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<p>The Government is encouraged by the University of Sheffield’s experience but has
no plans to mandate a single approach across the country.</p><p>The Government is,
however, committed to ensuring the electoral registration system is responsive to
the needs of students. Ministerial Guidance was issued to the Office for Students
(OfS) in February 2018 acting on a commitment made in Parliament during the<br>passage
of the Higher Education and Research Act (2017), directing that they require Higher
Education providers to comply with Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) requests for
data and they be encouraged to work with Local Authorities to promote electoral registration
amongst their student populations. The merits of working closely with EROs have been
demonstrated by a number of Higher Education providers across the country.</p><p>Yet,
the Government does not believe that one size fits all and instead favours an approach
which allows innovation.</p><p>The Ministerial Guidance has since been used by the
OfS to produce their own guidance to Higher Education providers, which advises them
how they might best implement, and abide by, the requirements placed on them. The
OfS guidance came into force in August. The Government is committed to ensuring everyone
who is eligible to register to vote is able to do so and, in 2014, introduced online
registration for the first time. Statistics show young people aged between 14 and
24 are more likely than average to use this as a means of registering to vote.</p><p>The
Government believes these measures will drive up the number of applications to register
from students – improving both the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register
– as well as further improve the relationships between Higher Education provider and
Local Authorities.</p>
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