SNP leader Humza Yousaf and his senior team have launched a widespread reform of the party in an effort to shed its tarnished image.
In an email to members, party bosses even pledged to act in a “lawful manner at all times” and will make sweeping changes to party governance and financial scrutiny under the new First Minister’s leadership.
Reforms include publishing membership figures every six months, giving members the chance to question senior officials, and providing access to financial information to those on the ruling group.
The changes come as a police probe into SNP finances continues and the party narrowly avoided losing thousands of pounds in short money after finding last-minute auditors to submit their Westminster company accounts. They filed the accounts just hours before deadline on May 31.
SNP President Mike Russell and National Secretary Lorna Finn issued an update on the party’s plans for governance and transparency telling members they have pledged to act “impartially and objectively...in relation to the stewardship of party funds”.
They said the party had a new pledge which included promises to “at all times act lawfully and seek to reflect in its own operations the standards by which it seeks to hold others to account in its wider political role.”
The party’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), agreed to publish their membership figures twice a year following a scandal which saw the resignation of the SNP’s former communications chief Murray Foote.
Foote quit his job in March after misleading the Sunday Mail over numbers having previously described accurate reporting of the figures as “drivel” on social media.
Police previously arrested former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell - the husband of ex-first minister Nicola Sturgeon - and then-party treasurer Colin Beattie as part of Operation branchform looking into how more than £600,000 of donations were used.
The two men were released without charge while investigations continue.
Since their arrest former and current members have claimed there had not been enough scrutiny of the party funds as details of spending was not being shared with members of the ruling body and those responsible for overseeing the accounts.
The changes put forward by Yousaf and his governance team are an attempt to resolve those criticisms.
Party bosses have also vowed to bring in more people to look into complaints and handle disciplinary cases following several high-profile incidents where victims claim they were ignored including that of former SNP North Lanarkshire Council leader Jordan Linden wih is facing a police investigation over allegation of sexual assault.
Chris McEleny, former SNP councillor and now senior figure in Alex Salmond’s Alba party, previously told of how he was censored for raising concerns about finances and party governance.
He said: “It seems odd that all of the senior figures at the top of the SNP that did the bidding of the previous leadership are still in their jobs. How can Humza Yousaf truly say that he is making changes when all the people involved in the secrecy under Sturgeon and coverups are still in place, and some of whom will be involved in enforcing these new governance rules?”
The SNP was contacted for comment but did not respond.
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