E-mail: Letter of approval Page 1 of 3 E-mail Letter of approval Sent Date 12/02/2015 16:28 E-mail To SIU Info Subject Letter of approval Dear Mr Cameron Please ?nd attached a letter to you from Andy O'Neill regarding your application to become a registered third party for the UK Parliamentary General Election. If you have any questions about the content of the letter, do not hesitate to contact me. The Compliance team asked me to forward you the following message as well: Dear Responsible Person we are writing to vou As the responsible person for a registered non-party campaigner in the UK Parliamentary general election, you must submit pre-poll reports setting out all donations that you receive over a certain value given towards your regulated campaign activity. You must make these reports on a quarterly basis from the start of the regulated period until 30 March 2015; you must make weekly reports from that date on until polling day. This letter explains what you need to do and when you must do it. What do you need to report for the quarterly reports? The pre-poll reporting rules cover all donations that are given towards your regulated campaign spending even if you receive them before the start of the regulated period. Your quarterly reports must provide details of certain donations, and the total value of other donations, accepted or returned during the relevant reporting period. You must report donations over ?7,500 or an 8 E?mail: Letter of approval Page 2 of 3 aggregate of donations that you have accepted from a single source that add up to over ?7,500. You should read our guidance to understand what donations are covered and what information you need to include: Donations to non-gag campaigners UK Parliamentarv general election 2015: Pre?Doll reporting for non?party campaigners We do encourage you to use our interactive website, PEF Online, to submit these reports. However, should you require paper forms for reporting, these be found here. As the reporting deadline falls on a non-working day we suggest that you submit your return to us by the last working day before the reporting deadline. lNhen do you need to report? are required to submit quarterly reports up until the date of the dissolution of Parliament. You must submit pre-poll reports by the following dates: Reporting period in which Deadline for pre-poll reports donations are received or loans entered into 19 December -18 March 2015 17 April 2015 19 March - 30 March 2015 28 April 2015 These dates assume that Parliament will be dissolved on 30 March 2015. After the dissolution of Parliament you will be required to submit a weekly donation report. The deadlines for weekly reports are in our guidance. How do I submit a Dre-poll return to the Commission? We recommend that you complete and submit pre-poll reports online using our interactive website, Online. In order to use the system, the responsible person will need access to the participant's online account. If you do not have an account registered with the Commission, please email pef@electoralcommission.oro.uk to request that an account be set up. If you are unable to use the online system you can email, fax or post completed forms to the Commission. What happens if you do not submit on time? It is a legal requirement to submit pre-poll reports on time. If you submit your report late, you may be subject to sanctions including a penalty of at least ?200. Failure to submit a pre-poll report on time may also result in you being referred to the Commission?s Enforcement Team in line with our enforcement policy: 08f01i2018 E?mail: Letter of approval Page 3 of 3 Can We Help? If you require any help or have any queries regarding the content of this letter, or about submitting your pre-poll reports, please contact a member of the Commission's Compliance Team: Alternatively you can contact our Party Election ?nance advice line on - or email oef@electoralcommission.orq.uk Regarding m; Scotland In Union Keywords Duration Priority Non'nal Due Category Sub-Category PEF Directorate Categories PEF Parent Category PEF Category Attachments J. E-Mail Attachments Activity Attachment Associated View Cl Mame mom More 7,011 El Wadi 199.572 1 - 2 of 2 (0 selected) 1 Status Reason Sent 8 The Electoral Commission Mr Alastair Cameron Scotland in Union 272 Bath Street Glasgow G2 4JR 12 February 2015 Non-Party Campaigner Reference: RTP1497805 Dear Mr Cameron, Approval of registration as a non-party campaigner Thank you for your application to register as a non-party campaigner. Your application was received on 26 January 2015. write to con?rm that Scotland in Union has been added to the register of third parties. Your date of registration is 26 January 2015. I enclose a copy of Scotland in Union's entry as it appears on the register. It is important that you notify us of any error in these details immediately so they can be amended as soon as possible. Registration normally lasts for 15 months. after which point it may lapse. If you wish to continue your registration beyond this date, we must receive a completed TP3 renewal of registration form during the four months immediately prior to the end of your registration. It is your responsibility to ensure we receive any renewal before the end of your registration. