Annual Report 2024: Our Year Campaigning for Change

Darren Hughes, Chief Executive

This has been a seismic year for British politics. We have witnessed a huge change election, but also one that was the most disproportional in the history of the UK. That has thrown a spotlight onto our failing First Past the Post electoral system like never before – a system that is clearly creaking under the weight of shifting voter behaviour.  

The ERS was able to play a key role in the days after the election in framing the political narrative as it was one of the first organisations to call this as the most disproportional election on record and make the case for urgent electoral reform. It is clear from the results that people in the UK are already voting as if we have PR: this was the first election where four parties garnered over 10% of the vote, and five parties over 5%.  

Our work on the election  helped to establish the problem with our electoral system in the minds of the public, political class and media, which is a crucial step in the advancement of PR. 

A new government means new opportunities, and the ERS is now gearing up to campaign to repair the damage done to our democracy in recent years as well as to modernise and strengthen it for future generations. 

The job of the ERS now is to prepare for such a moment as well as to campaign to bring it about. 

The general election also highlighted the damage that has been done to our electoral process in recent years, with thousands of people yet again being turned away from polling stations due to a lack of accepted ID. Scandal and cronyism surrounding the House of Lords has also been a persistent theme throughout the year, corroding trust in our politics still further. 

That work has already started with the government bringing in legislation to remove the hereditary peers from the Lords, something the ERS has long campaigned for. 

Away from Westminster, there has been significant progress on electoral reform in the devolved nations. In Wales, ERS Cymru has been instrumental in helping secure reforms such as an expansion of the Senedd, which will see it come into line with the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as the introduction of Automatic Voter Registration, which will enfranchise hundreds of thousands of Welsh voters. ERS Cymru has also led on the campaign to have Welsh Councils move to STV.  

Likewise, in Scotland, the ERS was deeply involved in the Building a Local Scotland campaign to reform the nation’s democratically stretched council system. Our team in Scotland has also been working on a pioneering citizen’s assembly in Dunfermline aimed at increasing citizens’ participation in the running of their city.  

This year saw the ERS’s membership grow again to 7,200, with a particular surge just after the historically disproportionate general election. This is the highest number of members the ERS has had in the two decades we have records for. We have also seen impressive growth in the number of supporters, with 180,000 people now receiving regular updates on our work into their inboxes.  

It is to the members I want to pay particular thanks, as none of this would be possible without their support. The contributions they make enable the work we do and the progress we have made. Their passion for democratic fairness fortifies our efforts and is a testament to how deep the desire runs is for a better politics in this country.  

I’d also like to record my thanks to the staff team who have worked so hard this year on multiple campaigns and research projects to pursue the Society’s objectives. Through our communications strategy and members and supporters engagement work the team have really broaden and deepened our presence and I appreciate their dedication and enthusiasm to our cause. Thanks are due too to members of the ERS Board who volunteer their time and expertise to the governance of the Society. Their support, challenge and goodwill make the ERS stronger. 

Lynn Henderson, Chair

As I come to the end of my first year of as the Chair of the Society, I look back on what has been another significant and turbulent year in British politics.

The ERS turned 140 this year, a momentous milestone. While the political landscape today is utterly transformed from when the Society was founded in January 1884, the importance of its foundational mission remains undimmed: to fight for a democracy that better represents the people it serves. This year we saw a vivid illustration of how much still remains to be done as the UK witnessed its most disproportional general election on record.

The is evidence now that the public mood is shifting, with work from the National Centre for Social Research showing this year that 53% of people now support electoral reform. It is clear the case for PR is advancing and that is down in no small part to the ERS and partner organisations making such a clarion and passionate case for it in recent years.

I would like to put on record my thanks to the ERS staff, whose passion and hard work has shaped the national debate on electoral reform and also won concrete reforms to strengthen and repair our democracy across the country.

Finally, I would also like to pay particular thanks to the members and supporters of the ERS. The Society’s strength comes from the thousands of people who support our work with contributions, but also by signing petitions, sharing our posts and making the case for a fairer democracy every day in their communities.

I look forward to working with you all in the year ahead as we continue to build new alliances for democratic reform and make a compelling case for change.

