Appendix last reviewed January 2016
14.13.1
The Guidance on Electoral Registration Data Standards Directive England and Wales, supplemented by Additional Information to assist implementation of Electoral Registration Data Standards states that addresses within the Electoral Management System (EMS) shall be linked to an LLPG so that address information contained in the EMS complies with BS 7666-2:2006. For further details, see Appendix E.
14.13.2
The requirement of EROs to maintain data in accordance with these principles remains.
14.13.3
Following the linking of addresses, the UPRN shall be attached to the property Record within the EMS. The EMS property references should be entered into the LLPG as a type 23 DTF Record. The CROSS_REFERENCE Record should be populated with the unique key which relates to the property in the Electoral Registration system.
14.13.4
Some Electoral Registration software uses a referencing system which changes when the register is updated. In such cases, if a consistent unique cross reference is not available, it is acceptable for the UPRN to be used to populate the CROSS_REFERENCE Record. This Record, together with a SOURCE_CODE of ER, is sufficient to register within an LLPG that there is a match of the Record between the two systems.
14.13.5
Whilst the person responsible for completion of this work in each SNN Authority is the Electoral Registration officer, the Authority Address Custodian should provide support to deal with matching anomalies and to help establish processes to manage additions and updates on an on-going basis.
14.13.6
The following work must be scheduled for completion by the Electoral Registration officer and the Authority Address Custodian:
- Any Records that are identified and confirmed as correct on an Electoral Register that do not currently appear within an LLPG shall be added to the LLPG.
- If the Electoral Register identifies a new sub-division of an existing LLPG Record, this shall be added as a Child BLPU and allocated UPRN.
- Mooring points and caravan plots shall be added and correctly described and identified in accordance with the latest DEC-Addresses.
- Each Electoral Registration officer and the Authority Address Custodian should work towards linking the addresses on the Electoral Register with those held on the LLPG. This process will take time because the data supports service delivery and any change in either dataset must be assessed and verified fully in order to minimise any disruption to that service delivery.
14.13.7
In addition:
- The LLPG may hold a “descriptive” Street Name that does not appear on the Electoral Register. It is possible that the locality and town information on the Electoral Register is different from that in the LLPG but the requirement and assumption is that the Electoral Register reflects the LLPG and there is no requirement to change any of the Street, Locality, Town or Post town information in the LLPG if there are differences, provided the LLPG is correct (in particular that the correct post town is shown for the stated postcode).
- The postcode held on the Electoral Register and in the LLPG must be the same.
- The address on the Register can reflect an Alternative LPI in the LLPG rather that the Approved/Preferred LPI although this is not the preferred option.
- If an Electoral Registration officer wishes to hold a different property address data from that in the LLPG, for example a “vanity” house name or SAO description, this must be in addition to the LLPG information and there is no requirement for the LLPG to hold this unofficial address data.
14.13.8
After 1st December 2009, every Electoral Register entry must have a UPRN and therefore no new entries can be made to an Electoral Register without a UPRN. This obligation therefore requires on-going dialogue in some form between the Electoral Registration officer and the Authority Address Custodian.
14.13.9
The Guidance on Electoral Registration Data Standards Directive England and Wales document details elements of the address and these are shown matched to each element of the data transfer format:
SAO Number, name and / or description of the Secondary Addressable Object
SAO_START_NUMBER
SAO_START_SUFFIX
SAO_END_NUMBER
SAO_END_SUFFIX
SAO_TEXT
PAO Number, name and / or description of the Primary Addressable Object
PAO_START_NUMBER
PAO_START_SUFFIX
PAO_END_NUMBER
PAO_END_SUFFIX
PAO_TEXT
Street Number, name or description of Street
STREET_DESCRIPTOR
Locality
LOCALITY_NAME
Town
TOWN_NAME
Admin Area
ADMINISTRATIVE_AREA
Post Town – assigned by the Royal Mail
POST_TOWN
Postcode
POSTCODE
14.13.10
The Electoral Commission website and in particular the guidance for the 2015 canvass - http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/electoral-administrator/running-electoral-registration (accessed January 2016).
This guidance to EROs on the how to maintain their registers on the Electoral Commission website states the following:
“Part 2 – Registration framework – page 9
Qualifying address
3.7 The qualifying address is the address a person is entitled to be registered at. This is the address where the applicant or elector must be ‘resident’ in accordance with electoral legislation (see below).
3.8 The register must include the qualifying addresses of those persons registered in it, subject to certain exceptions, including overseas and anonymous electors, which are discussed in Part 4: ‘Maintaining the register throughout the year’. Part 3: The 2015 canvass contains further information on the format of the register.”
“Part 3 – The 2015 canvass – page 7
Reviewing your address database
2.16 You should also take steps to ensure that your address database remains up-to-date. Each address should have a unique property reference number (UPRN) and you should liaise with the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) team in England and Wales or the Corporate Address Gazetteer (CAG) team in Scotland to ensure that UPRNs are attached to each property in your area.”
“Part 4 – Maintaining the register throughout the year – page 179
2.1.3 The DWP matching algorithm works like a filter, the stages of which can be broadly summarised as:
- Some data standardisation of both the electoral register and the DWP data is undertaken by the IER Digital Service to make the records more consistent (e.g. Str. or St. to Street).
- The algorithm searches for a matching address in the DWP data. In the first instance through the Land and Property Gazetteer’s (LLPG) (or One Scotland) Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN), then, if a match cannot be found through UPRN, by comparing the first three lines of the address and postcode.
- If an address can be located the algorithm then compares the name fields to those of the individuals held in the DWP CIS database at that address.”