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 imposes a number of requirements on non-party campaigners, particularly in relation to spending on regulated campaign activity. These rules help to ensure the integrity and transparency of the electoral system. If Scotland in Union does not follow these rules both the organisation and you as the responsible person may be committing a criminal offence. You can ?nd more information on how to comply with the mles in our guidance: campaigners The Electoral Commission Lolhizln Chambers 59-63 George IV Bndge Edinburgh EHI IRIN Tel: 013 325 0200 Putting voters ?rst @9702? 0.3.225 0205 - infuscotland a clecluraleommission.org uk In '01 lint't "I'vn'klu 'u u. kl 2? nl Ilsa I hurl: Imanl The Electoral Commission In particular, I draw your attention to the rules on imprints for non-party campaigners. Whenever election material is produced, it must contain certain details (which we refer to as an ?imprint?) to show who is responsible for the production of the material. This helps to ensure there is transparency about who is campaigning. Our guidance on imprints sets out what you must include and is available on our website at the address above. You can now change your registration details, renew your registration, and submit spending and donations returns online. Register to use PEF Online and login at Please do not hesitate to contact us at the details below if you require any further assistance: Referendum Of?cer The Electoral Commission Lothian Chambers 59-63 George IV Bridge Edinburgh, EH1 1RN Tel: Ema": Kind regards Andy O'Neill Head of Of?ce - Scotland .uhml. I 1.In . I-u 'u 1 Ii Page I of 3 Dear Mr Cameron, Thank you for your email. The name and address that should appear in the imprint is the name and address of whoever in fact printed out the material. If a lea?et is designed to be printed out at home, then you should leave a space for the person who prints the lea?et to add their details. For example: ?Printed by of (please ?ll in as applicable). Promoted by Alastair Cameron of Scotland In Union. both of 272 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 I trust this is helpful. Please get back in touch if you have any further questions. Kind regards, Guidance Adviser The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8Y2 Tel: Fax: Make sure you are registered to vote Follow us on Twitter Putting Voters First Please consider the environment before printing this email Sent: 30 March 2015 21: To: PEF Inbox Subject: Re: Non-party campaigner guidance Dear Sin" Madam Having read the fact sheet on imprints, I have a further question on imprints, with which I hope you can help: If we produce a lea?et design, but our supporters then download it and print their own on their own home printers), can we even do that, and what do we do about the imprint wording? I was imagining that perhaps we might be able to put something like: 08:0 1 r2018 Page 2 of 3 'Printed locally by individuals. Promoted by Alastair Cameron of Scotland In Union, both of 272 Bath Street, Glasgow, 62 I am of course very keen that we don't fall foul of any regulations in this regard, so please could you let me know what to do in this situation (and indeed whether we can do it at alil). Many thanks Alastair Cameron On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 10:34 AM, PEF inbox wrote: Dear Mr Cameron Further to our telephone conversation, please see this factsheet on imprints. I hope the above is helpful to you. If you do have any further questions, lease do not hesitate to contact the party and election ?nance advice line on *r e-mail the party and election ?nance inbox at pef@electoralcommission.orq.uk . Kind regards Guidance Adviser The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8YZ Putting voters first IE 869300 You can now register to vote online Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Read our Blog We welcome correspondence in Welsh and English A Please consider the environment before printing this email. Alastair Cameron 08f01i2018 Page 1 of 4 Dear Mr Cameron, Thank you for your email. 1. Yes, the weekly pre-reporting for non-party campaigners are for donations only. You must report your campaign spending to us after the election. If your campaign expenditure is ?250k or below. the report is due within 3 months of the election. If your campaign expenditure is over ?250k, the report is due within 6 months of the election. Further information on the post-poll return can be found in our guidance. The table below sets out the deadline dates for the weekly pre-poll donation reports before the 2015 election. Reporting period Deadline for pre-poll report 30 March 2015 5 April 2015 12 April 2015 6April 2015? 12 April 2015 19 April 2015 13 April 2015 - 19 April 2015 26 April 2015 20 April 2015 - 26 April 2015 3 May 2015 27 April 2015-3 May 2015 10 May 2015 4 May 2015 7 May 2015 (shorter than 7 days) 14 May 2015 2. Registered third parties are not required to submit a nil return as long as they did not receive any reportable donations during the regulatory period. If you do not provide a donation return, this assumes that Scotland in Union did not receive reportable donations. I hope the above is helpful to you. If you have any further questions lease do not hesitate to contact the party and election finance advice line onh or e-mail the party and election finance inbox at Def@electoralcommission.oro.uk . Kind regards Guidance Adviser Party and Election Finance The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8YZ Tel: Fax Make sure you are registered to vote Follow us on Twitter Putting Voters First Please consider the environment before printing this email. From: Alastair cameron? Sent: 04 April 2015 19:49 08:?01 r201 8 Page 2 of 4 To: PEF Inbox Subject: Re: Scotland In Union - income and expenditure reporting Hello again (sorry, more questions!) Having established as below that we only need to declare donations if they are speci?cally for our electoral campaigning; and that we should declare all our expenditure on electoral campaigning, I was about to ?ll in our ?rst return on PEF Online, but now I just need to check a couple of things again, please! 