Electoral Commission (United Kingdom)

Integrity and transparency of party election finance

As the regulator of political party funding in the UK, the Commission's role is to ensure the integrity and transparency of party and election finance.

The Commission provides guidance for political parties and regulated donees to assist them in meeting their legal obligations to follow party funding rules.

Political parties must submit annual statements of accounts, detailing income and expenditure, to the Electoral Commission. The Commission publishes these on its website.

Political parties and regulated donees are required to submit reports of all donations they receive to the Commission. The Commission maintains a publicly available and searchable register of these donations on its website.

At general elections to the UK Parliament, EU Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly political parties are required to submit campaign spending returns to the Electoral Commission.

The Commission may impose financial civil penalties on political parties and their accounting units if they fail to submit donation and loans returns, campaign spending return or statements of account.

The Commission also has the power to seek forfeiture of impermissible donations accepted by political parties.

Registering political parties

The Commission registers political parties and regulates party compliance.

The Commission maintains the registers of political parties in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.^[7]

Complete and accurate electoral registers and a well run electoral registration process

The commission produces guidance and gives advice on electoral registration to Electoral Registration Officers in Great Britain.

The Commission has published performance standards for electoral registration in Great Britain. Electoral Registration Officers are required to report against these standards and the commission will make this information publicly available.

As part of this work, the commission runs a series of public awareness campaigns ahead of elections and throughout the year to encourage people to register to vote.

These focus on audiences that research indicates are less likely to be on the electoral register, including recent home-movers, students and UK citizens living overseas.

Well-run elections and referendums which produce results that are acceptable

The Commission produces guidance and gives advice on electoral administration to returning officers and electoral administrators in Great Britain.

The Commission has set performance standards for returning officers and referendum counting officers in Great Britain. These standards do not apply to local government elections in Scotland as they are a devolved matter.

The Commission has a statutory duty to produce reports on the administration of certain elections (for example UK Parliamentary general elections) and may be asked to report on other types of election (such as local government elections).

EU seat distribution

The commission is responsible for recommending which regions are allocated how many of the 73 seats that the United Kingdom holds at the European Parliament.

Referendum responsibilities

The Electoral Commission has a number of responsibilities in relation to referendums. These include:

• commenting on the wording of the referendum question (the government is responsible for proposing the wording)
• registration of campaigners
• designating lead campaign organisations and the making of grants
• monitoring referendum expenditure limits and donations
• certifying and announcing the result.
• As with other electoral events, the Electoral Commission has a statutory duty to prepare and publish a report on the administration of a relevant referendum and to give guidance and advice to administrators and campaigners.
• The chair of the commission, or someone appointed by the chair, will also be appointed as Chief Counting Officer.

As of 2017 the Electoral Commission has to date overseen the holding of two UK-wide referendums, the first was the 2011 AV Referendum and the second and most notable was the 2016 EU Referendum, on both occasions the then chair of the Electoral Commission Jenny Watson acted as the appointed Chief Counting Officer. The commission also oversaw the 2004 North East England Devolution Referendum, the 2011 Welsh Devolution Referendum and also the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. The commission has no legal position in the legislation concerning referendums proposed by the devolved Scottish and Welsh administrations.

Commissioners and Chief Executive

• Sir John Holmes was appointed by the Speakers Committee in January 2017 as the third chair of the Electoral Commission. Sir John was previously a senior civil servant and diplomat.
• Rob Vincent
• Professor Elan Closs Stephens
• Anna Carragher

D*ame Sue Bruce Claire Bassett is the current Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission. From 1 October 2010, four additional Commissioners serve on a part-time basis who are nominated by the leaders of political parties, scrutinised by the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission and approved by the House of Commons by means of an Address to the Queen requesting their appointment. Those nominated by the three largest parties serve terms of four years, while the Commissioner nominated by a smaller party serves for a two-year term. The appointments of nominated Commissioners are renewable once.[9] These current Commissioners are:[10] • John Horam (Conservative) • David Howarth (Liberal Democrat) • Bridget Prentice (Labour) • Alasdair Morgan (Scottish National Party)

National commissions

To reflect the views of stakeholders and the distinctive procedures and practices in the countries of the United Kingdom there are separate electoral commissions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

English regional offices

Since February 2007 the commission has also had regional offices across England in the South West, Eastern and South East, London, Midlands, and North of England regions.

Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission

The Electoral Commission is answerable to Parliament via the Speaker’s Committee (established by PPERA 2000). The Commission must submit an annual estimate of income and expenditure to the Committee. The Committee, made up of Members of Parliament, is responsible for answering Parliamentary Questions on behalf of the Commission. The Member who takes questions for the Speaker’s Committee is Bridget Phillipson.

Parliamentary Parties Panels (PPP)

The PPP is composed of representatives from all UK parliamentary political parties with two or more sitting MPs. The PPP was established by PPERA and meets quarterly to submit views to the Commission on matters affecting political parties.

There are equivalent non-statutory bodies for the devolved legislatures in Scotland (Scottish Parliament Political Parties Panel), Wales (Wales Political Parties Panel) and Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Assembly Parties Panel).