About electoral reviews
In this area you will find:
- information about electoral reviews and the review process
- details about types of electoral review such as electoral reviews of new unitary authorities, further electoral reviews and periodic electoral reviews
- guidance to support people having an electoral review in their area
- guidance for those who have been asked to carry out a five-year forecast of electorate
The objective of an electoral review is to ensure that, within each local authority area, the number of electors represented by each councillor is approximately the same. Electoral reviews can be necessary because of changes in the electorate within local authority areas. We may also carry out an electoral review at the request of a local authority.
When making our recommendations we also take into account community identity, convenient and effective local government and the electoral cycle (i.e. how regularly elections occur) of the authority under review.
We may recommend a change in the number of councillors to be elected in an area and a change in the number of wards or divisions and their boundaries.
Types of electoral reviews
Electoral reviews of new unitary authorities
We are not currently conducting reviews of any new unitary authorities:
Further electoral reviews (FERs)
Currently, we are conducting further electoral reviews of the follow authorities:
- Cumbria County Council
- Slough Borough Council
- Somerset County Council
- Purbeck District Council
- Swale Council
- Northamptonshire County Council
- Rushcliffe Borough Council
- Boston Borough Council
Please visit the individual review webpage for more information about these reviews.
Periodic electoral reviews (PERs)
A country-wide programme of periodic electoral reviews was conducted between 1996 and 2004, by the Local Government Commission for England and the Boundary Committee for England. These were reviews of every authority in England. All legislation implementing the changes that were recommended has now been made.
For more information on these reviews see:
- The Boundary Committee for England’s Report on the year 2004-5 (PDF)
- Appendix A of the report 2004-5 (PDF)
Following the conclusion of that programme of reviews, the Boundary Committee for England conducted an evaluation of the electoral review process.
More information can be found in our Policy and Publications page.
Guidance for electoral reviews
Guidance for current reviews
On 24 May 2011 the Commission published new guidance. The new guidance aims to simplify the electoral review process for some reviews.In doing so, the guidance increases capacity so that the Commission can respond to requests from councils who wish to change council size (the number of councillors), or move to single-member wards.
Guidance for reviews which began before May 2011
We produced two different documents to support people where there is an electoral review being conducted in their area:
- Electoral reviews: what they are and how you can get involved (PDF) provides straight forward information for members of the public who want to get involved in the review.
- Electoral reviews: technical guidance (PDF) contains more detailed guidance on the review process and includes details of the legislation that reviews are conducted under.
Stakeholder survey 2008–9
The Boundary Committee for England’sstakeholder survey covering the electoral reviews completed during 2008/2009 (PDF) shows the results of the post-review survey sent to all who had participated in the reviews.
Electorate forms
We use the electoral register to establish the electorate of councils under review, and ask local authorities to complete forms with this information broken down into parish and/or polling district areas. We publish these forms on the relevant area's review page at the start of consultation on ward or division boundaries, so everyone can access the information.