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The consequences of ‘accounting regulation without accountants’: The case of UK political parties

Concerns about a lack of accountability and transparency often lead to calls for 'more' accounting information and regulation. The process of determining, and changing, the accounting rules normally involves the accounting profession to guide any 'accounting intervention' by state or non-state institutions. But what would happen if a state regulator instead does not rely on the profession to issue accounting guidance? This paper sets out the process and consequences of an ‘accounting regulation without accountants’ in the context of UK political parties. Drawing primarily from published documents and supplemented by interviews, the paper reviews the developments (primarily since 1998) leading to the need for a common set of accounts for political parties and how it was implemented by the UK Electoral Commission (EC). The actual consequences of this accounting regime are analysed from the different perspectives previously used in understanding the forms of, and motivations for, of accounting regulation. The paper’s empirics and analysis form the basis of a broader debate on the potentially uncritical use, and unintended consequences, of ‘accounting logic’ and ‘transparency through accounting’ initiatives by policy-makers.