What regulators are responsible for

The Electoral Commission is the independent body which oversees elections and regulates political finance in the UK. It works to promote public confidence in the democratic process and ensure its integrity.

The Electoral Commission’s responsibilities include:

• maintaining registers of political parties in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and registering non-party campaigners
• providing guidance to anyone who might want to stand or campaign in an election
• providing guidance and support to Returning Officers, who run elections
• running campaigns so people know when the deadlines are for registering to vote, and applying for postal and proxy votes
• making sure people have all the information they need to vote, including how to find their polling station
• publishing political finance data, including election campaign spending
• regulating the imprint rules for parties and campaigners
• taking action if it has reason to suspect that political finance law has been broken

Find out more about the Commission’s role as a regulator

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media, covering general advertising, sales promotions and direct marketing. All adverts must be “legal, decent, honest and truthful”.

The ASA administers the Advertising Codes. There are separate codes for non-broadcast advertisements (known as the CAP Code) and broadcast advertisements (known as the BCAP Code). The two codes have broadly consistent rules that prohibit discriminatory treatment and/or harm and offence.

Claims in ads in non-broadcast media (posters, newspapers etc.) whose principal function is to influence voters in local, regional, national or international elections or referendums are exempt from the CAP Code. The BCAP Code prohibits political appearing on TV and Radio (Ofcom is responsible for enforcing the prohibition on political advertising on broadcast media).

Find out more about the ASA’s role in regulating claims made in campaign material, and why it doesn’t regulate political adverts.

The Charity Commission for England and Wales registers and regulates charities in England and Wales, to ensure that the public can support charities with confidence.

As registrar it is responsible for maintaining an accurate and up-to-date register of charities. This includes deciding whether organisations are charitable and should be registered.

The Charity Commission for England and Wales’ responsibilities include:

• taking enforcement action when there is malpractice or misconduct
• ensuring charities meet their legal requirements, including providing information on their activities each year
• making appropriate information about each registered charity widely available to the public
• providing guidance to help charities run as effectively as possible

A recent blog from the Chair of the Charity Commission outlines the role that charities play in shaping public debate during an election period, as well as the role of the Charity Commission regulating this activity.

In determining whether a charity has complied with the law the Charity Commission prioritises its casework resources towards addressing the highest risks, those which have the potential to cause the highest level of harm to public trust and confidence in the charity sector, or which may affect trustees’ ability to comply with their duties.

There are separate charity regulators in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. Find out more about the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the UK's independent body set up to uphold information rights. The ICO has responsibility for promoting and enforcing the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA18), the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Privacy and Electronic Regulations 2003 (PECR).

During an election campaign, the ICO may look at how personal data is being used by political parties and campaigners to ensure this is compliant. The ICO may also look at how campaign marketing messages are communicated to individuals by email, text or phone call.

If you have any questions or complaints about how your personal data is used by political parties or other groups during an election campaign, the ICO’s information pages may hold the answer or next steps. The ICO has produced guidance on your data and elections which outlines how your data may be used during an election period, and set out what voters can expect.

If you have concerns about how your personal data has been handled, you should first raise your concerns with the political party or other organisation. If after this you remain unhappy you can complain to the ICO.

Ofcom regulates TV, radio and video-on-demand services. Broadcasters which have an Ofcom licence must adhere to the rules set out in the Broadcasting Code and Ofcom assess all programmes and complaints against these rules.

During an election period, broadcasters must also adhere to the rules in Section Six of the Broadcasting Code relating to elections and referendums. This includes rules which require broadcasters to ensure that political parties and independent candidates are given appropriate levels of coverage.

Ofcom assess every complaint before deciding whether or not to investigate. Given the importance of elections, they can expedite complaints about election coverage.

During election periods, Ofcom puts together an Election Committee, comprising members of their main Board and their specialist Content Board. The committee deals with disputes between broadcasters and political parties about the allocations of party election broadcasts, as well as looking at significant complaints they receive about programmes broadcast during the election period.

Under the BBC’s Charter, complaints about BBC programmes are normally dealt with by the BBC initially – during elections Ofcom expects the BBC to deal with complaints it receives as quickly as possible. But if somebody is unhappy with how the BBC has dealt with their complaint, they can contact Ofcom about their case (if the complaint is about BBC TV or radio), and Ofcom will assess it to decide whether it raises any issues under their Code that warrant investigation.

Find out more about Ofcom’s role during a UK general election.

The UK Statistics Authority and its executive arm the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) are both independent arm’s length bodies that are separate from government. They have the statutory objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that ‘serve the public good’.

The public good includes:

• informing the public about social and economic matters
• assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy
• regulating quality and publicly challenging the misuse of statistics

Statistics can provide powerful support for political arguments. The UK Statistics Authority, supported by OSR, advises party leaders before elections and referendums that the misuse of statistics damages their integrity, causes confusion and undermines trust. It can also lead debate to focus too much on the statistics themselves, distracting from the issues at hand. This is particularly important during the intense public scrutiny of an election campaign, where misinformation can spread quickly.

The UK Statistics Authority and OSR have an interventions policy that guides their work on making statements on the use of statistics in public debate. This policy recognises that candidates want to persuade voters of their proposals, and it’s part of normal political debate for them to draw on a wide range of sources including statistics to make their case. As such the UK Statistics Authority and OSR don’t try to check the truthfulness of every statement made or verify every fact-like assertion. Instead they make sure that, in political debate, the underlying statistics are not being misrepresented – and if they are, to help clarify how they should be interpreted.

Find out more about the role of the UK Statistics Authority and OSR at elections.