Annual Report 2008

Accounting Units of political parties

The Standards Commission continues to experience difficulties in supervising these provisions of the legislation. Essentially the Standards Commission finds itself pursuing accounting units and responsible persons for bank statements which in the Standards Commission's opinion achieve little, if any, purpose.

An "accounting unit" of a political party is a branch or other subsidiary organisation of the party which, in any particular year, receives a donation the value of which exceeds €126.97. The appropriate officer of a political party is required to provide the Standards Commission with the name and address of each accounting unit of the party, including the name of its "responsible person". (The responsible person is the treasurer or any other person responsible for dealing with donations to the unit.)

During 2008, the Standards Commission wrote to 202 accounting units which were identified by the relevant political parties (158 accounting units had been contacted in 2007). 62 accounting units furnished the required statutory documentation by the statutory deadline of 31 March 2008. 78 accounting units failed to furnish their statutory documentation on time. 12 branches of political parties informed the Standards Commission that they have never been an accounting unit or are no longer active. 15 accounting units did not reply.

The Standard Commission considers that branches and other organs of a political party should maintain a political donations account and that donations should be lodged to this account and should only be used for political purposes. In its guidelines for political parties on donations and prohibited donations, the Standards Commission recommends that all donations exceeding €100 in value which are received by a branch or subsidiary organisation of the party must be recorded and notified to the party's appropriate officer for the purposes of observing the maximum prescribed limit.

The Council of Europe Recommendations (see below) provide that States should require political parties to keep proper books and accounts; that such accounts should specify all donations received by the party and to identify donations over a certain value (including donations received by branches or other entities of the party) and that States should require political parties regularly, and at least annually, to make public such accounts. The Standards Commission considers that this approach should be followed. Accounting units of political parties should be required to provide details of donations received by the unit to the party's appropriate officer for the purposes of compiling such accounts. The treasurer or responsible person of an accounting unit would be required to confirm to the party's appropriate officer the amount of donations received by the branch; to provide details of any donations exceeding €100 in value and to confirm that all donations were lodged to the political donations account and were used for political purposes. It would be an offence for the treasurer or responsible person to fail to comply with this requirement. If it considered it necessary to do so, the Standards Commission could (under section 4(4) of the 1997 Act (see below)) request an accounting unit to provide bank statements relating to its political donations account.

Back to contents