THE SNP spent more than £500,000 last year in pursuit of a Yes vote in the independence referendum, despite Alex Salmond saying the campaign was still at the "phoney war" stage.

The campaign used about 20% of the party's spending in 2012, a year when the SNP also had to devote funds to fighting local government elections.

The figure is in the SNP's annual accounts, published last week by the Electoral Commission.

The scale of the spending appears to jar with comments by the First Minister in June. Asked about the "rigidly unshifting" polls which show the Yes campaign still lagging behind the Unionist cause, Salmond told the New Statesman magazine: "This is the phoney war. This is not the campaign … The real game hasn't even started. We are just clearing the ground."

However, a "review of political activities" in the SNP's accounts, which was also written in June, say the campaign is "well under way".

It reveals that in 2011 the SNP built up a dedicated "Referendum Fund" which by January 2012 stood at £502,556.

During 2012, further donations took it to £611,340. From this, £520,015 was used for campaigning for a Yes vote, leaving £91,325 by the year's end.

In April, the cross-party Yes Scotland campaign revealed it had received £342,797 worth of help from the SNP.

However, the total taken from the Referendum Fund implies the SNP spent a further £177,218 campaigning for a Yes vote.

The SNP income in 2012 was £2.3 million, less than half the £5m of the 2011 election year, when donations included £1m from EuroMillions winners Chris and Colin Weir.

The party spent £2.66m, ending the year to December 31, 2012 with a £355,600 deficit, although overall reserves stood at £503,396.

The SNP's finances dwarfed those of the Scottish Labour Party, which had an income of £530,387 and spent £620,870 in 2012, leading to a deficit of £90,483, with reserves of £319,702.

The Scottish LibDems' annual accounts showed the party have lost almost one-third of its members since entering coalition with the Tories at Westminster, down from 4158 at the close of 2010 to 2837 by the end of 2012.

SNP membership recently passed the 25,000 mark. Labour do not publish their membership figures.

A Better Together spokesman said SNP spending showed how much Salmond had sought to play down the significance of the polls when he talked of a "phoney war". He said: "Alex Salmond seems determined to treat the people of Scotland like idiots. His entire independence campaign has been holed by his continued refusal to tell the truth."

An SNP spokesman said: "As the First Minister said, we are indeed clearing the ground during this period of phoney war in what is a long campaign. It's a matter of record we spent nearly £343,000 supporting the start-up of Yes Scotland, and obviously will spend significantly more campaigning in 2013 and 2014."