Here is ALDC's list of the councils, and the number and affiliation of councillors, facing election in May 2013.

Councillor figures are always subject to change, and these figures reflect the best knowledge of ALDC at the time of publication. There is a chance that some minor changes (defections, by-election 'churn', etc.) to council and group figures have not yet been reflected in the numbers below. 

For any questions, clarification or corrections of numbers, please contact craig.whittall@aldc.org

David Faulkner, leader of Newcastle Upon Tyne Lib Dems explains how stricter targetting helped them to a better result in 2012.

"In 2011 we won only 6 out of 26 council seats in Newcastle and lost control to Labour after seven years of a high-achieving Liberal Democrat administration. We were determined that we would do better in 2012 and stem the flow.

We immediately set up a city-wide campaign team and began much earlier selection of candidates where new approvals were needed. We needed to get the entire local party to snap out of self-pity for our losses and get back out on the streets. But where?

We didn’t think we could keep every seat at risk that had been lost in 2011 so targeting was the name of the game. We thought only 3 wards were truly safe so we targeted 7 seats -  8 defences because of a double vacancy. Each had to have a focus every two months at minimum before Christmas and monthly January – March, plus on-going issue-based survey work, getting onto the doorsteps, with targets for contacts.

We needed issues that played for us, and Labour’s attack on the Green Belt and clumsy handling of cuts become “ours” as far as Focus and campaigning was concerned. We worked twice as hard than in the previous years, and this time we won 11 against Labour’s 16. We’re on the way back!"

Target where we can win!

In the post General Election electoral environment we need to be harder than ever with ourselves. Fighting to come second is helping no one. ALDC has for many years advocated strictly targetting your effort in those seats that can be won.

Now is the time for ruthless decisions about May’s local council elections. Spreading your campaigners too thinly can lead to losing wards/divisions you could otherwise win.

Do not let this happen to you!
Local campaigners should already have assessed which divisions should be safe holds for the Lib Dems, which ones could be lost, which wards we could gain with good campaigns and which we have no chance of winning this time.

Do not waste resources on divisions we cannot win this time.

If you were hoping to target a division which will not do enough to win, drop it and move your resources to where they will make the difference between winning and losing. Strict campaign planning, monitoring performance against the plan and the "measurables" within Connect all make this an easier job  than in the past. But it still may mean dropping wards/divisions with sitting councillors. For May 2013, if they are not delivering already then it is probably already too late.

So it’s a much better use of money,time and effort to concentrate on winnable wards. You can then decide to target new ones next time if you get good results and if you have the resources.

Fighting a half-hearted campaign to try to get a good second place is a waste of time. Also, if you have safe Lib Dem wards - consolidate early using postal votes, high levels of voter contact and good,early GOTV -  then move resources, such as canvassers, into more marginal ones.

The Four P’s
Here are four measures to help you decide which wards to target:

Plan
Does the ward have a deliverable plan (see above), that if delivered will lead to victory? Are they sticking to it? Who's monitioring it? Whose reasonsbile for delivering it. Have they acknowledged that responsibility?  If any of these are not in place it should not be targetted.

People
Do you have a candidate who is willing to fight a winning campaign? How many members and deliverers does the ward have? How many doors have been knocked on?

Paper/Pounds
How many leaflets have been delivered in 2012? Marginal wards should deliver at least one leaflet per month until April, and a leaflet a week from then on. Have you planned how you will pay for the above ? Have you planned fundraising events?

Past Results
All our Wards will need full campaigns this time.  Switching resources will only be possible when we are 90% sure of retention, but "safe" wards must build their own teams so they are not a drain on marginal wards,with smaller majorities and wards where we came a close second last time. 

New challenges and capacity
Both Labour and the Tories have raised their game and the turnout We need to match them. It 's still not too late to build a team big enough to win without the need to switch resources. The days of "hollowed out" but still successful safe wards have gone.

