We are in a privileged position in Cumbria that we have talented and (generally) very experienced returning officers, with a network of strong deputies and extremely able and successful electoral services managers. We also have a history of mutual support and joint working as we have seen in previous county-wide, EU, police and crime commissioner (PCC) and parliamentary elections.

This is a great starting point for us and the active county-wide electoral service manager and officer group mobilised from an early stage in the process, meeting fortnightly to feed into the work that was being undertaken by the monitoring officer group on key issues such as the Structural Changes Order. This helped to focus on the main issues for returning officers and electoral service managerss to consider in planning the elections to the shadow authorities, which are taking place in May 2022. The elections are for a five-year term of office, one year in the shadow authority followed by a four-year term in the new unitaries.