Leading technology and data Group, which includes EuroDirect and Callcredit has revealed the latest opt-out figures from the 2006 Electoral Roll, which indicate yet another rise in opt-out levels across the UK.

Interim analysis of well over 90% of the councils in the UK has highlighted a UK average opt out rate of 32.25%, which shows a significant increase on last year.

 

Year	Overall Average Opt Out Rate	Average Year On Year Increase
2006	32.25%	4.73%
2005	27.52%	1.52%
2004	26.00%	5.10%
2003	20.90%	20.90%

Pre-ticking of opt-outs by local authorities on electoral roll forms has continued for the 2006 register, and the result of this and heightened media exposure has meant that we have seen approximately 2.1 million more people opt out across the UK in this Autumns’ canvass. This means that almost 14.5 million individuals have now removed themselves from the marketers data toolkit.

Analysis of the Electoral Rolls processed to date indicate the best and worst local authorities as highlighted below:

10 Highest Opt-Out Local Authority Areas So Far:

Bridgend	77.01%
Kennet	74.80%
Eden	67.19%
Maidstone	65.91%
Richmondshire	65.70%
Sutton	61.35%
Wokingham	61.21%
Salford	60.98%
Bromley	59.93%
Islington	59.91%

10 Lowest Opt-Out Local Authority Areas So Far:

Highlands & Western Isles	9.32%
Lanarkshire	9.11%
Grampian	9.00%
Argyll & Bute	8.97%
Dunbartonshire	8.05%
Bradford	7.77%
Perth and Kinross	7.10%
Dundee	6.46%
Gedling	6.14%
North Tayside & Angus	5.27%

A Mike Green, Chief Executive Officer of Skipton Information Group comments:

“This increase is somewhat concerning. Since the legislation was introduced, about 14.5 million less consumers are available across the UK for targeting. Although household opt-out trends are nowhere near as high as we see in the telecanvassing marketplace, there is a worrying trend in data loss. The industry still needs to be aware of the importance of supplementing the Electoral Roll with other data sources to sustain access to the consumer universe, especially when targeting localised campaigns.”

Notes: EuroDirects Data Exchange provides access to a universe of 45 million consumers and over 300 consumer attributes. It has been built by pooling lifestyle, transactional and financial data with publicly available datasets.