The simple message is that you should target wards where this will make the difference between winning and losing. Many areas have failed to advance because they have targeted more wards than they could manage, and then failed to win any of them. Don’t make this mistake - remember there’s always next time!

See you in Eastleigh!

John Bridges
Campaigns Officer

Some useful links:

More about the Newcastle Campaign

ALDC's Campaign Essentials

PS To access many of these products you need to be a member of ALDC, but the good news is that its only £3.41 per month!

At ALDC we cannot stress strongly enough the importance of postal votes to your success in May. Around 15% of  the electorate have postal votes. In last years local election - no matter the authority -  68% of them used them. More than double the 32% overall turnout.

In many places the postal votes were more than 50% of the votes cast in the election. It’s a bit like modular exams, to pass overall  you need to get a decent result both from the postal votes and on polling day itself. But postal votes and voters have other huge advantages:

• As 15% of the electorate, targeting your campaign at postal voters is very time and cost effective.
• You have 10 days, rather than 10 hours to get them to vote.
• Every Lib Dem postal voter knocked up is one less thing to do on polling making your normal polling day activity more focused and effective.
  

You need to:

1. Integrate the postal vote campaign into you overall campaign and stick to it
2. Recruit known Lib Dems to postal votes before the election.
   
3. Use target mail to talk to all postal voters.
4. Canvass postal voters as a priority group.
5. Plan your “Get Out The Vote” campaign for postal voters now.
   

ALDC's 12 Point Postal Vote Checklist

- please check the following against your own campaign plans for 2013 -  for more detail of each item see the ALDC website.

1. Make sure that you have up to date lists of postal voters from your elections office and that it is loaded into Connect, and that whether a voter has a postal vote appears on your canvass cards/minvan. Ask for new lists as often as you like. Talk to your returning officer about the likely timetable ie.dispatch and doormat times for each set of PV ballot papers and about their respective colours. These can vary across the country.

2. In your  regular canvass sessions that should have started already ask all Lib Dem supporters without postal votes to fill in the postal vote applications forms you have with you.

3. Target and plan how you will contact all you known supporters without postal votes before the end of March to recruit them.

4. Send  a letter to all your known supporters without postal votes before the end of February to recruit them.

5. Ideally in wider target mail pools, make sure most postal voters get some target mail before the end of February, another letter during March and a third in the first fortnight of April.

6. Send/deliver all postal voters a Blue letter in the week before the issue of postal votes.

7. Look at the timing of your regular election literature. You should aim to get three pieces of literature promoting the candidates - the last one should be quality – perhaps full colour and emphasising that we can win and other Key campaign messages -  not simply a regular Focus or Tabloid -  to postal voters before 17th April.

8. Prioritise the canvassing of all postal voters before the issue of postal votes.

9. Make "Postal vote Polling Day" an equal priority for time off and help with full polling day itself.

10. Plan the postal vote  Get out the Vote campaign. Items to include are

• Eve of poll/ “GoodMornings” for postal voter  polling (when we expect their ballots to hit the doormats)
• Postal vote “How to” letter summarising your campaign and including postal voting instructions.
• Phone and foot knock ups with appropriate calling leaflets.
• Reminder letters
  

11. Super Sunday 28th April
One way of  “knocking up” our postal voters is to combine it with a “firming up” canvass of our  supporters on the final Sunday before Polling Day. The idea is to doorstep and phone “knock ” both our supporters and our postal voters on the weekend before polling day.  This can deliver a number of benefits:

• It’s more like a friendly chat rather than the slightly manic knocking they would later receive on polling day  - more like a soft re-canvass.
• Probables/waverers can be firmed up
• Errors can be removed before polling day
• Additional poster sites can be found to show visible momentum
• Late swings and Tory smears can be spotted with enough time to rebut them
• “Do not knock before” times and lifts can be identified for polling day
• Postal voters who have sent their ballot papers in can be crossed off our lists of supporters (the shuttleworth) thereby narrowing  the numbers for polling day knock up.
  

