The Membership & Party Support Team would like to hear your thoughts on a number of issues:

Regional Parties

Following a Conference motion to review the Party’s structures, the National Party will be looking at our three tiers over the next year and to suggest changes that should be made to make the Party more responsive. We are beginning by reviewing the purpose and activity of regional parties in England. Click here to read the full consultation.

We would like to hear your thoughts on the future of regional parties and what roles they should carry out.

Annual Reports & Accounts

The National Party now requests that each party council submit an annual report and accounts before they receive funds such as the share of the membership fee. Annual Reports can be submitted in two forms, either as a traditional narrative document that you may also submit to your subscribing society or by completing the annual report form.

As we approach the end of the year we have updated the Annual Report Form and are asking for your feedback. We have also introduced a new template for party council financial returns which is included in the form as well as a short summary questionnaire to ensure the National Party holds your correct details. Click here to view the full document.

We would like to hear your feedback on what should and should not be in the annual report form. Is the new format for financial returns easy to use? Can you meet the deadline of 31 March 2017 to submit the requested information?

Branch funding

As part of the move to a National Membership System, branches have lost their direct source of income and are now reliant on party councils for funding. For 2016, we agreed that the minimum level of funding given to active branches should be £2 per member.

For 2017 we are proposing that branches should be funded to the level of £4 per member plus £100 (to help cover meeting costs). It is proposed that this would be a minimum and party councils may wish to give additional funding. Likewise, this funding would only be made available to active branches who have provided accounts to the party council.

Party councils who manage funds on behalf of branches who do not have bank accounts would not be affected and branches would not be required to have separate bank accounts.

We would like to hear your thoughts on whether this is the right amount to set as minimum funding.

Party Council Email Address

The Party is proposing to introduce dedicated email addresses for Party Council Secretaries, for example dorset@party.coop – this would make it easier for the National Party to send relevant information to party councils and also allow party councils to make contact with each other much easier. It also means Secretaries would not have to publicise their personal email accounts.

Would you like to have a dedicated email address for your Party Council?