1. For the quarterly and weekly returns, are they only for donations, and not for expenditure? I thought they would be for both, but the way PEF is con?gured it appears that they are only for donations, and the expenditure is just a single report within three months of 7th May - is that correct? 2. How do I submit a 'nil return' for donations? All of our donations so far have been to the organisation, with no strings attached, so thus far we have no donations which we would need to declare. However, I don't want to fail to report, so I was assuming I would submit a return but with a total sum of zero - should I be doing something like that, and if so how, please? 1 hope those questions make sense and are easy to answer by email. If not, do please give me a call on Many thanks Alastair Cameron On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 1 1:4] PM, Alastair Cameron wrote: Thank you very much; that is very helpful (as always) - and thanks for the prompt response, too. Regards Alastair On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at i 1:37 AM, PEF Inbox wrote: Dear Mr Cameron, Thank you for your email. 1- A) A donation is money, goods. property- or services with a value over ?500 given towards regulated campaign spending. A donation received by Scotland In Union that is not given for the purpose of and used for regulated activity is not regulated by the Electoral Commission- B) When you receive any donation of more than ?500 for regulated campaign activities, you must immediately make sure that you know who the donor is and that the donation is from a permissible source. In the case of individual donors, they must be on the electoral register to be permissible. Information for checking permissibility can be found in section 6 of our guidance. 2. A) In all cases you should make an honest assessment, based on the facts, to whether the activity can reasonably be seen as regarded to in?uence voters to vote for or 1i CCM/_controlsi 08i03i2018 Page 3 of 4 against one or more political parties or a category of candidates. Further information on applying the purpose test can be found in section 6 of our guidance. Campaign activity must directed at the public to be regulated. Please see pages 7-8 for more details on the public test. The Electoral Commission does not designate specific staff for each stakeholder. if you have any further questions, lease do not hesitate to contact the party and election ?nance advice line onhor e-mail the party and election ?nance inbox at pef@electoralcommission.orq.uk . Kind regards Guidance Adviser Party and Election Finance The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8YZ Tel: Fax Make sure you are redistered to vote Follow us on Twitter Putting Voters First Please consider the environment before printing this email. From: Alastair Cameron? Sent: 19 March 2015 21:22 To: PEF Inbox Subject: Scotland In Union - income and expenditure reporting Sin? Madam We in Scotland In Union have just launched, and we have a few questions to con?rm previous conversations and to make sure we stay on the right side of the regulations. I hope you can help - please let me know if we should be directing our enquiries to a speci?c person. 1. Income. a. Before we set up, I spoke a few times with members of your team (who were very help?Jl) to con?rm that as we have long?term aims not related to the election, we could accept donations without them being regulated, as long as those donations are not speci?cally for the election campaign. The analogy your staff gave was a trade union or pressure group, which would have some regulated and some unregulated expenditure Could you pleasejust con?rm that this understanding is correct, i.e. we don't have to report income unless it's speci?cally for the election? b. Regardless of point a, I presume we have a duty to check where donations come from. Do we still have to check that people are on the electoral roll, and if so do we have to do that ourselves? 