THE Scottish Greens have been fined more than £5000 for multiple failures in the reporting of donations.
The Electoral Commission today announced the party must pay seven fines totalling £5,349.75 by September 24.
The party said it was a “technical” breach and it was appealing the finding.
The Commission said the Greens had filed seven inaccurate quarterly donation reports between 2016 and 2018, omitting 18 cash donations totalling £52,267.96.
All the money omitted was so-called short money paid to the opposition parties by the Scottish Parliament to help support their work and policy development.
The 18 missing donations represented 60 per cent of all donations to the Greens in those quarterly reports, and 35% of the donations by value.
The Commission imposed a sanction for each of the seven offences, ranging from £262.50 to £1522.50, based on a variety of factors including “seriousness and harm caused”.
The fine was the largest imposed by the watchdog this month, which also sanctioned the UK Conservative Party, the DUP MP Ian Paisley and the Brexit Party.
The Scottish Greens, who have six MSPs, last year said the Electoral Commission needed more powers to deliver “substantial fines” to parties that failed to register donations.
It followed the watchdog imposing a £1,800 fine on the Scottish Unionist Association Trust (SUAT) for failing to notify it of donations it both received and made to the Tory party.
Green MSP Ross Greer said: "It is frustrating that the fines for this substantial number of violations totalled just a small fraction of the money actually funnelled through SUAT.”
In 2010, the Scottish Greens also demanded a “clean campaign” in that year’s general election, pledging to “comply in full with the Electoral Commission’s rules on donations”.
According to their most recent public accounts, the Scottish Greens had a total income of around £350,000 in 2018, of which half came from donations, with expenditure of £315,000.
Louise Edwards, the Director of Regulation at the Electoral Commission, said: “The reporting requirements are clear, so it is always disappointing when they are not met.
“It is vital that voters are given an opportunity to see accurate and timely data on how parties and campaigners are funded.
“The Commission will continue to enforce these requirements on all parties and campaigners to ensure that voters have the information they need.”
A Scottish Greens spokesperson said: “All monies were reported in our audited accounts, which were submitted to the Electoral Commission, so we are disputing this penalty.”
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