The Electoral Review Committee met to discuss the upcoming Community Governance Review (CGR) for 2025/26 and decided to focus on the area board areas of Royal Wootton Bassett, Devizes, and Marlborough. The committee also delegated authority to the Director of Legal and Governance to finalise the terms of reference for the review, in consultation with the Chair and Vice-Chair.

Community Governance Review 2025/26

The main focus of the meeting was to determine the areas to be included in the upcoming Community Governance Review (CGR) for 2025/26. The committee had previously conducted a scoping exercise, surveying Parish Councils and Parish Meetings to gather information to help them decide which areas to include in the review.

The report presented to the committee noted that 63% of parishes had responded to the survey, but more than half of those were unable to provide details of when their arrangements had last been reviewed. The committee was also informed that one formal request had been received from Malmesbury Town Council, and a total of 13 parishes had requested prioritisation for review.

The committee discussed a proposal to include three Area Board (AB) areas in the 2025/26 CGR: Royal Wootton Bassett, Devizes and Marlborough. This approach would cover around 20% of all parishes in the first year and would allow the committee to review the situation in Purton, where electorate levels for the Wiltshire Council Division were approaching the trigger point for a general review of Wiltshire Council Boundaries by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE).

The committee agreed to proceed with the proposal to review the three area board areas in the first year (2025-26) and to postpone the remaining areas that had requested prioritisation until a later date.

Decision: The committee resolved that all parishes within the Area Board Areas of Royal Wootton Bassett, Devizes and Marlborough would be included for review for 2025/26 within the terms of reference. They also agreed to delegate to the Director of Legal and Governance the finalisation and approval of the Terms of Reference for the Community Governance Review 2025/26, after consulting with the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Committee.

May 2025 Parish Vacancies Update

The committee received an update on the local elections that took place in May 2025, including the nomination process for parish councils and issues surrounding parish councils that were not quorate¹. The Electoral Services Specialist Manager explained that they had received over 2000 nominations, which were then divided between 3 areas to manage: North, Central and South. In addition to the small team within Wiltshire Council, colleagues from other council areas were brought in to assist with the process and the Electoral Commissions template form was used for the nomination process.

There was a total of 47 contested parish areas, where there were either no nominations or not enough to make the council quorate. For these parishes, there was a 35-day deadline to re-run local elections. It was reported that all parish councils were now quorate. There remained over 500 vacancies across Wiltshire, with parish councils having the option to co-opt to fill vacant seats.

The committee discussed the report, raising issues such as consideration of whether there were benefits to having a Parish Meeting over a Parish Council, community cohesion, challenges in attracting candidates, impacts from ageing population and the age of candidates, and the complexity of some briefing material provided to candidates.

Councillor Tamara Reay also read a statement on behalf of Councillor Stuart Wheeler, which noted issues relating to the nomination process for the more rural areas, particularly in the east of the county where candidates had to travel into Salisbury to deliver in person for the nomination to be valid. Councillor Wheeler suggested accessible local drop off points could be used and urged for care to be taken to ensure sessions were user friendly, suggesting there had been a lack of support in helping to complete forms. The Committee was advised that it would be difficult to provide the level of knowledge across a wider area during the nomination period, due to the small scale of the Elections team.

There was also discussion of meetings which were already in place for clerks and some officers of the council, and asked whether these were recorded and well attended, suggesting that recordings could be shared more widely if available.

Officers agreed to seek clarification on the arrangements for the parish clerk meetings. In relation to nomination process it was noted that feedback had been provided to the Electoral Commission with some concerns, although legal requirements did need to be met. In relation to data on parishes it was agreed to liaise with the Wiltshire Association of Local Councils to see what information it held, as part of information gathering the Committee wished to undertake.

The Chairman suggested a list by division, of all current parish meetings should be produced and agreed that when collecting data regarding parish councillors, this would need to be generic and in line with data protection rules.

Decision: The committee resolved to note the May 2025 Parish Vacancies update.

Electoral Division Variance

The Committee received a report on the variance between electoral divisions for Wiltshire. It was explained that if 30% of divisions were more than 10% above or below the average for the council, was a trigger for the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) to consider initiating an electoral review of the council's arrangements. This was also the case if a single division was more than 30% smaller or larger than the average.

The report set out details of the number of divisions significantly at variance from the average, with the Chippenham Monkton in particular more than 30% below the average due to anticipated development not taking place, which was unlikely to change in the short term.

There were two divisions with variance greater than 20% above the average division: Old Sarum & Lower Bourne Valley and Purton. It was noted that being above average was more likely to lead to the council being added to the LGBCE review list, as undersized divisions were more likely to self-correct if and when development did take place.

The Committee was advised the report was to note the current situation, and that Division boundaries were not the council's responsibility. However, potentially community governance reviews in some areas such as Purton might justify changes such as introduction of warding, which if appropriate might allow for requesting the LGBCE to move a part of that to another division, asking change the Electoral Boundaries.

Mr Francis Morland made a statement regarding the methodology used to calculate the projected electoral figures for a previous Electoral Review, which he considered had led to inaccurate over projection of electorate numbers. He asked the Committee to carefully consider the methodology used in any future review.

In addition, Mr Morland stated that partial reviews as referenced in the report would be extremely difficult and would not solve the problem in areas where the electorate variance was reaching the trigger point for a review.

It was noted that there was a wide variation of accuracy, with some areas, close to the projected figures and others significant accurate, that projection as required by reviews was not a simple calculation, but that in any future review consideration would be given towards any changes to methodology which could improve the accuracy.

The Chairman noted that in previous years, the Committee had tried hard to work out where future development would be, to enable accurate calculations for future electorate, however with planning and development being changeable, it was a challenge as when there is a 5 – 10 year period of time to consider, sometimes things do not happen as they are initially expected.

The Committee discussed the possibility of a partial rather than full review of the council's divisions. In particular asking the LGBCE if they had any guidance on what might justify such a partial review, whilst nothing that the LGBCE had apparently not conducted one previously.

Decision: The committee resolved to note the update on Electoral Division Variance.