Police Scotland said on Sunday, 18 October 2026, that it was “assessing” information about spending by some Reform UK candidates in May's Scottish Parliament election. It did not announce a criminal inquiry, name suspects or speak of charges. An assessment is a filter, not a case file.

The party admitted “administrative errors”. Four candidates are said not to have filed returns on spending and donations: David McLennan, a councillor for Whitburn and Blackburn in West Lothian; Dan Clarke, who stood in Clydesdale; Malcolm Jones; and Sean O'Hagan in Glasgow Anniesland. None of the four became a member of the Scottish Parliament. McLennan is a councillor, not an MSP.

A Sunday Times and Ferret investigation, cited by The Herald, also says five candidates in Edinburgh seats — David Lees, Andrew McLaughlin, Cameron Rose, Davie Thomson and Charles Turner — filed returns but did not sign them. The law requires a signature that the figures are, to the candidate's knowledge, accurate. The deadline after the May election was 15 June.

A Reform UK spokesman in Scotland said the mistakes came from a new team that was “learning the ropes” and that those involved had since tried to supply the papers. Lessons, he added, had been learned. The party's account does not close the police assessment.

Reform UK, led in Scotland by Malcolm Offord, won 17 seats, joint second with Labour. Other parties, The Herald writes, met their reporting duties. The facts above concern campaign spending only. They are not a recap of other London inquiries into donations.

Nobody has been charged in this Scottish file. Anyone who turns a police assessment into a conviction skips the steps. Anyone who treats it as paperwork still ignores an electoral rule whose deadline has passed.

Image: Kay Williams, the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive building, not an October 2026 hearing.

Sources consulted: Police Scotland assess Reform UK election spending errors - The Herald; Reform admits errors as police assess if election spending rules were broken - The Herald / PA.