12. Full Polling Day
Include information on all May 2nd Knock up materials that reminds postal voters that it’s not too late and how they can still use their postal vote. On polling day itself, it is sensible to include postal voters in knock ups, at least in the early stages of polling day (you can always exclude them from later knock-ups). Any who have not yet returned their postal votes may well not know that they can be returned to any polling station before close of polls.

Spread your workload and campaign smartly!

John Bridges
Campaigns Officer

Downloads:
Please make sure you are logged into the ALDC website before following these links

2012 Candidate Postal Vote Recruitment Letter (PDF) (Pageplus)

2012 Postal Vote Recruitment Form (PDF) (Pageplus)

2012 Postal Vote Letter for May 2013 Election Text for mailmerge (Pageplus)

Electoral Commission Postal Vote Code of Conduct (PDF)

There are now 3 months, 89 day or just over 12 weeks to go to till we face crucial local elections to County and Unitary authorities across much of England.

2,450 seats are up for grabs on 27 traditional County councils and Unitary Councils  - most of which cover historic county areas. There are also two Mayoral elections in North Tyneside and Doncaster. 
All of these elections are all up and with the exception of Bristol were last contested in  2009.

We are defending 490 sitting Lib Dem councillors and minority control in Cornwall and Northumberland. In most other counties we are the opposition to the conservatives.

When they were last up in 2009 we had a poor set of elections, with Tories making large gains.
Here is ALDC's list of the councils, and the number and affiliation of councillors, facing election in May 2013ctionBit about the number and type of seats up.

What happened in 2011 and 2012?
We have lost 1,150 seats in just two years.  But we held 1500 in the same elections.  Broadly we did better in conservative facing seats than in those facing Labour.  We did better in the South of England than we did in Wales , Scotland and the North. 

In 2012 we began to learn some lessons about how to win in the new electoral environment. In 2012 we held  60 seats in wards that we had lost in 2011. Certain councils groups managed to buck the trends and we have sought to learn from their experience  -  see below. 

Why will it be different in 2013?
We’ll the first thing to say is unless we improve, the results could easily be the same or worse.  Rallings and Thrasher are predicting on their analysis 190 losses (about 40%). 

Organization is the key and we have learnt from those who were more successful in 2012 and  November’s American elections.

Key points:

• We can win -  9 net gains in principal local council by-elections since November are testament to that.
• The power of Connect
• Voter ID and data collection needs to been done earlier and in much greater volumes than have sufficed in past.
• New targeting - targeting voter ID groups has progressed beyond Squeeze.
• The last fortnight should be about Getting Out The Vote
• Recruiting and working with volunteers needs to be part of the weekly activity of each campaign team.
  

What we already knew, but is even more essential now:

• Postal Voters will decide the elections, so that encouraging our voters to have postal votes and persuading other postal voters to vote for us are both important .
• Targeting  - Monitoring  is powerful , and Connect makes it easier and less subjective.
• Messaging, literature and the visual campaign (posters and stakeboards) need to create a micro climate where voters believe we can win to counter act the national media.
• Pre 2010 canvass ID is unreliable for Shuttleworths in 2013  without testing.
  

ALDC are helping by:

• Setting up an ALDC Phone Task Force - weekly volunteer phone bank canvass sessions for target divisions.
• Helping to organise the National Days of Action, encouraging those without elections in 2012 to help those that do.
• Templates  - we are, as usual, producing template literature for our members.
• Administrering the G8 grants process.  Financial support for target divisions.
• Advice - Mentors have been appointed for each county group in addition to the ALDC election helpline and campaigns officers.
• Half price ALDC membership – it’s only £3.41 per month on Direct Debit for new members!
• Facebook group - A 'safe' online environment for ALDC members to interact with each other.
  

What you can do to help

• Help a target division on Saturday February 9th either in person or using the phone.
• Commit to helping  in a target division between now and polling day
  
• Learn the new skills and putting them into practice.
  
