Findings — what official bodies have found
Formal findings, sanctions and scrutiny from official UK bodies — the Electoral Commission, the ICO, the courts and Parliament — on political money, influence and data. We report what they concluded, quote the source, and link it. These are their findings, not our conclusions; where a matter is only a public contract under scrutiny rather than a proven finding, we say so.
NHS's £330m data platform awarded to a US-headquartered firm, now under parliamentary scrutiny
NHS England awarded the roughly £330m Federated Data Platform contract to a consortium led by Palantir Technologies, a US-headquartered company, in November 2023 (published on Contracts Finder), under the then Conservative government. The contract has since been debated in Parliament, and in April 2026 a health minister said it could be reassessed at its 2027 break clause on value-for-money and patient-safety grounds.
This is a record of a public contract and of parliamentary scrutiny — NOT a finding of wrongdoing. No official audit (e.g. the National Audit Office) has yet ruled on the contract.
Contracts Finder award notice ↗Watchdog warned the Brexit Party's funding was open to a 'high risk' of impermissible donations
After visiting the party to review its online fundraising in May 2019, the Electoral Commission concluded that the fundraising structure adopted by the Brexit Party — which became Reform UK in 2021 — “leaves it open to a high and on-going risk of receiving and accepting impermissible donations”, and recommended the party check all payments it had received.
This was a review finding and recommendations, not a fine or a finding of wrongdoing.
Electoral Commission statement (May 2019) ↗Leave.EU and Arron Banks's insurance firm fined £120,000 for unlawful marketing
The Information Commissioner's Office fined Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance (both linked to the businessman Arron Banks) £120,000 in total for unlawful direct marketing. Leave.EU had used insurance customers' details to send around 300,000 political messages, and about a million marketing emails were sent without adequate consent.
ICO enforcement register ↗Facebook fined £500,000 over the Cambridge Analytica data breach
The Information Commissioner's Office fined Facebook £500,000 — the maximum available under the Data Protection Act 1998 — for failing to protect users' personal information, after the data of up to 87 million people was harvested and some of it obtained by Cambridge Analytica, which worked on political campaigns. Facebook later settled without admitting liability.
ICO enforcement register ↗Vote Leave fined £61,000 and referred to the police for breaking spending law
The Electoral Commission found that Vote Leave — the official Leave campaign in the 2016 EU referendum — exceeded its £7m spending limit by almost £500,000 by working with the campaigner BeLeave, through which £675,315 was paid to the data firm AggregateIQ. It fined Vote Leave £61,000 and referred the matter to the Metropolitan Police. (Vote Leave was a referendum campaign, not a political party.)
Electoral Commission investigation report ↗Leave.EU fined £70,000 for breaking referendum spending law
The Electoral Commission found Leave.EU — the campaign co-founded by Arron Banks — exceeded its £700,000 referendum spending limit by at least 10% and delivered inaccurate and incomplete spending returns. It fined Leave.EU £70,000, referred its responsible person to the police, and referred the matter to the National Crime Agency, which in 2019 said it had found no evidence that criminal offences were committed.
Electoral Commission investigation report ↗Conservatives fined £70,000 over 2015 election spending — a record at the time
The Electoral Commission found significant failures by the Conservative Party to report more than £250,000 of spending on its 2015 general election and three 2014 by-election campaigns, including 'battlebus' costs. It imposed a £70,000 fine — its largest to that date — and referred the party's then-registered treasurer to the Metropolitan Police.
Electoral Commission investigation report ↗Liberal Democrats fined the maximum £20,000 over missing election spending
The Electoral Commission found that 307 payments totalling £184,676 were missing from the Liberal Democrats' 2015 general election spending return without a reasonable excuse, and imposed the maximum £20,000 fine — prompting the Commission to renew its call for stronger sanctioning powers.
Electoral Commission investigation report ↗Labour fined £20,000 over its 2015 election spending return
The Electoral Commission found the Labour Party's 2015 general election spending return was incomplete — missing 74 payments totalling £123,748 and 33 invoices totalling £34,392 — and fined the party £20,000.
Electoral Commission investigation report ↗
Included by a fixed rule: formal findings or sanctions by official UK bodies, plus public contracts under official or parliamentary scrutiny. If we've missed one that fits, tell us.