Guidelines for Political Parties on Exchequer funding under the Electoral Acts (March 2009 edition).

1. Introduction

Exchequer funding of qualified political parties under the Electoral Act 1997 as amended, began on 1 January 1998.

These guidelines have been published by the Standards Commission under section 4(6) of the Act. They set out the main requirements of the legislation and in particular the steps to be taken by the appropriate officers of qualified political parties in furnishing to the Standards Commission an annual statement showing how the funding was applied.

Apart from the guidelines, the Standards Commission secretariat is available to provide advice or to answer queries about the application of the legislation.

These guidelines replace guidelines on this subject published by the Standards Commission in November 2002 and include (at Appendix 1) an extract from guidelines published by the Standards Commission in November 2006 on use of Exchequer funding for electoral purposes.

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