08.301220] 8 Page 4 of 4 2. Expenditure In line with 1a, above, I gathered from your staff that we should make ajudgement as to which expenditure, under your 'purpose test? counts as regulated. Ijust wanted to check that our understanding is correct, i.e. that we shouldjudge (erring on the side of caution, and reporting if in doubt), what to report? Finally, is there a person who is our 'accounl manager? or similar, whom we should be contacting, or do we just use this email address for future questions? Thank you very much - I hope that all makes sense, and will look forward to hearing from you soon Yours faithfully Alastair Cameron Alastair Cameron Scotland In Union Scotland In Untun Is In Scotland Number 492324 \lasldir on Scotland In Union w? w.scotlandinunion.co.uk Scotland in Union is In Scotland. Number 492324 Alastair Cameron Scotland In Union .scolian!1numon.co.u! Scotland In Unlon is registered to Scotland, Number 492324 08f01i?2018 Page 1 of 3 Dear Mr Cameron Apologies as I thought your group was registered for the referendum. The answer is actually the same for non?party campaigners any donation below ?500 is not subject to the donations rules so you do not need to report it. I hope the above is helpful to you. If you do have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us or e-mail the party and election ?nance inbox at gef@electoralcommission.org.uk . Kind regards Guidance Adviser The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8YZ Tel: Fax Putting voters first IE, CidimageOO1.png@01DOZF45. c.d Image002.png@OiDOZF45 co season -You can now reqister to vote online Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Read our Blog We welcome correspondence in Welsh and English .4, Please consider the environment before printing this email. Sent: 15 May 2015 13: To: PEF Inbox Subject: RE: Additional item to report Thanks for your prompt response. Could I please just check one thing? Your note below says 'referendum campaigners', but my question was about the general election. Is it the same rule which applies? 08:"01 r201 8 Page 2 of 3 Thanks Alastair On 15 May 2015 13:10, Inbox" ?rote: Dear Mr Cameron Thank you for your enquiry. Donations to registered referendum campaigners over ?500 must be checked for permissibility and reported to the Electoral Commission if over ?7,500. As the donation you mention is below ?500. it is not legally considered a donation and is not subject to the donation rules. You therefore do not need to report it to the Electoral Commission. I hope the above is helpful to DU. If ou do have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us on ?or e-mail the party and election ?nance inbox at Def@electoralcommission.orq.uk . Kind regards !u1!ance The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8YZ Tel: Fax: Putting voters first '3 old image001.png@D1D02F45. IE cid image002.png@01002F45.CD 869300 You can now register to vote online Follow us on Twitter I Like us on Facebook Read our Blog We welcome correspondence in Welsh and English .54, Please consider the environment before printing this email. Sent: 15 May 2015 13:0 081?01f201 8 Page 3 of 3 To: PEF Inbox Subject: Additional item to report Hello Scotland In Union is a registered non-party campaigner for the recent UK general election. We recently completed our (only) weekly donations report, but I havejust realised that we should probably also have included a donation in kind of approximately ?50, as one of our volunteers sent bundles of lea?ets for us and does not want to be reimbursed. Please could you let me know (1) whether we need to declare this (now that we are beyond the reporting date and already submitted our return? Many thanks Alastair Cameron 08r?01f201 8 E-mail: RE: Electoral Commission enquiry Page 1 of 3 E-mail RE. Electoral Sent Date 01/07/2015 16:34 Email From PEFInbox Cc To an Alastair Cameron Subject RE: Electoral Commission enquiry Dear Mr Cameron, Thank you for your email. For the Scottish Parliamentary election, the regulated period for non-party campaigners will be the 6 January 2016, four months before the poll. Further information and guidance will be available in October 2015. not hesitate to contact the party and election finance advice line on or e-mail the party and election finance inbox at Qef@electoralcommission.org.uk . I hope the above is helpful to you. If you have any further questions, ilease do Kind regards Guidance Adviser Party and Election Finance The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8Y2 Tel: Fax ectora Make sure you are recustered to vote Follow us on Twitter Putting Voters First Please consider the environment before printing this email. 08f01f2018 E-mail: RE: Electoral Commission enquiry Page 2 of 3 From Sent: 30 June 2015 21:54 To: info_inbox Subject: New contact form submission Your name: Alastair Cameron Your email: Your telephone number: Your Scotland reglonlcountry. I am a member of a registered third party candidatelparty spendingifunding Hello Scotland In Union will probably be spending on regulated activity during the restricted period for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. Please could you let me know Comments: when the restricted period will start - or if not yet decided, at what point will we know the dates of the restricted period? Many thanks Alastair Cameron Eich Enw: Eich e-bost: Eich rhif ffon: Eich Regarding a; 2015-07-01 - Alastair Cameron - Third party campaigning Keywords Duration Priority Normal Due Category Sub-Category PEF Directorate Categories PEF Parent Category PEP Category Attachments E-Manl Attachments Activity Attachment Associated View Eilg Name Eilg gizg (ngg) No E-Mail Attachment records are available In this view O?Oof0(0 selected) 08f01r?2018 Page 1 of 1 Thank you,- We had no donations over ?7,500. I was led to believe we therefore didn't need to complete a nil return, so please let me know if we do need to. Regards Alastair Dear Mr Cameron Thank you for your campaign expenditure return which we received on 10l06f2015- I have noted