The Most Disproportionate General Election Ever

General Election years are always significant for us, but this one was particularly so with results being the most disproportional in history, and many people voting as if we already had PR. 

During the election campaign we highlighted the many barriers facing voters at the polls, from our analysis of the numbers missing from the electoral register, to the challenges of voter ID and of course, the results themselves. Our analysis featured throughout the campaign in the media, in print, broadcast and online. 

Many of our members and supporters joined our campaign actions and thousands signed our PR pledge. Our supporter numbers grew extensively in this period. 

The election itself provided the strongest case for PR yet with not only the most disproportional result, but also a significant shift away from two-party politics and the second lowest turnout since universal suffrage. We highlighted the failures of FPTP as soon as results were out on our General Election 2024 dashboard. We will be sharing our full analysis in our General Election 2024 report, which will be released in early December 2024. 

You can read more on our team’s work during the General Election campaign here.

Winning Fair Votes for Welsh Councils

Three councils in Wales moved to the consultation phase on adopting STV voting systems this year. Gwynedd and Powys voted to move to consultation last December with Ceredigion joining them this year. The response to the public consultations across the board was an overwhelmingly positive one with 67% backing STV in Ceredigion, 72% in Gwynedd and 61% in Powys.   

Despite this clear signal from their residents, in Powys, councillors chose not to back the change to a fairer electoral system. In Gwynedd, the result was one vote short of the two-thirds super-majority needed, with over 65% of councillors supporting the change. Ceredigion Council also voted by a majority in favour of the change but again this was short of the two-thirds majority required. All three councils failed to reach the high bar of a two-thirds majority, despite the majority of the public backing moving to STV and the majority of councillors in two councils also backing the change. 

This has been a significant piece of work for the ERS this year. We have been working with councillors in the three consultation areas for nearly five years now and ran significant campaigns in each of the areas to encourage residents to respond to the consultations. The evidence is clear, there is appetite to improve local democracy from both the public and councillors in Wales, but the piecemeal approach of the Welsh legislation and the high threshold needed remains a barrier to change.  

You can read more about our team’s work on the Wales STV campaign here.

140 Years of the ERS

On the 16th January 2024 we celebrated the 140th anniversary of the Electoral Reform Society.  

Across those 140 years, the Electoral Reform Society was involved in the successful adoption of the Single Transferable Vote in the Republic of Ireland, and helped to defend it twice against politicians’ attempts to return to Westminster’s electoral system. The Society was also involved in the adoption of the Single Transferable Vote in Malta and aided the campaign in Australia. 

In the UK, our advocacy for proportional representation paid off with fair elections now held in Northern Ireland for the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont and all local councils. In Scotland, proportional systems are used in the Scottish Parliament and for all local councils, and in Wales, a proportional system is used for the Welsh Assembly and councils have won the right to choose STV. London also now has an assembly elected on a fair basis. 

Over the last 140 years of our advocacy, First Past the Post has changed from the default electoral system to an outlier. 

The Best System

To mark the first 100 years of the Society in 1984, the Electoral Reform Society commissioned a history of the Society, modestly called  The Best System. 40 years later, to mark the 140th anniversary, we have made it publicly available once again. The publication is now available on our website, and we published an article to mark the occasion. This is a historic document, reproduced in its entirety. If you are interested in the history of the Society, the earliest records are held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. 

Read The Best System: An account of the first hundred years of the Electoral Reform Society 

ERS in the Press 2024

Mike Wright, Head of Communications:
“It was clear this was going to be a busy year for the ERS media-wise, with a likely general election and change of government, as well as local elections, making our issues prominent at various points in the year. The first quarter was largely dedicated to preparing for those set pieces to ensure we were able to maximise the coverage and then land effective messaging that resonated with the public. As such, a predominant focus was the messaging project we carried out with research colleagues to ensure we had tested arguments and lines on electoral reform ready for the election. The other key strategic focus for the comms team was building deeper relations with journalists, particularly in broadcast, to ensure we could pre-brief influential figures on our issues before the elections, and this led to better informed coverage when our issues did arise.” 

