Non-party campaigners: Senedd elections

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Lead and minor campaigners

Where there is a joint campaign, one of the registered non-party campaigners may agree to report all of the joint campaign spending by each of the non-party campaigners involved in the joint campaign.

The registered non-party campaigner who agrees to report all of the joint campaign spending is known as the lead campaigner.1  A non-party campaigner whose joint campaign spending is reported by a lead campaigner is known as a minor campaigner.2

For example, three campaigners work together as part of a joint campaign. The campaigners each plan to spend £5,000 on the joint campaign, £15,000 in total.

If this was an ordinary joint campaign, the combined joint campaign spending would count towards each of the campaigners’ spending limits. This would require all three campaigners to register with the Commission, as a campaigner cannot spend more than £10,000 without being registered.

Instead, one campaigner can register, notify us that they are the lead campaigner, and report all of the spending on the joint campaign. The spending on the joint campaign will only count towards the lead campaigner’s spending limit and the other campaigners (the minor campaigners) can remain unregistered.

Spending by lead and minor campaigners

Lead campaigners

If you are a lead campaigner, your spending and any spending incurred by your minor campaigners as part of the joint campaign will count towards your spending limit during the regulated period. We call minor campaigners who have agreed to you reporting on their behalf ‘your minor campaigners’.

Lead campaigners must be registered, while minor campaigners must be unregistered. 

Minor campaigners

If you are a minor campaigner, then none of the spending on the lead/minor joint campaign counts towards your spending total. This applies to: 

  • your own spending on the joint campaign
  • the lead campaigner’s spending on the joint campaign
  • any other minor campaigner’s spending on the joint campaign

Therefore, for your own spending total, you only need to count:

  • your own spending outside of any joint campaign 
  • any spending by your partners in an ordinary joint campaign

This allows minor campaigners to remain unregistered, even in situations where the total joint campaign spend is over £10,000.

Reporting by lead and minor campaigners

Lead campaigners

If you are a lead campaigner, you must report:

  • your own spending on the joint campaign 
  • any spending on the joint campaign by your minor campaigners 
  • any other regulated spending you incurred separate from the joint campaign. 

Your spending return must also include receipts or invoices for any spending over £200 incurred by you and your minor campaigners.3

This means you should ask all your minor campaigners:

  • to let you know how much they have spent on the joint campaign in each part of the UK
  • to provide you with receipts and invoices for any spending over £200 on the joint campaign

Minor campaigners

If you are a minor campaigner, and you spend up to £10,000 on regulated campaign activities unconnected with the joint campaign during the regulated period, you do not have to register with us or report any of your spending.

The lead campaigner is responsible for reporting your spending on joint campaigning to us.

To enable the lead campaigner to fully report the joint campaigning, you should:

  • agree with all other non-party campaigners involved in the joint campaign how much you can spend
  • tell your lead campaigner how much you have spent
  • provide receipts and invoices for regulated campaign spending over £200 to your lead campaigner

For example, Save the Rivers and three other campaigners decide to work together as part of a joint campaign in Wales. They have all agreed that they will each spend £9,000 on the joint campaign. Save the Rivers also plans on spending an additional £5,000 on regulated campaign activities unconnected to the joint campaign. The three other campaigners do not spend any other money on regulated campaign activities.

The registration threshold for spending in Wales is £10,000. Since the total spend on the joint campaign will be £36,000, if this campaign is run as an ordinary joint campaign (a campaign without a lead campaigner) then all four campaigners will have to register and report the spending individually.

As Save the Rivers is planning to spend the most money on campaigning, and to lessen the regulatory burden on the other three campaigners, they decide to become the lead campaigner. Before any spending is incurred, they register with the Commission. Save the Rivers also notifies us that they are the lead campaigner, and that the three other campaigners are minor campaigners in the joint campaign.

As the three other campaigners have been notified as minor campaigners, and outside of the joint campaign they have not exceeded the registration threshold (£10,000), they do not need to register or report their spending on the joint campaign.

As the lead campaigner, Save the Rivers must report spending of £36,000, which is the total of their spending and the three minor campaigners’ spending on the joint campaign after the election. They must also report the additional £5,000 they spend outside of the joint campaign.

The three minor campaigners provide details of the spending alongside receipts and invoices for any spending they incurred over £200 to Save the Rivers so they can include this in the return.

Last updated: 19 August 2025