Party finances in Scotland
Written by The Voice on 20th August 2008 – 9:40 amVia Liberal England:
An alarming story from The Herald:
Scottish Liberal Democrats have been warned by their auditors that … it may be deemed, in accounting terms, to be no longer a going concern, after nearly a tenth of its expenditure last year was not met by income…But, as the Herald points out, other Scottish parties are equally precariously placed but have not received such warnings.
Posted in News
20th August 2008 at 2:35 pm
I have worked as auditor before and this story is inventing news.
The major worry for me would not be the deficit (last year was busy), but that liabilities are more than assets.
PKF as auditors have bought the deficit and debt to attention as is their duty. While the auditors of Labour and SNP (different companies) do not believe there is a problem with their future and their liabilities are more manageable.
It is the job of auditors to validate accounts, but also to offer advice to the business (or party) this seems to be a sensible statement to remind the organisation they need to either raise more money or spend less and with no elections this year I imagine the later will be done.
20th August 2008 at 11:25 pm
It would be more interesting to look at the UK wide accounts of the three main Parties - all of which are available from http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/database-of-registers/statement-of-accounts
Labour - Assets £12.149m and liabilities £30.086m - net liabilities of £17.937m
Conservatives - Assets £16.414m and liabilities £21.6m - net liabilities of £5.186m
Liberal Democrats - Assets £2.077m and liabilities £0.898m - net ASSETS £1.178m
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual expenditure twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”
Jonathan Davies
A happy treasurer of the English Liberal Democrats (net assets £74,705)