The start of the year was dominated with Liz Truss’s resignation honours list, which put a sharp focus on the House of Lords, peerages and cronyism. The ERS was quoted in the BBC News story on the list, and Jess Garland was also interviewed on a number of outlets, including Channel 4 News, ITV, and Sky. This allowed us to frame the issue of Lords reform as pressing for the then current and next government. 

The rest of the first quarter of the year was then dominated by the build-up to the local and mayoral elections, which were seen as a key test for the beleaguered Sunak government and to see if Labour was making serious electoral inroads. There was also a growing focus on our issues and we were quoted in stories on tactical voting in Politico, voter ID in the Express, and Police and Crime Commissioner elections on ITV.  

In May, the local elections saw the media take an interest primarily in voter ID as it was the first time millions of voters would be encountering it. ERS spokespeople did numerous broadcast interviews, largely on BBC Local News radio, on how the issue could affect people, with Darren’s comments being picked up by the Express and other news outlets. After the local elections, our analysis showing that mayors had been elected with smaller mandates than previous incumbents due to the switch to FPTP was also picked up by the media. 

In the period following the general election, the media focus shifted to the new government’s agenda, with the majority of the media interest being in the reforms to the House of Lords. The ERS has featured in coverage of this issue in a number of publications, from the New Statesman, i News to the Daily Mail. Darren appeared on BBC News discussing the Lords reform proposals in the Kings Speech. 

The ERS had over 800 hits in different media outlets over 2024 to date. This is similar to 2023, when there was a high media interest in the roll-out of voter ID for the first time. However, the focus this year, when the spotlight was likely to fall on our issues, was to aim for higher cut-through media outlets, with appearances on the Today Programme and BBC Breakfast as particular highlights. 

Our Members and Supporters

Lizzie Lawless, Acting Head of Digital:
“We are incredibly thankful to the 7,200 members of the Society that support our work. With each year, we continue to see our membership grow – and this was particularly the case with a surge of new members joining the Society following the General Election. We are incredibly appreciative of the thousands of members who have continued to support us over the years. Reaching these numbers, we are now at the highest number of members in the last two decades we have records for. Our members are helping us win the fight for electoral reform.” 

As well as a thriving paying membership, our wider movement is also growing, with 180,000 supporters receiving regular updates on our work via their email inboxes. Our weekly ERS News email of articles from our website and across the media sees, on average, 65,000 people a week being directed to the stories that matter, that they might otherwise miss. 

This year we have continued the work of diversifying the geographical make-up of our support. As an organisation committed to ending First Past the Post, we are aware of the dangers of building up high levels of support in safe seats.  

We spent the year in the run up to the election building support across the country through carefully planned campaigning on voter ID, the House of Lords and proportional representation. To get the most out of these campaigns we worked with two agencies to improve the style of our Meta adverts, campaign graphics and landing pages. Thanks to this investment, we saw big improvements in the number of people who decided to receive ongoing emails from us, giving us more supporters where they would matter come the election. 

We now have the most email subscribers the campaign has ever had. 

In the weeks running up to the vote, thousands of people used our tools to help them understand how our political system works. We demonstrated why First Past the Post means many seats never change hands with a tool to let people find out when their seat last changed hands. We launched a quiz on the government’s confusing voter ID requirements. We produced a tool to demonstrate the lack of candidate diversity by letting people find out how many candidates shared their name, and we launched a pledge people could sign to only vote for candidates that supported PR. 

It can take a long time to manually go through the general election results to spot trends and see patterns. Following on from the success of our election dashboard in 2019, we launched a re-designed dashboard at 5am on the day after the vote. The 2024 General Election Dashboard took the results data and instantly generated charts that clearly demonstrated the failings of our political system. This meant our spokespeople could go straight into broadcast interviews armed with the real voting patterns, and our members and supporters could find out, and share, what had happened in their seat and region. 

