Scottish Greens fined by election watchdog over finance breach

Scottish Greens fined by election watchdogs over finance breach

THE junior partner in the Scottish Government has been fined more than £2,000 by the election watchdog for failing to file party accounts on time.

The Scottish Greens blamed a hold-up by an unidentified “third party” for the problem.

The Electoral Commission today announced it had imposed a £2,300 penalty on the Scottish Greens for the “late delivery” of their annual statement of accounts.

It said it was “disappointing” the clear rules on transparency and party finances had been broken.

The announcement was made as the Commission published details of investigations it had concluded in the last month, work it said was “an important part of delivering transparency in political finance in the UK”.

The Scottish Green accounts for the year ending 31 December 2020 should have been filed within six months and seven days of that date.

However they were not signed off by National Treasurer Gordon Dickson until August 12 last year.

At the time, the Scottish Greens were holding talks with Nicola Sturgeon about forming a joint government with the SNP in the wake of the 2021 Holyrood election.

The deal was announced on August 20, the same day the party’s auditors signed off the accounts.

Louise Edwards, Director of Regulation at the Electoral Commission, said: “It is important for transparency that voters have timely and accurate information about political parties’ finances. The requirements are clear, so it is always disappointing when they are not met.

“Where we find that offences have been committed, we take into consideration a range of factors when deciding the level of sanction, as set out in our Enforcement Policy.”

The Commission also investigated whether Scotland’s Independence Referendum Party had committed an offence by failing to deliver a quarterly donations report, but made “no determination” of an offence and the case was “closed without further action”.

A Scottish Green party spokesperson said: “We regret that due to documentation from a third party being received late our statement of accounts for 2020 was not submitted on time. Our accounts received a clean audit and we are confident the problem will not reoccur.”