Guidance for Candidates and Agents at local government elections in England

There are rules to make sure that spending can be controlled and accurately recorded and reported.

It is your responsibility to fully and accurately report candidate spending. You should ensure you understand the rules and that all spending is properly authorised, recorded and reported.

Who can incur candidate spending?

Once an agent is appointed, only the following people are allowed to incur election spending:

• the agent
• the candidate, and
• anyone authorised by the candidate or agent

By ‘incur’ we mean making a legal commitment to spend the money. You incur election spending when you enter a transaction with a supplier and become liable to pay for the item, goods or service they have provided to you. For example, you hire a printing company to print leaflets, or you sign a contract to rent an office.

Payments are often incurred and paid at the same time. For example, if you buy something online or in a shop. 

Sometimes spending is incurred before it is paid. For example, if you engage an events company to run your campaign launch, the spending is incurred when you engage their services. The payment is made later, once they invoice you after the event. 

There are separate controls around who can legally commit to owe money for candidate spending and who can pay for election spending under the law.

If you authorise someone to incur candidate spending, you must do so in writing and be clear how much they can spend and on what.1

Who can pay for candidate spending?

For most candidate spending, payments must be made by or through the agent.2 There are four exceptions:

• the candidate can pay for items before the agent is appointed3
• the candidate can pay for personal expenses for travel and accommodation4
• the agent can authorise in writing someone to pay for minor expenses such as stationery or postage. The authorisation must include the amount of the payment.5
• the agent can give written authorisation for someone to incur spending on behalf of the candidate so that the spending does not count towards that person’s ‘permitted sum’ on campaigning for the candidate (see Local campaigning).6 The person authorised to incur the spending is also able to make the payments for that spending.7

If any payments are made by anyone other than the candidate, agent or sub-agent – for example by a person authorised in writing to incur spending – then this will be a donation to the candidate if it is over £50 (and it is not reimbursed by the agent).8 See Candidate donations for more on donations.

Candidates can also act as their own election agents.9 You should make sure that your volunteers and campaigners are aware of these rules and know who can and cannot incur or pay costs.