The SNP has signed a contract with a new auditor more than six months after the previous company quit.
The party has been without auditors for its accounts since October, with the Westminster group left with just weeks to file with the Electoral Commission, or risk losing £1.2m in funding from UK Parliament authorities to support their work.
The SNP now hopes to be able to file its accounts in time to meet this deadline, and to file its accounts with the Electoral Commission in July.
First Minister and party leader Humza Yousaf confirmed that contracts are in place for both the party and for the Westminster group's accounts with AMS Accountants Group.
“We take our statutory obligations extremely seriously, so it is welcome news that AMS Accountants Group will complete the accounts for both the party and the SNP Westminster group,“ he commented.
“There is hard work ahead, but it is really encouraging to have them on board as we work towards challenging deadlines.
“I am very grateful for the work of our new party treasurer Stuart McDonald in securing the auditors' services - I also wish to thank our previous auditors Johnston Carmichael for their professional work over many years.”
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn MP added: “I'm pleased to confirm the SNP Westminster group now has auditors in place - and I'm confident we'll meet the deadline, as in previous years.“
In the past month, the SNP’s former chief executive Peter Murrell - who is Nicola Sturgeon’s husband - and its then treasurer Colin Beattie have been arrested in connection with a police probe into the party’s finances.
Both Murrell and Beattie were released without charge pending further investigation.
The Scottish Conservatives will on Wednesday push for a statement on the turmoil engulfing the SNP, claiming it is “in the public interest”.
Led by Douglas Ross, the Tories will use their Holyrood debating time to push for clarity on the financial situation within the ruling party.
Speaking ahead of the debate, Ross said: “These questions are not going away for the First Minister and SNP leader, who recently had to step in as the SNP’s acting treasurer.
“He cannot stick his fingers in his ears and claim this is not a matter for his government, as well as his party, especially if the SNP were to face bankruptcy or an imminent threat to their viability.
“This is clearly also a government matter if the First Minister is compromised, his hands are tied, or if he has been kept in the dark about his party’s affairs, as was the case with the resignation of the SNP’s auditors.
“The unacceptable secrecy that has characterised the SNP in government, on ferries, the Lochaber smelter, the Salmond affair, and many others, is equally evident in its internal financial scandal, and it has to stop.”
A previous push for a statement to Parliament was rejected by the First Minister, who said: “I don’t think Parliament is the place to do a statement on the party’s finances.”
As well as calling for the statement, Ross’s party will push to end the pre-release of statistics, “deliver a more transparent budget process”, publish ministerial expenses and travel quicker, and improve scrutiny of breaches of the ministerial code.
The vote, however, is likely to fail thanks to anticipated support for the government from the Scottish Greens.
The Tories will also hit out at the SNP for a lack of transparency over its membership figures, but SNP MSP Gordon MacDonald described the motion as a “shocking error in judgment”.
He added: “It is the height of hypocrisy for the Scottish Tory leader to be calling into question issues of transparency of political party membership whilst refusing to disclose his own.
“If Douglas Ross wants to salvage the smallest smidge of self-respect, then it’s time for him to release his own party membership figures.
“Nobody will be fooled by the Tory party’s cheap political games though, especially from a party who have some nerve to pontificate about transparency when their Prime Minister was all too eager to ban Scottish journalists from asking questions at their party conference over the weekend – and that’s before we even begin to scratch the surface of dodgy PPI deals and their own elusive membership figures.”
MacDonald was alluding to a wrangle between Number 10 aides and the Scottish press at the Scottish Tory conference in Glasgow on Friday over access to a press conference with the Prime Minister.
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