Making the Case for Electoral Reform with Our Research

Ian Simpson, Research Officer:
“Across this year the research team has continued to conduct independent, in-depth and timely research into the state of our political system. Conducting high-quality research is key to achieving our strategic goals as it provides the evidence base for our policy and campaigns. Research was central to our work on the General Election and provided the basis for our media and digital campaigning. We had prepared for the General Election by mapping the changes that had occurred to the UK parliamentary constituencies following the boundary reviews. This ensured we had a thorough understanding of the electoral landscape prior to the election and enabled us to produce interesting data during the campaign and after the results were announced‘” 

At the start of the year the research and communications teams together drew up a new messaging guide for use by the Democracy sector. This was the final thread of the messaging research project which took place in 2023 in which we engaged multiple research agencies and tested messaging on PR on the general public. We shared this messaging guide with National Campaign for PR early this year and the messaging we created was used during the general election.

In May there were local council elections in many places in England, and once again we highlighted places that saw highly disproportional outcomes, with voters failing to be represented properly. We renewed our call to replace FPTP with STV for English local elections, matching the tried and tested system used for Scottish local elections, which produces outcomes that much more closely match how people have voted in their local area.
There were also Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections across England and Wales and a number of elections for directly-elected mayors, including high profile contests in Greater London, Greater Manchester, West Midlands and Tees Valley. These were the first set of PCC elections held under the First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system after the previous Conservative government scrapped the use of the Supplementary Vote (SV) system for PCCs and elected mayors as part of the Elections Act 2022. We highlighted how this reduced the mandates of the mayors and PPCs who were elected and called for FPTP for mayors to be scrapped. We also gave evidence to the Greater London Authority elections committee on the impact of using FPTP for these elections.

In May this year we also launched our report Pursuing Parity: Examining Gender Quotas Across Electoral Systems, with a webinar in May for our members and supporters as well as others in the sector. The report laid out how the electoral system can impact the diversity of an elected body and how gender quotas can work in conjunction with different electoral systems to produce more gender-balanced legislatures. This piece of research found that elected bodies which use proportional representation are more likely to have larger numbers of women in their elected bodies than countries which use majoritarian systems. 

With the anticipated change in Government came an increase in conversations around the second chamber and ERS published our views on the way to an elected second chamber in our report, Unfinished Business: Routes to an Elected Second Chamber. With the first steps towards Lords reform passing through parliament this year in the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill we have been using our work on options for reform to inform and press the case for stage two.  

Following the Electoral Commission estimates of the number of people missing from or incorrectly registered on the electoral rolls, we used census data across England, Scotland and Wales to estimate the numbers of eligible voters missing, or inaccurately registered. This work was used to further our campaign for automatic voter registration (AVR), highlighting to MPs, policy makers and the general public, the vast numbers of eligible voters who could be enrolled under AVR. 

The Most Disproportional in the History of the UK

With the nation going to the polls this summer, we were able to bring our campaigns to a wider political and public audience than ever before. Here are highlights of the campaign leading up to, and after, the General Election: 

Our media coverage opened with Jess Garland being quoted on the front of the Guardian on how donors were pouring money into ‘target seats’ they thought could be won or saved. There was also early media interest in the millions of voters missing from the electoral rolls.  

As the campaign progressed, media interest grew in issues such as Labour’s plans for the Lords, with the ERS being quoted by i News and the Express. AVR and Labour’s proposals for votes at 16 also drew considerable attention with the ERS quoted in the Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail and Independent.  

In the weeks leading up to the vote, we produced a range of new analysis to support our campaigns and generate media stories. Our work included analysing donations data, looking at the gender diversity of candidates, analysing and responding to the main party manifestos, and reporting on non-registered voters and applications for Voter Authority Certificates – to draw attention to those missing from the register and voters without accepted voter ID.   

We also identified constituencies where the winning party had not changed for over a century as well as historic general election-related facts, stretching back over the last century, so that we were in a strong position to comment on any particularly noteworthy outcomes. Our statistics showing which seats had been held by Labour and the Conservatives for more than a century were discussed at length on the Rest is Politics podcast, hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, as well as picked up by print outlets such as the Big Issue.   

We had many requests to discuss public information issues, such as voter ID requirements and deadlines for registration, with Willie Sullivan, Jess Blair, Jess Garland and Darren Hughes doing a lot of media in Scotland and Wales, as well as on English local radio. We also received substantial coverage on podcasts, with Jess Garland doing Politics Home and Pod Save the UK, and Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart discussing ERS research in two consecutive episodes of their ‘The Rest is Politics’ podcast just before polling day. 