that we are yet to receive your post-poll donations return. As you have reported campaign expenditure you must submit this to us by 7 August 2015. If you have received no donations over the ?7.500 reporting threshold then this will be a 'nil' return. If you have any questions then please contact me using the contact information below. Compliance The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8Y2 Tel Fax Putting voters ?rst 5% Please con5ider the environment before pr this email 0830122018 E-mail: RE: Staff costs Page 1 of 4 E-mail I RE. Staff costs Sent Date 13/08/2015 18:11 E-mail From 11.] Alastair Cameron Cc To PEF inbox Subject RE: Staff costs nea- Thank you very much for this - it's clear. detailed and very helpful. We will obviously need to do some maths to make sure we report appropriately. but at least we understand how to do that! And yes, you are correct in assuming was asking about 2016 Holyrood election in particular. Many thanks Alastair On 13 Aug 2015 09:07, Inbox" wrote: Dear Mr Cameron, Thank you for your email. As you know, spending on a campaign activity is regulated if the activity passes two tests: the purpose test and the public test. The purpose test is met if the activity can reasonably be seen as intended to in?uence voters to vote for or against one or more political parties or category of candidates (see Overwew of regulated non-party campaigning pages 5-6). The public test is met if the activity is directed at the public. Your members and committed supporters do not count as the public (see pages 7-8). The regulated period for the general election to the Scottish Parliament will begin in January. We will be publishing guidance speci?cally for campaigners in that election on our website in the autumn. Question 1: The costs of any staff time that is spent on regulated campaign activity will count towards your organisation's regulated spending total. In many cases this amount will be dif?cult to judge exactly. in which case you should make an honest and reasonable assessment of the amount that needs to be counted. In your spending return you do not need to report the staff costs for each particular activity, but rather one total of all of your staff costs on regulated activity over the whole regulated period. I will give some examples of splitting spending below: E-mail: RE: Stai?l? costs Page 2 of 4 - Supporters' newsletter -Any material which is distributed only to your members or committed supporters will not be a regulated campaign activity, since it will not meet the public test. If you send the newsletter to a mailing list, and you know that 80% of the people on the list are your members or committed supporters, then (assuming that the newsletter meets the purpose test) you should include 20% of the staff time spent on the newsletter towards your regulated spending total. . Maintaining a website - A website will usually meet the public test. Suppose you decide that 60% of the content of the website also meets the purpose test. You have a member of staff employed from the beginning of September to the beginning of May. so that4 months are before the regulated peried and 4 months are in it, and they spend 10% of their time maintaining the website. You should therefore include 3% of their salary over those 8 months as regulated spending: 60% {purpose test) at 50% (regulated period) it 10% (proportion of time) 3% Fundraising - Fundraising is not in itself one of the 5 types of regulated activity (see page 4 of Overview of regulated non-party campaigning), and therefore money spent on fundraising will not usually be regulated. It will only be regulated if it is also one of the 5 types of regulated activity. For example. if you run a fundraising campaign in a regulated period. 15% of which is effectively election material which meets the purpose and public tests. then you should include 15% of the campaign's staff costs towards your regulated spending total. This is in addition to the costs of the election material itself. Question 2: Registered non-party campaigners must report any donations of over ?7,500 which are given for the purpose of regulated campaign spending. If the donor is aware that the staff member will spend at least some of their time on regulated campaign activity, then the donation is being given at least partly with this purpose. Unlike for this year's UK Parliamentary general election. there are no requirements for quarterly pre-poll donations returns for non-party campaigners in Scottish Parliamentary elections. There is a post-poll donations return which accompanies the spending return. In this return you must report any donations that were given and used for regulated campaign activity. no matter when they were received. This means that. for the purpose of reporting donations. you do not need to know in advance the proportion of the staff member's time that will be spent on regulated campaign activity. By the time you ?ll in your post-poll donation return you will be able to estimate what proportion of the staff member?s time was in fact spent on regulated campaign activity. and you can report that amount. - Example A You received a donation of ?20,000 towards a member of staff. and you employed someone for a year for ?40,000. Four months of that year were in the regulated period, which is 33% of the year. Even if the staff member spent all of their time during the regulated period working on regulated campaign activity. 