Representation of the People Act 1983

55 Ascertainment of amount of registration expenses

(1) The registration expenses payable to a registration officer—

(a) include all proper and reasonable charges for his own personal remuneration for performing his registration duties and for the remuneration and expenses of any staff provided by a local authority to enable him to perform them; but

(b) do not include any sum on account of the use of premises, furniture or equipment provided by a local authority in excess of the amount by which that authority's expenditure has been actually and directly increased by the use of those premises or of that furniture or equipment in connection with registration.

(2) The Secretary of State may frame a scale of registration expenses applicable to all or any class or classes of those expenses, and may alter the scale as and when he thinks fit, and any expenses incurred by a registration officer of a class to which the scale is applicable—

(a) shall be taken to be properly incurred if they do not exceed the maximum amount determined by or in accordance with the scale ; and

(b) shall be taken not to have been properly incurred so far as they do exceed that amount, unless the sanction (whether previous or not) of the Secretary of State and of the local authority is specially given for the excess.

(3) Nothing in paragraph (a) of subsection (2) above shall be construed as entitling a registration officer to receive payments in excess of the expenses actually incurred by him, except his proper and reasonable charges for his own personal remuneration.

(4) If any question arises whether any expenses incurred by a registration officer of a class to which no scale framed under this section is applicable have been properly incurred or not, that question shall be referred to the Secretary of State, and his decision on the question shall be final.

(5) This section does not apply to Northern Ireland.