 After polling day we were able to quickly establish that the 2024 General Election was the most disproportional outcome in history, based on various Deviation from Proportionality (DV) scores. The BBC Verify team picked this up and confirmed that we were correct. Our analysis allowed us to quickly call this election as the most disproportional and this news line featured prominently in the BBC coverage which, in turn, helped steer the media focus and narrative onto the disparity between the votes parties received and their number of seats. This was then picked up by other prominent news outlets, such as the Guardian. 

 The second intervention was a rapid analysis of what the election result would have looked like under PR (in this case an AMS system like that used for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments). Again, we were able to do this quickly due to detailed preparation and the research team working through election night and the following day to collate the results in each FPTP constituency and model how these results might have looked under AMS. This gave a fresh news line for the media and generated a second wave of coverage. On the back of this, Darren was on the Today Programme and then the BBC Breakfast sofa, as well as LBC and Times Radio, discussing the results and making the case to move to PR in the days after the election.  

Our analysis was supported by our election results dashboard, which gave journalists immediate, at-a-glance analysis and graphics on the disproportionality of the election result. This was again covered widely, from i News to the Daily Mail and Express. 

We polled the general public throughout the campaign on their views on issues such as tactical voting and party switching – the results of which will feature in our General Election report due out in December. We have also produced more detailed modelling work, including for a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, which will also feature in our General Election 2024 report.   

Democratic Reform in Wales

This year was a time of great electoral change across Wales. At a national level, the passing of the Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act 2024 and the Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Act 2024 will help create a parliament and system of electoral administration fit for the 21st century. At a local level, Councils in Wales had the opportunity to vote to move to STV ahead of the deadline of 15th November this year. 

Reform of the Senedd 

The Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act 2024 was passed by a supermajority in the Senedd on 8th May 2024 and received Royal Assent on 24th June 2024, meaning that the 2026 Senedd elections will look very different to those that have come before.  

The Act increases the size of the Senedd from 60 Members to 96, bringing the institution in line with the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly, something ERS Cymru has long campaigned for. It also changes the voting system from the current Additional Member System (AMS) to Closed List PR. While a move to a fully proportional system would usually be welcomed, it is disappointing that the Welsh Government back a system which reduces voter choice and hands power to parties. As such, we raised significant concerns about this system and campaigned for amendments to support moving to STV or Flexible List PR instead. While those amendments didn’t pass, we will push for further voting system change if the post-2026 review of the legislation goes ahead, and we will continue working with political parties on this issue. 

One of the arguments Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru MSs gave for supporting the Closed List PR system was its integration with the Senedd Cymru (Electoral Candidate Lists) Bill, which would have put gender quotas alongside the new electoral system. That Bill was withdrawn at short notice by a motion brought forward by the Welsh Government on 17th September. It was very disappointing to see all the work, both by civil servants and civil society, on this Bill disappear overnight. ERS Cymru had given written and oral evidence alongside briefings and meetings with those working on the Bill over the last two years. We mobilised the Diverse5050 coalition to express this disappointment at the withdrawal of the Bill.      

Changes to Electoral administration 

The Elections and Elected Bodies (Wales) Act 2024 was passed by the Senedd on 9th July 2024 and received Royal Assent on 9th September 2024. It promises to bring electoral administration into the 21st century in Wales with automatic voter registration, a new online voter information portal, and a duty on Welsh Ministers to promote diversity in the Senedd and Welsh local government – changes ERS Cymru has long campaigned for. 

Local Government Reform

Following the implementation of the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, councils in Wales have been able to vote to move to the Single Transferable Vote system at local elections. To do this, councils had to vote to hold a public consultation before deciding whether to make the move. The final vote for each council requires a two-thirds majority and can only be held once per term.  

For the last five years, the ERS Cymru team has worked extensively with councils and councillors across Wales to encourage them to hold votes on this issue. With support from the research team, briefings were developed to help improve the knowledge of councillors and support local work ahead of votes. In December last year, Gwynedd and Powys County Councils voted ‘yes’ to holding a consultation, they were then joined by Ceredigion County Council in March.    

