Under the law only certain individuals can authorise and make payments on behalf of registered non-party campaigners.
Incurring spending
For all registered non-party campaigners, only the ‘responsible person’ registered with us, and people authorised in writing by the responsible person can incur costs related to regulated campaign activities.1
By ‘incur’ we mean make a legal commitment to spend money, such as confirming an order.
Making payments for spending
There are additional restrictions on making payments for non-party campaigners that have either:
not declared that they will spend below the reporting thresholds in their notification
declared that they will spend below the reporting thresholds but have in fact spent above the thresholds.2
Only the responsible person registered with us, and people authorised in writing by the responsible person can incur costs and make payments for regulated campaign activities.3
For example, someone may be authorised by the responsible person to spend money on particular items, or up to a particular amount.
All payments over £200 must be supported by an invoice or receipt.4
Where an authorised person makes a payment of over £200, they must deliver both:
the supporting invoice or receipt
notification that they have made the payment
to the responsible person as soon as possible after making the payment.5
These laws are in place to make sure that spending can be controlled and accurately recorded and reported.
You should make sure that your staff, volunteers and campaigners know who can and cannot incur costs.