The Fairer votes campaign has two expenses limits that can be used in the next few weeks.
Expenditure by the Yes to Fairer votes campaign (the cross party campaign) need to be agreed and accounted for by them – check with the regional Yes to Fairer votes campaign organizers – see the attached list. Broadly any materials eg leaflets provided to local campaigners by the Yes to Fairer votes campaign will have been accounted for by them against the cross party campaign limit.
The second limit is the one for the Liberal Democrats own Yes to Fair votes campaign.
As in any election, there are strict rules and spending limits against this limit during the referendum campaign period.
The campaign period began when the Bill received Royal Assent on 16 February and will end on 5 May 2011.
All campaign expenditure incurred by the Liberal Democrats needs to be approved by the Party’s Registered Treasurer.
In a similar way to the National campaign expenditure limit in the General Election, each Local Party has been given a pre-approved limit of £5,000 per constituency (please note the funds for any spending towards this limit will have to be raised locally).
Any expenditure above this limit MUST be pre-approved in writing.
Please contact David Allworthy at Cowley Street if you want to spend more than your pre-approved total.
Invoices for any expenditure must be received within 30 days of 5 May.
Please ensure that all your suppliers are aware of this deadline as after this date you cannot pay them without a court order. You must also pay all invoices within 60 days of 5 May. Remember that even if your Local Party prints its own leaflets the cost of paper, etc. must be included on the return. Other items given or lent to the
Local Party for the campaign are donations in kind and must be from permissible sources, and if valued over £200 must be included on the expenditure return .
Local Party Treasurers are responsible for this expenditure and have been written to setting out their responsibilities and how they will have to account for expenditure after the referendum.
If you have any questions please contact David Allworthy at Cowley Street on 020 7227 1339.
Parties should not include the following in their return:
- Anything included on the election expense returns submitted by your Council candidates or any council by-election candidates during the regulated period.
- Any material paid for out of the MEP’s communication allowances
- Any material sent to party members and not to voters in general. This includes letters seeking to raise funds for the party and any material addressed to party members, on any subject.
- Any meetings that are organised for members only (eg: adoption meetings).
- Staff employed by the party. There is no requirement to include any salary and allowances paid to permanent or temporary members of staff of the party. The exclusion does not extend to payments to agency staff engaged by the party for the campaign, who cannot be said to be members of staff permanently employed by the party. Remuneration and allowances paid to these workers should therefore be treated as campaign expenditure and counted against the expenditure limit, e.g. the cost of temporary agency staff employed to work in a call centre.
For amounts above £200 an invoice or receipt is required to be submitted to the Election Commissions – please also send us a copy of any leaflets.
For expenditure below £200 (except where it is an apportionment) an invoice is not needed, but you do need to complete the enclosed pro forma.
Please also give details of any expenditure incurred which has not yet been paid, or where you are in dispute with the supplier.
Where any goods or services were provided in any of these categories which were supplied at less than full market value – then we also need to know from you what would be the full market value of the goods or services.
If you have any queries, please contact David Allworthy at Party HQ preferably by e-mail at David.Allworthy@libdems.org.uk or telephone 020 7227 1339. If you are in any doubt whether something should be included, include it and we will sort it out when we complete the national return.Apportionment of Invoices
Where an item of expenditure has to be split between more than one return (e.g. because it promoted a council candidate and a Yes vote), the expenditure should be split( whether real or notional). The key requirement is that it must be possible to demonstrate to the courts, if challenged, that the apportionment between the different returns was reasonable.
Imprints
Any item published during the referendum campaign must have the correct imprint.
If you do not have other elections in your area and produce include stories encouraging people to vote ‘Yes’ for Fairer Votes, you will need to put an imprint in the following form:
Published and promoted by [Local Treasurer] on behalf of the Liberal Democrats both at [Local Address]. Printed by [Name and address of printer].
The Local Treasurer is used in this instance as he or she is the person responsible for the accounting unit and will be required to ensure that the relevant financial return is made to the Party’s Registered
Treasurer following the referendum as mentioned in the Compliance section of this booklet.
Printed items you may receive from the overall ‘Yes to Fairer Votes’ campaign will already carry their imprint and will have been accounted for within the ‘Yes campaign’s’ separate spending limits.
Similarly, printed items you receive from the Federal Party will already carry the correct imprint and will already have been accounted for within the Party’s spending return.