During the summer and autumn of this year all three councils held their consultations to get the views of residents. In all three areas, the support was overwhelmingly in favour of adopting a fairer democracy with 67% backing STV in Ceredigion, 72% in Gwynedd and 61% in Powys. We are grateful to our members and supporters who engaged with the consultations. 

In Autumn 2024, these councils began the next step of the process – a vote on the change. Ahead of these votes, ERS were on the ground to support councillors to understand the system and answer any concerns that they may have. Unfortunately, in Powys the vote failed and in Gwynedd we were just one vote away from achieving the necessary two-thirds required. In Ceredigion, a majority of councillors who voted were in favour, but this did not meet the two-thirds requirement. Whilst these outcomes are disappointing, the groundwork that has been laid in these areas will ensure that we can continue to push for STV in the future.  

Throughout this whole process we have continued to engage with Welsh Government ministers and civil servants to highlight the huge challenges that this piecemeal approach to change creates. Looking towards the 2026 Senedd elections, we will push parties in Wales to include manifesto commitments on STV in local government. 

Democratic Reform in Scotland

Scotland has PR systems of election both for the Scottish Parliament and for Scottish Councils. This provides us with space to develop several other projects there that are dealing with some of the big challenges facing democracy, while still campaigning to ensure Scottish voices and institutions are pushing for reform at Westminster. These projects overlap and interconnect in many ways but most importantly they are concerned with the ways in which politics and democracy might develop for it and all of us to flourish.  

Building a Local Scotland

Building a Local Scotland is about the decentralising of power so that Scottish cities, towns and villages have the municipal structures and processes to run themselves, and to pool and share power where that serves them best. We are part of an impressive coalition of organisations and individuals asking for this. In addition, we played a central role in the launch of the campaign, including with media operations, website design, logistical support and political guidance.  

Dunfermline Citizens Assembly

Dunfermline Citizens Assembly is a pilot project in partnership with local community groups, Fife Council and the Scottish Government, to experiment with, research and record, how a long-standing assembly of local citizens might help run a city. As part of this work, we have conducted a series of workshops with local community organisations and established working relationships at a local level. We have also devised plans for promotion and outreach in order to raise awareness for the project among the general public in Dunfermline. Crucially, the pilot aims to serve as a working model, with the potential to influence national debates and policy making around local democracy.  

Beyond the Constitutional Binary

Politics is becoming more angry, fearful and divisive. This is harming our democracy and our society. In Scotland that can often be seen in how the matter of Scottish identity and the national question plays out. ERS Scotland are working with many others to understand and facilitate better ways to do politics that bring policy solutions while at the same times building solidarity and understanding. We have played a convening role in bringing together a range of partners including think-tanks, academics, civic groups, trade union representatives, the John Smith Centre, Reform Scotland and research organisations like the Diffley Partnership. Through the organisation of multiple successful roundtable events, this informal group is now looking to take the conversation to a public setting, through an event in Spring 2025. 

The Scottish Parliament

This year ERS Scotland has significantly advanced its parliamentary presence, raising awareness and finding champions for our campaigns through building connections with elected members and civil servants on our key issues. We have maintained a close relationship with the Local Governance Review team and the two ministers who have presided over the Democracy Matters brief and have been asked by the Minister to apply for government funding for the Dunfermline Citizens’ Assembly project. This has been supported by regular meetings with current members of the Local Government and Housing Committee who have requested to visit the pilot once it is running. 

The introduction of The Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill raised the opportunity to advocate for Automatic Voter Registration (AVR). We met with the Minister for Parliamentary Business, gave evidence to the Standards Procedures and Public Appointments (SPPA) Committee and worked with the deputy convener, publishing an op-ed in The Herald on the case for AVR. Amendments making provision for the piloting of Automatic Voter Registration were passed and we will continue to work with members and the government at stage three of the bill.  

Towards the end of this year we began engagement with the SPPA committee convener on progress on the Lobbying Register Review which ERS Scotland campaigned for in 2016. Our work on this will continue in 2025.  

Our increased presence in parliament and with members on these issues has led to the beginnings of a Scottish Democracy Network. This project aims to bring together MSPs, academics and practitioners across the democracy field, who are interested in discussing the big topics facing democracy in Scotland. 

