COMMITTEE

General Purposes	DATE 

22 October 2008	CLASSIFICATION

	REPORT NO

	AGENDA ITEM NO.
4.2
	
REPORT OF:
Assistant Chief Executive (Legal Services)

ORIGINATING OFFICER(S)
Isabella Freeman
	TITLE:
Further Electoral Review

WARDS AFFECTED
All	

1.	SUMMARY
	
1.1	This report summarises the purpose of electoral reviews and having regard to those criteria sets out the position in this borough.  Seven wards currently have an electoral imbalance and it would be beneficial for a greater degree of electoral equality to be achieved as soon as possible.
	
1.2	However, the Boundary Committee for England of the Electoral Commission has identified its priorities for 2009-2011 and the Council’s situation does not fulfil any of the criteria for review prior to 2011.
	
1.3	The current ward structure will apply to the local elections in 2010 and the periodic review, which occurs approximately every 10 years, will take place as the Boundary Committee’s work programme allows from 2011 onwards.	

2.	RECOMMENDATIONS
	
2.1

	The Committee is recommended to note the report.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT, 1972 (AS AMENDED) SECTION 100D
LIST OF BACKGROUND PAPERS USED IN PREPARATION OF THIS REPORT

Brief description of background paper	Name and telephone number of holder and address where open to inspection

								

3.	BACKGROUND
	
3.1	Under the Local Government Acts 1972 and 1992 and the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, the Electoral Commission via its Boundary Committee for England is charged with conducting electoral reviews of local authority areas.
	
3.2	The purpose of an electoral review is three fold in order to meet the need

•	to secure equality of representation i.e. that all Councillors in an authority represent approximately the same number of electors.

•	to reflect the identities and interests of local communities.  This is more imprecise and involves what and where a community is and more importantly what defines it and marks it out as a separate identifiable community.  History and tradition may be the basis of a sense of community identity or the location of public facilities such as doctors’ surgeries, libraries, schools, residents’ associations etc or physical barriers such as roads, rivers, railway lines or recent developments in the built environment.

•	to secure effective and convenient local government, which is also difficult to define but is a starting point for the Boundary Committee which takes an initial decision about the size of the local authority required to service properly the area under review, and that Councillors are not prevented from representing their constituents by systemic considerations.
	
3.3	The population of any local authority area is constantly changing with people moving in and out of the areas as well as others who are moving between different parts of the same authority.  This is particularly the case where areas are experiencing major growth or regeneration initiatives.  As a result the levels of people movements in and out of wards largely due to building changes with some wards have resulted in some Councillors representing considerably more or fewer electors than their colleagues.  Where these imbalances become significant an electoral review is required to re-draw ward boundaries thereby reducing such imbalances and the Electoral Commission will direct its Boundary Committee for England to conduct such review.
	
3.4	Additionally the Electoral Commission must direct the Boundary Committee to review each principal area in England ‘from time to time’.  In practice this has been established as every 10 years.  The last periodic review of the borough was in 2001.

3.5	In addition to a full review of electoral wards under section 18 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (as amended) the authority may review polling places and polling districts within existing wards and such a review was carried out in 2007.  Attached at Appendix 1 is the report of 15 November 2007 to this Committee.  The Committee recommended Council to adopt the Returning Officer’s revised proposals and at its meeting on 28 November 2007 the Council adopted the proposals and the polling places and polling districts were formally designated.

4.	CURRENT POSITION
	
4.1	As a result of demographic changes in the borough since the last periodic review in 2001 there are a number of imbalances in the current wards.  The electorate of the borough is 155,525 which provides a average figure for the 17 wards of 9,149.  On the basis of the registration figures for August 2008 four wards exceed that figure substantially and at least two of them are likely to grow even more in the near future as further large residential developments already underway are completed.
	
4.2	The wards exceeding the mean figure are:

Millwall				-	11,634 	+ 27%
Blackwall & Cubitt Town		-	10,478 	+ 14.5%
Mile End & Globe Town 		-	10,438 	+ 14.1%
St Dunstan’s & Stepney Green	-	10,152 	+11%
	
4.3	There are also certain wards in which the electorate is less than the mean figure:-

Spitalfields & Banglatown		-	6,868 		- 25%
Mile End East			-	7,906 		- 13.6%
Bromley by Bow			-	8,221 		- 10.1%

5	BOUNDARY COMMITTEE POSITION
	
5.1	The Boundary Committee for England has advised the Council of its work programme for 2009 – 2011.  During 2009 – 11 it is concentrating its attention on reviews of unitary authorities (outside London) and will prioritise single member ward reviews (of which there are none in Tower Hamlets).
	
5.2	The only possibility for a review prior to the periodic review, due in 2011 onwards is if the imbalances justify a Further Electoral Review ahead of the normal 10 yearly review.  The Boundary Committee will conduct a number of Further Electoral Reviews in parallel with the work programme identified above, but it is prioritising cases where such early intervention is necessary.  As a general rule of thumb Further Electoral Reviews will only be considered where 30% of the wards are 10% over the average number of voters, or where one ward has a variance greater than 30%.
	
5.3	As can be seen from the figures in paragraphs 4.2 and 4.3 above, the Council does not fulfil the criteria for an early Further Electoral Review and therefore must await the periodic review.  This will not take place before the next local elections in 2010.	

6.	COMMENTS OF CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
	
6.1	There are no immediate financial implications.
	
7.	CONCURRENT REPORT OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF EXECUTIVE (LEGAL)
	
7.1
	The legal considerations are referred to in the body of the report.	

8.	EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES CONSIDERATIONS
	
8.1	It is essential to ensure that ward Councillors have an evenly distributed number of electors to deal with workload.

9.	ANTI POVERTY IMPLICATIONS
	
9.1	There are no issues arising from this report.

10.
	RISK MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS
	
10.1	There are no issues arising from this report