33% of ?20,000 is ?6,667. which is below the reporting threshold. You would therefore not need to report the money received for the staff member as a donation. I Example You received a donation of ?20,000 to employ a staff member for 3 months of the regulated period. You determine that 60% of their time was spent on regulated campaign activity. so you declare ?12,000 as a donation. I hope this is helpful. I have assumed that you are making reference to the regulated period in Scotland next year. If this is not correct, or if you have any further questions, please get in back in touch. Kind regards. Guidance Adviser 08f01l2018 E-mail: RE: Staff costs Page 3 of 4 The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8Y2 Tel Fa one u?r. Make sure you are reg ste'ed to . -te Follow us on Putting Voters First Please consider the environment before printing this email Sent: 11 August 2015 2 To:PEFInbox Subject: Staff costs Hello Scotland In Union is a registered non-party campaign group. We are planning to recruit some staff, and considering how that would need to be reported. Some of our activity is non-regulated (for example. we organise events which are non-political. outside the restricted periods) and some of our activity is de?nitely regulated (for example, political Ieafleting}. We understand the difference between these activities. but were wondering about splitting of staff time, and also about declaring donations for staff. 1. I have read Page 9 of your guide on non-party spending but would just like to clarify something: the guide refers to staff time producing electoral material. but what about other staff time which could be construed as either our routine activity or campaigning - I'm thinking of areas such as our regular supporters' newsletter. maintaining our website, and fundraising. Would they need to be counted? 2. I also had a question about donations which are speci?cally for staff costs, as we have some donors who are prepared to help with staff costs now, at a time when we are not campaigning for a speci?c election. Do we need to declare those donations, if these staff subsequently become involved in regulated activity? I'm just thinking it could be dif?cult to split exactly how much of a donation needed to be declared - probably harder than splitting the spending on staff. Would we need to declare part of a donation, for example? As an example of the paragraph above, what if someone gave us ?20,000 for staff costs. We employed someone for a year and it cost ?40,000. During that year, the person worked on both regulated and non-regulated activity - let's say for three months. Would we need to declare the ?20,000 donation, or a part of it, because the staff member had spent some of their time on campaigning? And would we just need to pro rata it or something? This could matter to us now, because we'd be securing the donations now. 083010.018 E-mail: RE: Staff costs Page 4 of 4 I hope those questions are clear. but do please get back to me if not. Many thanks Alastair Cameron Alastair Cameron Scotland In Union Scotland In Union is registered in Scotland. Number 492324. Regarding 2015-08-11 - Alastair Cameron - Staff time. splitting and donations Owner 3 Sam Nicholson Keywords Duration Priority Nonnai Due Category Sub-Category PEF Directorate Categories PEF Parent Category PEF Category Attachments ui?i E-Mail Attachments Activity Attachment Associated View I: File Name File Size (Bytes) No E-Mail Attachment records are available in this mew. O-Oofow selected) ?ange 1 Status Reason Sent 08f01i'2018 E?mail: Re: Post?poll report for Scottish Parliament 2016 election Page 1 of 4 E-mail Re: Post-poll report Sent Date 25/05/2016 22:59 E-mail From Alastair Cameron Cc To El PEF lnbox Subject Re: Post-poll report for Scottish Parliament 2016 election nea- Thank you very much for your prompt and helpful reply. 0n point 2, I'm just going to look through our expenditure again, taking a cautious view, beforei confirm we were sub ?10k- Many thanks Alastair On Wed. May 25, 2016 at 4:40 PM, PEF Inbox wrote: Dear Mr Cameron, Thank you for your email. 1. When a non-party campaigner registers. their registration is valid for 15 months. In the last three of those months the registration can be renewed for a further year. Scotland in Union was originally registered on 26 January 2015. Your registration would therefore have expired on 26 April 2016. However since that date fell in the regulated period for the elections in Scotland. Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland in Union remained registered until the end of the regulated period, which was 5 May 201 B. We will update the register to re?ect the fact that Scotland in Union's registration has now lapsed. This will not affect your ability to submit returns, should that be necessary. 2. You are right that ifyou spent less than ?10,000 in the regulated period you do not need to submit a spending return. If this is the case for Scotland in Union, we would be grateful ifyou would confirm this to us by email. 3. You are right that to be reportable. a donation has to be both given for and used for regulated campaign activity. 