ec-donations

name	ec-donations
description	Query the Electoral Commission's open search API for donations, campaign spending returns, loans to political parties, registered campaigners (referendum / election), and the Registers of political parties / non-party campaigners / accounting units. Use when the question is about who donated to which party, how much was spent on a campaign, or who's registered to spend on a referendum. Joins to the Parliament Register of Members' Financial Interests indirectly via the recipient name (party / MP / candidate).
license	Open Government Licence v3.0 (Electoral Commission, Crown copyright)
metadata	{"facility":"ec-donations","cli-alias":"ec","base-url":"https://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/api/search","provenance":{"tier":3,"operator":"The Electoral Commission","service":"search.electoralcommission.org.uk","upstream-data":"PPERA 2000 statutory returns from registered political parties, candidates, regulated entities, and (referendum) permitted participants","citation-short":"via Electoral Commission","citation-formal":"The Electoral Commission, donations / spending / loans registers, retrieved {date}, OGL v3.0","confidence":"authoritative","confidence-notes":"Authoritative statutory register, but Donor names are free text — the same donor can appear under multiple spellings. For aggregation tasks, dedupe by donor address + nature of donation, not by donor name alone."}}

Electoral Commission

Base URL: https://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/api/search

Endpoints wrapped

Endpoint	What
Donations	Cash + non-cash donations to parties, MPs, candidates, regulated entities
Spending	Campaign spending returns post-election
Loans	Loans to political parties
Campaigners	Registered campaigners for referendums + non-party campaigners
Registers	The statutory registers — political parties + non-party campaigners + accounting units

CLI

parl ec donations --recipient "Labour Party" --date-from 2024-01-01 --rows 50
parl ec donations --donor-name "Smith" --min-value 50000
parl ec spending --election "2024 UKPGE" --spender-name "Conservative"
parl ec loans --recipient "Reform UK"
parl ec registers --register-type "GB Political Parties"

Joins to Parliament

• Recipient → MP: the donations register names parties and candidates. Match candidate names to parl members search --name to resolve to a Parliament member id (name-only matching has known false-positive risk — flag uncertain matches).
• Cross-check with interests: a donation to an MP should appear on both EC's donations register AND the MP's Register of Members' Financial Interests entry. Discrepancies are notable.

Provenance to cite

Tier 3 — third-party (Electoral Commission), authoritative.

• Inline cite: "(via Electoral Commission)" — once per paragraph.
• For formal output, name the register + reporting period: "Electoral Commission donations register, reporting Q2 2024, retrieved {date}". Each result row has ReceivedDate / AcceptedDate and a RegulatedEntityName.
• Donor names are free text; spell variations are common. Don't collapse two near-identical donor names without checking address / nature-of-donation fields.
• See ../../docs/provenance.md.