| 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.