Conferences and Events

 Building connections with politicians is incredibly important because this allows us to better understand their existing priorities, the shifting party dynamics in which they operate, to become a source of trusted information by providing evidence-based research on a variety of democratic issues which enables politicians to feel confident when approaching us with concerns regarding upcoming legislation or wider constitutional issues. 

In Westminster: 

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Electoral Reform, for which ERS provides joint secretariat, concluded its work programme for this parliament with a meeting with the Electoral Commission’s Chair, Sir John Pullinger who highlighted the changes he wanted to see to ensure our elections put the voter first.  

We also held an event at parliament in conjunction with the All Party Parliamentary Group on Democracy and the Constitution looking at Voter ID, with speakers including the Chair of the House of Lords Constitution Committee and MPs Dawn Butler and John Nicholson. 

A new parliament has created new opportunities to raise our issues with the many new MPs and ministers. Autumn saw the introduction of the House of Lords (hereditary peers) Bill removing the remaining hereditary peers from the upper chamber. We are pleased to see this first step towards full reform of the Lords and have been engaging parliamentarians on this issue. We are also pleased to see some modest changes to Voter ID laws coming through and will be pressing for further changes. 

At the Party Conferences: 

Having a presence at the major party conferences is a key activity in our campaigning work. Party conferences provide us with plenty of opportunities to get our issues in front of people that can make a difference. Across a typical conference we host fringe events to generate top level discussions on our issues, meet with key stakeholders in the party and MPs, and come together with our allies from across the movement to make the case for fair votes.  

At the Liberal Democrat Conference, we held a fringe event on the 2024 General Election result and its implications for the PR debate. Darren kicked

off the event, speaking alongside  Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove, Lisa Smart MP, who spoke to the public’s desire to understand how a more representative politics would improve their lives. ERS Research Officer Ian Simpson outlined just how disproportionate the 2024 election results had been, and ERS Communications Officer Hannah Camilleri spoke about engaging the public on electoral reform.

Read more about our team’s work at Liberal Democrat conference. 

At Labour Party conference, we held a Democracy Reception in which we honed in on the General Election result and what it says about the state of our democracy. Former New Zealand Prime Minister, and current New Zealand

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins, spoke at the reception discussing the positive impacts of PR on New Zealand. We were also joined by Jill Rutter from the Institute for Government, who spoke about the broader ways in which our political system isn’t working. 

Read more about our team’s work at Labour Party conference. 

At the Conservative conference in Birmingham, we worked with Conservative Action for Electoral Reform (CAER), supporting a crowded fringe event. Attendees heard from CAER chair, and former MP, Keith Best, Conservative writer and commentator John Oxley, co-founder and director of Deltapoll Joe Twyman, and Conservative member of the Greater London Assembly Emma Best. A common theme was the impact that First Past the Post has had on the party – especially as the vote was split on the right in an unprecedented way in this year’s General Election. 

Read more about our team’s work at Conservative conference.

Society Members Support our Work

Being an ERS member means that you’re joining our campaign at its heart. Members’ contributions support our work in parliament, in the press and online – making the case, and backing it up – for how we can fix Westminster’s broken system. In short, our members are helping us win the fight for electoral reform. 

Support our work, become a member.

It’s very important to us that we keep our members and supporters informed on how we are campaigning for change. Over the last 12 months, our membership team has continued to work on our communication with our members – giving our members the best opportunity to keep themselves informed on the work they are supporting. 

Each quarter we send out a ‘Members’ Quarterly’ email – an exclusive members-only newsletter which gives an update on our behind the scenes campaigning work across all three ERS offices in London, Wales and Scotland. 

We also send ‘Members’ Insights’ emails, in which various members of the ERS staff team explain how their work within the organisation fits into our wider campaign goals. 

Here are some of the insights given by the team: 

“Online campaigning means we can tailor the level of detail to the audience, but give them the tools to find out more, if they want. 

For many people, highlighting the failures of first past the post is enough, for a sub group we need to explain proportional representation, for some of them we need to promote STV as the best system and for the really engaged we need to talk about the difference between the Hare and Droop quotas. 