4. Your donations and spending do not necessarily have to match up. If the donations were not given for use on regulated activity then they do not need to be reported. If you spent over ?10,000. all spending on regulated activity must be reported regardless of whether a regulated donation funded it. 08:"01 #2018 E-mail: Re: Post-poll report for Scottish Parliament 2016 election Page 2 of 4 I trust this is helpful. If anything is unclear or if you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to get back- in touch. Kind regards. Guidance Adviser The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London EC1Y 8Y2 Tel: Fax: on org uk Maire sure you are registered to vote Follow us on i writer Putting Voters First Please consider the environment before printing this email Sent: 24 May 2016 23:0 To: PEF Inbox Subject: Post-poll report for Scottish Parliament 2016 election Dear Sir/ Madam I am the Director of Scotland In Union. and we were registered as a non-party campaign group for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. I'm just looking at the reporting requirements, and had a few questions before we submitted a return. Please could you help with the enquiries below? 1. Please can you con?rm we are automatically de-registered now the election has passed? 2. Reading your guide for non-party campaigners, Page 15. it seems to say that if we spent less than ?10,000 on regulated activity. we may not need to report at all, despite having registered as a precautionary measure. 15 that correct? I need to go through our spending, but we really did very little actual campaigning; and I don't think we will hit ?10k (we did some online posts which could be deemed regulated. and we organised a hustings. but most of our activity during the period was our normal business and not aimed at the election). 083010.018 Email: Re: Post-poll report for Scottish Parliament 2016 election Page 3 of 4 3. For donations, we didn't receive any donations which were speci?cally for regulated campaign activity during that time - we are an organisation with a long-term mission, and donations during the period were just to us as an organisation. (Unlike for the 2015 general election. when we did receive some donations which the donors speci?cally asked to be used for that campaign.) So, I think we don't actually have any donations to declare - would that be correct? 4. Finally, if we do need to report our expenditure (even though under ?10k total), do we need to somehow show donations which match it, or is it OKjust to report the expenditure if the donations were general donations but we then decided how to use them? (Does that make sense? We got donations which were unconditional. but we did spend money on a hustings. for example.) Many thanks - I hope those questions are clear. but if not do please get back to me, and I will look forward to hearing from you. Yours sincerely Alastair Cameron Alastair Cameron Scotland In Union co.uk Scotland In Union is registered in Scotland, Number 492324. Alastair Cameron Scotland In Uni Scotland In Union is registered in Scotland, Number 492324. Regarding 2016-05-24 - Alastair Cameron - Third party reporting owner - Keywords Duration Due Category PEF Directorate Categories PEF Parent Category Priority Normal Sub-Category PEF Category 8 The Electoral Commission Mr A Cameron Scotland In Union 272 Bath Street Glasgow G2 4JR 30 August 2016 Dear Mr Cameron, Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) Registration of Scotland In Union as a non-party campaigner I am writing to notify you that your registration with us as a nonuparty campaigner lapsed on 6 May 2016. Registration as a non-party campaigner usually lasts for 15 months. In order to remain registered, you are required to submit a noti?cation of renewal no earlier than 1 month prior to the anniversary of your original noti?cation which was 26 January 2016, and no later than three months after this date. Although we did not receive a noti?cation within this time from you, Scotland In Union automatically remained registered until up to and including 5 May 2016 as the anniversary of your original noti?cation fell within the regulated period for the May 2016 Elections. If you wish to re-register with us as a non?party campaigner, you can make an application to do so at any time. However, you are only required to register with us before spending ?20,000 in England or ?10,000 in any of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland on regulated campaign activity in a regulated period in the run-up to an election. There are currently no scheduled elections in 2017 or 2018 at which the non-party campaigner rules under PPERA will apply, so registration is not a requirement at this time. Our guidance on registering as a non-party campaigner and links to the forms you will need to re-register, should you wish to, are available on our website at the link below. The Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London ECW BYZ Tel: 020 7271 0500 Putting voters first if} Farr?2?7271?5?5 9 a, 9.. An independent body established by Act of the UK Parliament Pam-u: ?and? electoralcornrnission.org.uk The Electoral Commission camgaigners If you have any questions about this letter or registering with us as a non-party campaigner, please do not hesitate to contact the Part and Election Finance team at or on? Yours sincerely, Andrew Whyte Senior Adviser (Advice Service) Party and Election Finance An :ndependent body estab?shed by Act of the UK Parliament