Guidance for Candidates and Agents at Senedd elections
Authorising others to incur spending
In some instances, people spend money to promote a candidate without providing or transferring something for the candidate’s use or benefit during the campaign. Likewise, people may spend money to criticise a candidate or encourage voters not to support them. We call this local campaigning.
Organisations or individuals, who are not standing as candidates at the elections, who campaign for or against one or more individual candidate in a constituency are known as ‘local non-party campaigners’. This includes where you are campaigning against a political party or party list candidate in favour of an individual candidate.1
If your campaign involves campaigning for or against individual candidates in a constituency, and parties, party list candidates or categories of candidates, the controls that apply in these scenarios can be complicated. In these cases, we recommend you contact us for tailored advice.
During the regulated period, local non-party campaigners can spend up to £1,000 on campaigning for or against one or more individual candidates in a constituency.2 This is known as the permitted sum.
A local non-party campaigner cannot spend more than this permitted sum without the candidate or agent’s written authorisation to incur the additional spending, which will count towards the candidate’s spending limit.3
For example, a campaign group sends out some leaflets that promote the candidate, directly to voters. They inform the candidate they’re going to do so in advance.
In this example, they have not provided anything to the candidate – they have just told the candidate what they are doing. They have campaigned for the candidate themselves.
Although the leaflets may benefit the candidate, the group has not given something to the candidate that the candidate can then decide whether or how to use.
The group cannot spend over this permitted sum without getting written authorisation from the agent.
If a local non-party campaigner incurs spending over the permitted sum, then this additional spending must be reported by them to the Returning Officer within 21 days of the result being declared.4 There is a separate return and declaration that must be completed for the local non-party campaigner to report authorised expenses.
The authorised expenses must also be included in the candidate’s spending return.5 Money that is incurred by campaigners in local campaigns that has been authorised by the agent is candidate spending and counts towards the spending limit.6
The authorised expenses may also be paid by the person authorised to incur them.7 If they do make the payments, and the spending is over £500, then this will be a donation to the candidate. If you receive a donation after you are officially a candidate, this must be reported separately in the donations section of the spending return.8 See Who can authorise and pay for spending? and Donations for individual candidates for more information.
Non-party campaigners planning a local campaign should read our guidance for local non-party campaigners.
- 1. Article 47(2)(c) The Senedd Cymru (Representation of the People) Order 2025 (SCO 2025) ↩ Back to content at footnote 1
- 2. Art. 47(5)(b) SCO 2025 ↩ Back to content at footnote 2
- 3. Art. 47(1) SCO 2025 ↩ Back to content at footnote 3
- 4. Art. 47(6) SCO 2025 ↩ Back to content at footnote 4
- 5. Art. 54(2)(c) SCO 2025 ↩ Back to content at footnote 5
- 6. Art. 65 and 48 SCO 2025 ↩ Back to content at footnote 6
- 7. Art. 44(4)(d) SCO 2025 ↩ Back to content at footnote 7
- 8. Paragraphs 1(3), 2(1)(c), 4(2) and 10(1) Schedule 6, SCO 2025 ↩ Back to content at footnote 8