'Town hall dunces' want ER scrapped

Council bosses have been branded “town hall dunces” after they reaffirmed their claim that the abolition of the edited Electoral Roll would “spare millions from being bombarded with junk mail”.
The Local Government Association has been a long-term critic of the practice. Back in 2008, an LGA survey found that almost 9 in 10 electoral officers believed selling the edited ER discouraged people from registering to vote.
This week, LGA chairman Peter Fleming said: “Councils resent having to pass the Electoral Roll onto direct marketing companies. Junk mailers and cold callers are a pet hate for many of us. It demeans our democracy for the voters’ details to be sold off as a tool to help direct marketing firms make money.
“In some cases people have not signed up to vote because they are concerned about their privacy being compromised. Scrapping the open register would spare millions from being bombarded with junk mail and would remove a hurdle which stands in the way of our efforts to sign people up to vote.”
The edited ER was first introduced just over a decade ago when retired accountant Brian Robertson won a High Court case after objecting to its use for marketing purposes. He successfully claimed that the resultant “junk mail” was an unjustified interference in his private and family life.
The LGA claims many councils do not even make enough money from the process to cover their costs, although a Big Brother Watch study recently showed that 300 councils had sold on information to some 2,700 companies and individuals over the past five years.
The DM industry’s reliance on the edited ER has waned since its height in the Eighties and Nineties, but many businesses – including charities – still rely on the 28 million-strong file to identify and access customers, as well as verify addresses.
And one industry source told DecisionMarketing: “This lot must be a bunch of town hall dunces. They claim ‘junk mail’ will be cut by scrapping the edited ER, where in fact the opposite is true. There will be more poorly addressed and targeted mailings because companies will not be able to verify their data. It won’t ‘spare millions from being bombarded with junk mail’; it will lead to even more.”
In May, it was claimed hundreds of brands could be using illegal data to fuel their direct marketing campaigns after it was revealed that up to 90 local authorities have been selling on opted-out Electoral Roll information.

‘Town hall dunces’ want ER scrapped

3 Comments on "‘Town hall dunces’ want ER scrapped"