Guidance for Candidates and Agents at local government elections in England
Staff costs
Services of an election agent or other staff
This includes the cost of the election agent or any other person working for the candidate’s election. You must include all staff costs, such as the staff member’s gross salary, any additional allowances, and your national insurance and pension contributions as their employer. This also includes any remuneration, including allowances, you provide to receive their services.
Staff who are employed by a political party
This includes the cost of any staff member of a political party who
- provides services to the candidate that are for the purposes of the candidate’s election during the regulated period
- provides services to the candidate that are for the purposes of the candidate’s election prior to that time which are then used during the regulated period
Example A
A staff member of a political party spends their paid working hours coordinating volunteers campaigning for a candidate in a specific constituency. Their work time is to be regarded as for the purposes of the candidate’s election.
If it is provided to and made use of by or on behalf of the candidate, then the costs of paying that staff member must appear in the candidate return as notional spending.
If it is not provided to and made use of by or on behalf of the candidate, it will count as local campaigning for the candidate.
Please see Notional spending and Authorising others to incur spending for more information on these types of spending.
Example B
A staff member of a political party spends their paid working hours on a number of different campaigning activities, including both promoting the party generally and promoting a specific candidate. The proportion of their work time that is spent promoting the candidate is to be regarded as for the purposes of that candidate’s election.
If it is provided to and made use of by or on behalf of the candidate, then that proportion of the costs of paying that staff member must appear in the candidate return as notional spending.
If it is not provided to and made use of by or on behalf of the candidate, it will count as local campaigning for the candidate.
Example C
A number of candidates attend a briefing on the party’s manifesto pledges given by paid party staff. Because the focus is on national party manifesto pledges, the briefing is not to be regarded as given for the purposes of their election as candidates.
Therefore, no spending needs to appear in the candidate returns.
Staff monitoring social media and other press activities
It includes the cost of staff engaged in the management and monitoring of social media channels or platforms and the obtaining of data to allow targeted campaigning. This includes hiring staff to analyse and sort the data and the cost of staff to monitor and post or respond to any kind of social media or other account.
It includes the cost of staff engaged in the management of press activities of any kind, including staff who are liaising with, managing or monitoring any kind of media activity by any means in connection with the candidate’s election.
Volunteer time
You should not include the cost for services of an agent or any other person who is a volunteer.
You should not include the costs of people’s travel, food and accommodation costs while they campaign on your behalf, if they meet the costs themselves.
However, any expenses you meet for them, or reimburse them for, such as transport or accommodation, do count as your spending.
Sometimes you may not be sure if someone working for your campaign is a volunteer or if you should count their time towards your spending limit. For example, they may offer similar services professionally to the ones they are performing for you.
For example, they will be a volunteer if:
- their employer is not paying them for the time they spend on your campaign
- they are using their annual leave
- where they are self-employed, you won’t benefit from any professional insurances they hold
If they use specialist equipment or materials, it is likely that the use of these, provided for free will be notional spending.