank accounts and store cards and direct debits. The digital age has made the electoral role redundant.

You couldn't be more wrong. Name me one single database that is as up to date and comprehensive as the electoral roll?

How else are councils going to plan for schools and other public services without knowing who lives in their area?

 

[LeeUK]

You couldn't be more wrong. Name me one single database that is as up to date and comprehensive as the electoral roll?

How else are councils going to plan for schools and other public services without knowing who lives in their area?

From council tax payers. No one under 18 is on the electoral role so how would they know how many kids I had to be able to plan schools with?

They get that info when you register your bambino for a school place.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

No one under 18 is on the electoral role so how would they know how many kids I had to be able to plan schools with?

Fertility trends + number of adults. It's quite straight forward.

If they only made predictions when you registered your child for a school place, they'd constantly be chasing the requirements (they are, but that's for other reasons).

That said, in reality, government projections for infrastructure, health, education, yadda yadda are made using composite estimates of numbers of adults, children, etc from many sources, including tax databases, electoral role, etc.

We really need to catch up with Scandinavia with regards to an efficient registration system.

 

[LeeUK]

The council don't build schools these days anyway. Only academy trusts seem too. If a run of the mill school is over subscribed they just tag on a few mobile classrooms.

 

[anything I don't mind]

You couldn't be more wrong. Name me one single database that is as up to date and comprehensive as the electoral roll?

How else are councils going to plan for schools and other public services without knowing who lives in their area?

Experion?

Are children added to the electoral role? The councils are not advanced enough to actually use data in the allocation of their services. They just make it up as they go along. Parents apply for school places is how they know the demand.

 

[Werewolf]

The council don't build schools these days anyway. Only academy trusts seem too. If a run of the mill school is over subscribed they just tag on a few mobile classrooms.

Probably because the councils can't get the funding for the schools, whilst academies are effectively business propositions so can get loans as well as ring fenced funding from the government.

Our local primary school however is due to get a massive amount of new building work done, as apparently the council have realised that pretty much doubling the size of the town over the last 10-15 years means that there will be a lot more young children around soon, so from what I've heard they did an urgent request for all the schools with enough room to see if any of them would agree to fairly large scale enlargement work.
They still haven't worked out that they're going to need a larger/full time fire station and more GP's though from what I can tell.

The fun thing is that one of the big middle schools had survey/inspection work done about 5-10 years ago that basically said "to bring the buildings to current standards will cost nearly as much as rebuilding from scratch", as far as I'm aware there has been no hint of even the recommended remedial work to it, let alone rebuilding or expansion (it seems the council haven't realised the increase in primary school children means that in a few years they're going to need more middle school places).

 

[LeeUK]

I was one of the first pupils to go to a brand new school built to replace an old one back in the early nineties. The council built 3 new schools to replace old schools in my town in that decade.

Now the town is twice the size due to all the new housing estates. They haven't built any more schools, just added on porta cabins.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

I was one of the first pupils to go to a brand new school built to replace an old one back in the early nineties. The council built 3 new schools to replace old schools in my town in that decade.

Now the town is twice the size due to all the new housing estates. They haven't built any more schools, just added on porta cabins.

In some cases, that may be the most sensible way of dealing with the problem. For example, is it worth spending potentially tens of millions of new buildings for extra capacity if that capacity will no be required in ten years time?

At my primary school, they introduced porta cabins in my final years there as a precursor to permanent buildings. This can happen where local planning teams are caught out by a sudden increase in pupils (for example if another school closes suddenly) without the time to properly plan and construct more buildings. They were added a few years later.

Point being, it's hard to criticise councils/LEAs without the facts about the local demographics... for which the electoral roll is one major source of valuable information. The more people who needlessly make a fuss about registering, the harder the job of planning becomes, particularly when the future of the census is up in the air.