• Get out on the streets and knocking on some doors!
  

We can win, but only if we all work together. Whether we have local elections in our area or not, this is our chance to make a difference to the number of Lib Dem councillors elected in May.

 It’s an opportunity for Liberal Democrats across Britain to make a difference in the areas that really need our support.  If there is no activity in you’re own area and you're not able to travel we're also setting up an ALDC Phone Task Force of volunteers who are willing to make 10 contacts a week to help us WIN.

Together we have an opportunity to send a very clear message about the future success of our Party.

It's time to stand up and be counted

John Bridges
Campaigns Officer

To help make your campaigning as easy as possible, we’ve gathered together some of the essential campaign tools, paperwork and information that you’ll need as the campaign goes on. Do let us know if there is anything else that you need and we will add it in.

For convenience, please make sure that you are logged into the ALDC website before following these links.

Latest: Polling Day 2013 Article

Our special article on preparing for polling day with a range of useful downloads, including Helpers' materials, resources for Tellers (guides, pads, rotas), and practical scripts for knock-up.
 

New: Committee Room Pack

Includes: Committee Room sign, election offences poster, postal vote code of conduct and Connect final week handout (zip file)

Campaign artwork tools and advice

Useful fonts including Democrat Sans and Helvetica Neue (zip file)

Liberal Democrat logos (zip file)

Liberal Democrat clipart

Liberal Democrat style and colour guidelines

Buy PagePlus x4 software

More campaign resources also available on the Liberal Democrat Members’ Site

Watch Liberal Democrat training videos and download factsheets from OSKAR

Campaign template artwork

ALDC has commissioned this set of templates for use by Liberal Democrat campaigners. These are exclusively available to members of ALDC.  This is in addition to the other templates, campaign toolkits, briefings and best practice available on the ALDC website.

Artwork Pack 1 - including basic Focus templates and election timetables

Artwork Pack 2 - including doorstep surveys and calling leaflets

Artwork Pack 3 - including new voter mailings, candidate Focus and contact booklets

Artwork Pack 4 - including members' newsletters and supporter help appeals

Election Pack 1 - including street letters, letterheads, template 'vox pop' artwork, postal vote recruitment forms

Election Pack 2 - including new Focus templates, endorsements and squeeze materials

Election Pack 3 - Get Out The Vote materials 

Election Pack 4 - Direct Mail

Forthcoming:

Election Pack 5 - Thank You artwork (1st May)

The following links include useful artwork produced by the Department of Elections and Skills at Liberal Democrat Party Headquarters on a number of national issues.

What the Lib Dems Have Done for You (booklet)

Key Government Statistics, Jan 2013 (Pupil Premium, Regional Growth Fund, Pensions, Apprenticeships)

Tackling Disadvantage (case study of effect of Pupil Premium in North Norfolk schools)

Essential paperwork

Guidance on nominations

Nomination papers including candidate consent to nomination and agent notification forms (MS Word) - ward specific nomination papers will be available from your council

Certificate of Authorisation / Delegated Nominating Officer (DNO) form (zip file) - ALDC recommends you use this version rather than the one supplied by your council

Generic other forms and paperwork

Polling agent notification form (MS Word)

Postal voting agent notification form (MS Word)

Counting agent notification form (MS Word)

Election expense forms and instructions - principal council elections (PDF)

Election expense forms - principal council elections (MS Excel)

Candidate's declaration (PDF)

Election agent's declaration (PDF)

N.B. The election expense forms have very slightly changed in recent years to make them easier to complete, however forms from previous years are still valid.

Postal vote application forms (zip file)

Official guidance

Postal vote code of conduct (PDF)

Electoral Commission / ACPO guidance on preventing electoral malpractice (PDF)

Liberal Democrat Guidance

2013 Local Election Timetable (PDF)

Guidance on Expenses

Guidance on Imprints