What must your financial scheme include?

Your scheme must include procedures for:

  • recording and reporting your accounts   
  • handling donations and loans 
  • maintaining your registered details with us 
  • authorising and reporting on campaign spending

As part of the assessment process, we may ask you to evidence how the party has adopted its financial scheme. For example, you may be asked about what procedures the party has in place to deliver the obligations set out in its financial scheme.

A party registered in both the Great Britain and the Northern Ireland registers are two separate registered parties for the purposes of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA).

If you register on both the Great Britain and Northern Ireland registers, your financial scheme must show that the financial affairs of the party in Great Britain will be conducted entirely separately from those of the party in Northern Ireland. This is important because the rules about where a party can obtain its funding from differ depending on which register the party is registered.

If you are, or are intending to be, registered as a party with accounting units then each unit must be named within the party’s financial scheme. Our template scheme is not suitable if this is what you intend. We can provide further advice on what is required, so please contact us in the first instance if you intend to have accounting units.

Last updated: 24 November 2022