Post Poll Candidate Survey

The Electoral Commission requires specialist research services to deliver its 2026 post-poll Candidate Survey following the May 2026 English local elections, Scottish Parliament election and Senedd election. The survey forms part of the Commission's statutory post-poll research programme evaluating electoral processes and participant experience.

Queen Mary University of London conducts an established independent programme of candidate surveys covering the same electoral events and engaging the same candidate population.

Award to an alternative supplier would be likely to result in separate surveys being conducted using comparable methodologies and targeting the same limited population of election candidates. This creates a material risk of duplicated engagement, reduced participation rates, and lower overall data quality.

A coordinated delivery model enables alignment of methodology and reduces duplication of research activity involving a small and specialised research population.

The requirement includes identification of publicly available candidate contact information, including manual compilation of candidate email addresses, to support participation across the candidate population. This activity must be undertaken within the statutory election timetable, with data collection occurring during the period between the close of nominations and polling day.

A market review undertaken in December 2025 did not identify alternative providers delivering candidate experience surveys with comparable scope, frequency, and electoral coverage across local and devolved elections.

For these reasons, the Commission considers that competition is not feasible due to objective technical circumstances and proposes to enter into a direct award.