11. Letter to Mr Anthony Steen from the
Commissioner
When we spoke last week about the draft factual sections
of the report on Mr Clayton's complaint which I had sent you,
you accepted that you had received the guidance about newsletters
sent out to Members by the House's Department of Finance and Administration
(DFA) in early 2003. However, you did not see anywhere in that
guidance mention of the fact that the former arrangement for the
split-funding of newsletters had been brought to an end. Moreover,
your correspondence with the Department in April 2003 had been
based on the premise that split-funding was still possible and
had involved you in asking for guidance on what sort of statement
you should include in your newsletter to indicate that it had
been part-funded from the Incidental Expenses Provision (IEP)
and part from other sources. No one had told you at that time
that split-funding was not possible.
I promised to consult the Department on these points
and to let you know the outcome.
As I said when we spoke, it is important to bear
in mind that the term "split-funding" is a piece of
shorthand which can be used in 2 different senses: (a) to describe
a newsletter part-funded from the allowances and part from other
sources, and (b) to describe an arrangement under which, if the
newsletter were found to contain some party political material,
a deduction would be made from the amount reimbursed from the
IEP. In the first of these senses, split-funding is still possible.
In the second, however, the Department says it came to an end
when the Department issued its guidance to Members early in 2003.
The Department accept that when they clarified the
rules early in 2003 they did not explicitly say that split-funding
in the second of the senses I have described above had been withdrawn.
However, they maintain that it is clear from a reading of the
fact sheet they distributed that no political content was permissible
in newsletters. It should therefore have been clear that the implication
of this was that the system of split-funding as in (b) above had
ended. The official to whom you spoke in the spring of 2003 about
the wording to be included in your newsletter thinks it most unlikely
that he would have omitted to say that the old system of split-funding
(in the terms of sense (b)) was no longer allowed.
When we spoke you said that you would like to come
and see me about the draft report and agreed that we would arrange
this after I had consulted the Department. I have therefore asked
my PA to arrange such a meeting as soon as possible, and look
forward to seeing you then.
22 November 2004
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