94.In paragraph 4.42 of their report, the Neill Committee recommended that the public should be entitled to have access to the annual accounts of income and expenditure of every political party and that this should be put on a statutory basis. Part III of the Act establishes a statutory scheme for this purpose. Many political parties already prepare, and some of them publish, annual accounts. A statutory scheme has, however, to start from scratch and quite detailed provisions are therefore required. Elements of the scheme are drawn from provisions of Part VI of the Charities Act 1993, which in turn are partly modelled on the Companies Act 1985.
Commentary on Sections Part III: Accounting requirements