# The Scottish Parliamentary Elections (Returning Officers' Charges) Order 1999, Note: Explanatory note


(This note is not part of the Order)
This Order makes provision for the payment of constituency and regional returning officers at elections for membership of the Scottish Parliament in respect of their services and expenses in connection therewith.
The regional returning officers are responsible for receiving the regional lists of candidates from registered political parties to be regional members for their region, receiving the nominations of individual candidates to be regional members for their region, calculating the regional figures for the purpose of allocating regional member seats to registered political parties or individual candidates and co-ordinating the functions of the constituency returning officers in their region, in so far as they relate to the poll for the return of regional members.
The constituency returning officers are responsible for all other functions in connection with the elections, including the counting of votes for the return of constituency members and the counting of the regional votes.
Under section 29(3) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, as applied for the purposes of elections for membership of the Scottish Parliament, the entitlement of a regional returning officer, or, as the case may be, a constituency returning officer at an election to recover his charges in respect of his services or expenses for in connection with such an election depends upon–
(a) the services or expenses being of a kind specified in an order made under that provision;
(b) the services being properly rendered and the expenses being properly incurred; and
(c) the charges in respect of them being reasonable.
Article 2(1)(a) and (2) of and Part A of the Schedule to this Order specifies the kinds of services rendered by a constituency returning officer for or in connection with an election in respect of which he is entitled to recover his charges, together with maximum recoverable amounts in respect of those services. Article 2(1)(b) and (2) of and Parts B and C of the Schedule specify the kinds of expenses incurred by a constituency returning officer for or in connection with an election in respect of which he is entitled to recover his charges, together (in the case of Part B) with the maximum recoverable amount in respect of those expenses.
Article 3 of this Order specifies the kinds of services and expenses rendered by a regional returning officer for or in connection with an election in respect of which he is entitled to recover his charges, together with the maximum recoverable amount in respect of the services specified in article 3(1)(a) and the expenses specified in article 3(1)(b).
The Order also makes provision for additional payments where the poll at a Scottish parliamentary election is taken together with the poll at a local government election.
Articles 4 and 5 of this Order make provision for the charges that are recoverable by constituency and regional returning officers at uncontested elections.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/1094/note (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/scottish-parliamentary-elections-returning-officers-charges-order-1999/note
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.