This report investigates the correlation between donations from private businesses to major UK political parties and the subsequent awarding of public sector contracts to those same entities, quantifying the financial flows in both directions – donations made and contracts awarded.

Key findings:

• The UK’s donations-contracts nexus involves huge amounts of money being donated by private companies to political parties, who then award them government contracts at a future date.

• We identify 373 companies that have been both Givers (have made donations that were declared to the Electoral Commission) and Takers (have received a contract from a public sector contracting authority). We call these ‘giver and taker’ companies.

• Over the last 25 years, ~£47 million has been donated by ‘giver and taker’ companies in total who have also received public contracts.

• The amount companies donate is dwarfed by the financial worth of the public contracts they receive.

• Just under 10% of ‘giver and taker’ companies (35 out of 373) were awarded a large UK government contract within two years of donating to a major political party which then assumed power.

• Public contracts should not be awarded to companies that have made political donations.

• All political donations above £500 should be logged through real-time disclosures, with full details available for public scrutiny.

• Company numbers of donor entities must be published alongside other donation details.

• Reinstate reporting requirements for defence and spending contracts.