Adare gets the vote from councils across the North East
The North East Purchasing Organisation (NEPO) has awarded Adare’s democratic services division a three year contract to deliver all election products on behalf of councils across the region.
The partnership began this month with the successful delivery of polling cards, ballot papers, ballot books and postal voting packs to more than 1.1 million voters across Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and the city of Newcastle ahead of the local elections.
The company’s proven track record in maintaining 100 per cent data integrity and handling time critical documents was fundamental in securing the contract, which demands dependable delivery of results that comply with legislative requirements within stringent deadlines.
Adare has developed this necessary expertise through product evolution, design and technology within the financial services sector, where accreditations set by industry bodies must be met in order to provide products such as bank statements, cheques or PIN numbers. This has also paid dividends in developing project management, quality control and data and information security expertise, which are particularly pertinent in the area of secure postal voting solutions.
Adare operates a closed loop system to produce ballot packs, managing 100 per cent of the process at one site with meticulous security checks and project management to ensure maximum security.
All work is carried out at Adare’s Park Mill multimedia customer communications centre, which holds the ISO 27001 and APACS 55 accreditations for security, awarded to firms demonstrating high levels of system, data and process integrity.
Angus Walker, business development director at Adare, comments: “Our relationship with the NEPO is testament to the success we have achieved over the last few years working with in-house council teams to improve product, refine data and adjust to system changes, as well as our credentials in providing data security across the financial services sector.
“Our experience has enabled us to design security features into election products in order to combat election and postal voting fraud – an area that is open to scrutiny across the election timetable.
“Adare now produces election products for 15 councils, successfully delivering to more than 3 million voters during the May local elections alone. Several additional councils have already come on board under the NEPO agreement and we expect further expansion of the democratic services remit going forward into the European and Parliamentary elections.”
The NEPO provides the latest in a succession of wins for Adare’s democratic services division including Barnsley Metropolitan Borough, Rotherham Metropolitan and Bradford Metropolitan District Councils.