Rather than trying to answer everything in one pamphlet and end up alienating half the audience and patronise the other half, we can get the right info to the right people when they want it, and hopefully take them on a journey with us.” 

Doug Cowan, Head of Digital, on why our online presence is so important in supporting our campaign for a better democracy 

“What we are trying to achieve is so important to so many people, but it is also a huge task. Working with others enables us to amplify what we are doing but it also means we can make links and connections across different sectors. 

It’s also important for us to continue to reach out and bring new voices into the debate. Elections touch everyone’s lives, whether they vote or not, and the more people who are involved in our cause, the stronger and more impactful we are.” 

Jess Garland, Director of Policy and Research, on our collaborative work with other organisations in the democracy sector 

Our Team

The Society’s staff are based in our offices in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff. 

Tom Abraham started with us at the start of July as Communications and Research Assistant in Wales. We also reappointed former ERS Cymru employee Nia Thomas in July on a 6 month contract as Research Officer. Nia rejoins us to increase the capacity of the ERS research team following the General Election and to support the ERS Cymru team in delivering output around legislation and the local STV project. 

In August we appointed Gen Sandle, our new Digital Associate, for a fixed term of 1 year to support the Acting Head of Digital, Lizzie Lawless. Head of Digital Doug Cowan will return full time next year. Gen will be assisting Lizzie in Doug’s absence, including assisting with additional work created by our successful list building during the General Election period. 

Phil Connor, Campaigns Officer at ERS Scotland, is Acting Chief Operating Officer until the end of the year. Chief Operating Officer Kate West will return in early December. 

Thank you to all our staff for their hard work and dedication.

See the current team. 

The Board

The Board is the Electoral Reform Society’s governing body. It consists of up to 15 members, of which 12 are elected by our membership, with up to 3 additional co-opted Board members. Elections took place at the end of last year, with the newly elected Board taking office after the AGM on the 2nd of December 2023. 

Elected Board members serving from the 2nd of December 2023 are: 

• Lynn Henderson, Chair
• Amy Dodd, Vice Chair (Management)
• Caroline Osborne, Deputy Chair (Campaigns & Research)
• Victor Chamberlain, Treasurer
• Chris Finlayson
• Frances Foley
• Christopher Graham
• David Green
• Pablo John
  
• Kirsten de Keyser
  
• Sandy Martin
  
• Shaun Roberts 

Co-opted Board members serving from 19th May 2023, for a two-year term are: 

• Kezia Dugdale
  
• Stephen Sadler
  
• Shavanah Taj (until July 2024) 

Due to heavy work commitments, Shavanah Taj resigned from the ERS Board so she can concentrate on leading the Trade Union Congress in Wales. We express our thanks to Shavannah for her time on our Board and hope to continue engaging with her in her work capacity.  

Thank you to all our Board members for their invaluable contribution and commitment to ERS.

See the current ERS Board

Finance

The Society’s financial year is now aligned with the tax year, running from 1st April – 31st March.

The difference between income and expenditure was met by the carry-over of the previous year’s surplus and a drawdown from the ERS Fund under our “Total Return” investment policy model.

2023-24 was a good year for the Society financially. Income was strong, with our investments again generating more income than expected. Our income from members and supporters was up nearly 15% compared to the previous year and our property income has remained stable. Our expenditure was in line with budget. The majority of our spend is on our staff, with most of our campaigning, research and policy work being carried out in-house.

Income (2023-24)

£1,378,576

Expenditure (2023-24)

£ 2,365,633

Expenditure in further detail

ERS Investment Fund

The ERS Fund provides the main source of funding for the Society to operate. In 2023-24 we received just under £1.95million from the Fund, £1million of which was generated in income. Our investment manager is Rathbone Brothers plc and we operate a medium risk strategy for the fund, enabling us to use a ‘total return’ model that supports the Society’s operating needs and seeks to protect the value of the remaining capital over time.

The Finance, Audit, Investments and Risk (FAIR) committee and ERS management meet with our investment managers throughout the year to maintain oversight of the fund. We have talked to Rathbones about the Society’s values, particularly around democracy issues, so that investments made for us reflect these. Rathbones has a well-established focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues as part of its strategy to lead the field in responsible investing.