MSE News: Respond to your council's household enquiry form - or risk a £1,000 fine

Legacy_user

Household enquiry forms are being sent to every home in the UK, but don't ignore it - you could face a £1,000 fine...

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'Respond to your council's household enquiry form - or risk a £1,000 fine'

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Pincher

Huh?

I get a Voter Registration form every year, which I can respond to by logging in online using the two part code.

Is this something else?

I'm just worried scammers will now send out forms with a similar name, gathering information. Fill in your birthdate. Give your full name, including maiden name. :eek:

d0nkeyk0ng

Oh balls. We got this a week or two ago and I just chucked it in the recycling. Should I take any action or hope they send a reminder?

onomatopoeia99

d0nkeyk0ng wrote: »

Oh balls. We got this a week or two ago and I just chucked it in the recycling. Should I take any action or hope they send a reminder?

In my experience they send a second if the first does not come back.

However, the voter registration form goes out every year around this time, so you should have been sending it back every year since you moved into your own home (whether rented or owned).

Nick_C

It's no longer a voter registration form.

Under the old system, someone was required to return an Electoral Registration Form each year, and people were added to (or removed from) the Register on the basis of that form.

Electoral Registration is now an individual responsibility. Each eligible person in a household has to register to vote, and the easiest way to do this is on line.

The Household Enquiry Form is similar to the old Electoral Registration Form, but technically it is different. It is not used as the sole basis of adding people to the register, but it alerts the Electoral Registration Officer to people living in their area who apparently should be on the Register but are not. The ERO will contact anyone identified on the Household Enquiry Form whom they were previously unaware of, and "invite" them to register.

moneyistooshorttomention

Wondering if people know if it's the norm for another form to come from the Council each year - ie one asking if the "single person discount" is still applicable - as I've been getting one each year since moving here but don't recall doing so before I did so.

Just had mine yesterday - again - and with a date on it that they want it back by less than a fortnight away (despite fact Council office is so far away that it has no choice but to be sent by post - so that's 2 days or more of the deadline time used up for that).

Just as well that I hadnt just gone off on a fortnight's holiday then...:cool:

Pincher

Oh well, it had to happen.

Household registration, to enable better control of mutants, migrants and gypsies. X-Men the movies have warned us for years.

zerog

Nick_C wrote: »

It's no longer a voter registration form.

Under the old system, someone was required to return an Electoral Registration Form each year, and people were added to (or removed from) the Register on the basis of that form.

Electoral Registration is now an individual responsibility. Each eligible person in a household has to register to vote, and the easiest way to do this is on line.

The Household Enquiry Form is similar to the old Electoral Registration Form, but technically it is different. It is not used as the sole basis of adding people to the register, but it alerts the Electoral Registration Officer to people living in their area who apparently should be on the Register but are not. The ERO will contact anyone identified on the Household Enquiry Form whom they were previously unaware of, and "invite" them to register.

This is correct, but why on earth couldn't they just allow all new occupants to register individually on the same piece of paper?

gozaimasu

Yeah I absolutely hate this. Forced household registration under the guise of elecoral registration. I don't want to vote, yet they want my details, and everytime I move house they stalk and track my moves across the country. Ridiculous.

Marktheshark

More threats.
I am getting very sick and tired of jumped up little hitters threatening people with fines.

FREEDOM, they can stick it and I will make it as hard as humanly possible for them.

I do not respond to threats, I have a backbone.

Nick_C

Marktheshark wrote: »

More threats.
I am getting very sick and tired of jumped up little hitters threatening people with fines.

FREEDOM, they can stick it and I will make it as hard as humanly possible for them.

I do not respond to threats, I have a backbone.

I'm a libertarian, and don't like government collecting data needlessly, but this is about ensuring as many people as possible have the right to vote. If you chose not to exercise that right that's a different matter.

One thing that does offend me on the new form, is that if no one in the household is eligible to vote on the basis of nationality, you have to state what nationality all the occupiers are. That's a step too far IMO. But although these forms are sent out by your local council, the form design and the requirement for them to be sent out and completed comes from central government.