Written evidence received by the Parliamentary
Commissioner for Standards
1. Letter
to the Commissioner from Mr Jim Miller, 6 November 2009
I have been directed … to write to you with
my complaint against my Member of Parliament, Bill Wiggin, and
to send you the evidence supporting that complaint.
The bulk of the evidence I am submitting consists
of copies of Additional Cost Allowance claims made by Mr Wiggin.
I am submitting all claims for the years 2004-05 and 2005-06.
I am also sending an example of that part of the form which Mr
Wiggin signed for each month asserting that these expenses were
wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred to enable him to
stay away from his main home to perform his Parliamentary duties.
I note that part of the forms Mr Wiggin has assented to with his
signature says "you
can only claim for costs you have actually paid."
My complaint is that Mr Wiggin claimed for costs
which were not incurred at his second home for the purposes of
his Parliamentary duties, and that he claimed for costs which
he had not actually paid.
On the 12 monthly claims for the year from 01/04/2005
to 01/04/2006 he claims the following costs:
Utilities £240
Council Tax £240
Telephone £240
These exact figures are claimed every month for 12
months. They are plainly made-up figures, chosen to avoid the
instruction on the form: "Please list all items costing
£250 or more and include receipts."
The problem is that utilities, council tax and telephone
costs are all a matter of record—in the form of bills. Council
tax is in fact a matter of public record: I obtained with ease
the record of how much council tax Hammersmith & Fulham Council,
where Mr Wiggin has his second home, charged for the relevant
years. I enclose this list (my source was H & Fulham Council)
and for convenience have only included the figures for the highest
tax band, Band H.[124]
In other words, year on year these are the highest tax demands
made of anyone in that borough.
In the year 2005/06, Mr Wiggin has claimed £240
a month for 12 months, making a yearly claim of £2,880. However
the amount Hammersmith & Fulham Council asked of its highest,
band H households for that year was £2,316. Moreover, this
is Mr Wiggin's second home, subject to that Council's 10% second
home discount, so the highest possible figure Mr Wiggin could
have been billed for that year was £2,085, yet he has claimed
£2,880. Assuming that the Fees Office paid Mr Wiggin's claim,
he personally received £795: money he had never actually
paid and contrary to the document he signed.
The other year 1 have submitted (2004/05) is slightly
less clear cut, in that 4 months—December 2005, and January,
February and March of 2006[125]
are simply missing from the MPs' Allowances website. I have asked
Parliament's Information Officer what has become of these claims
forms, and hope for a good response soon.
With the eight monthly forms that do exist Mr Wiggin,
from 01/04/04 to 31/11/04, has claimed £1,896 in council
tax. The Band H charge for that year was £2,262. However
this was the last year when H & Fulham Council still had a
50% discount on second homes and so the maximum Mr Wiggin could
have been charged was £1,131. He has therefore claimed at
the very least £765 which he did not owe to that Council.
However, if he claimed £240 a month for the currently missing
4 months—quite likely, as he did so for every subsequent
month in 2006—he actually over-claimed £1,725.
I don't want to blind anyone with figures (or use
up another ink cartridge printing out partially blacked out forms!)
so am sending the figures and evidence for these two years alone.
I am happy to send the other evidence I have.
I hope that you might also persuade Mr Wiggin to
reveal to you his telephone and utilities bills for these periods;
the companies who billed him will have all on record. £2,880
a year for utilities seems very excessive, for telephone bills
at a second home, hugely excessive. Mr Wiggin has publicly stated
that he spends more than half the year at his main, Herefordshire,
home. I am sure, for example, that he will not claim to have spent
the parliamentary summer recess of 2005 at his second, London
home—yet he has claimed £240 a month for these months
of July, August and September for phone calls which simply cannot
have been made. That is £720 in one year alone, a sizeable
sum and in violation of his signed declaration that these are
for costs he has actually paid, and which were necessary in performance
of his Parliamentary duties.
I trust very much that I can leave my complaint safely
in your hands. There are people in our constituency who have been
taken to court for failing to pay council tax sums smaller than
the sums Mr Wiggin has wrongly claimed.
I will immediately send you my evidence for the years
2007 and 2008 if you do require them.
6 November 2009
2. Band
H council tax charges for Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Year Band H
2004-05 £2,262
2005-06 £2,316
2006-07 £2,411
2007-08 £2,387
3. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 12 November 2009
I would welcome your help on a complaint I have received
in respect of the claims you made for certain services against
your Additional Costs Allowance.
I enclose a copy of the complainant's letter of 6
November, together with its attachments. In essence, the complaint
is that you made claims against your Additional Costs Allowance
for utilities, council tax and telephone costs which were not
wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred on your parliamentary
duties. The complaint relates to the financial years 2004-05 and
2005-06.
The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides
in paragraph 14 as follows:
"Members shall at all times ensure that their
use of expenses, allowances, facilities and services provided
from the public purse is strictly in accordance with the rules
laid down on these matters, and that they observe any limits placed
by the House on the use of such expenses, allowances, facilities
and services."
The rules in relation to parliamentary expenses and
allowances which appear to be relevant at the time in question
are those in the Green Book published in 2003. In the introduction,
the Speaker wrote:
"Members themselves are responsible for ensuring
that their use of allowances is above reproach. They should seek
advice in cases of doubt and read the Green Book with care. The
Finance and Administration Department is there to relieve Members
of the bulk of the day to day administration of Parliamentary
allowances whilst helping Members to provide the necessary accountability."
Section 3 sets out the provisions in relation to
claims against the Additional Costs Allowance. Paragraph 3.1.1
sets out the scope of the allowance as follows:
"The additional costs allowance (ACA) reimburses
Members of Parliament for expenses wholly, exclusively and necessarily
incurred when staying overnight away from their main residence
(referred to below as their main home) for the purpose of performing
Parliamentary duties. This excludes expenses that have been incurred
for purely personal or political purposes."
Paragraph 3.2.1 sets out eligibility provisions as
follows:
"You can claim ACA if:
a You have stayed overnight away from your only
or main home, and
b This was for the purpose of performing your
Parliamentary duties, and
c You have necessarily incurred additional costs
in so doing, and
d You represent a constituency in outer London
or outside London."
Paragraph 3.7.2 sets out the following on making
a claim:
"If you wish to claim a fixed sum per month
in order to cover council tax, mortgage interest or rental costs,
you may submit a statement of expected expenditure at the beginning
of the allowance year, along with a copy of your latest council
tax statement, mortgage interest statement or rental agreement
as appropriate. Each month we will pay you a fixed sum, which
will not exceed 1/12 of the annual allowance. You must then submit
a statement of actual spend at the end of the year, together with
documentation (as listed in paragraph 3.6.1.) This will mean that
you do not have to submit monthly claims. However, this arrangement
is conditional on your providing the required documentary evidence
at the end of the year. You cannot claim a fixed sum per month
for items other than council tax, mortgage interest or rental
costs."
Paragraph 3.11.1 gives examples of allowable expenditure
including:
" Service Charges
Utilities
Heat
Light
Water
Council tax
Telecommunication charges".
A subsequent edition of the Green Book was published
in April 2005. It contained similar provisions to those set out
above, except that paragraph 3.7.2 of the 2003 rules was not repeated
in the April 2005 Green Book.
I would be grateful for your comments on this complaint,
in the light of this summary of the rules. In particular, it would
be helpful to know;
1. Why you made claims for utilities, council
tax and telephone at the same rate of £240 for each month
over the financial years 2004-05 and 2005-06;
2. Whether you have invoices in support of these
claims. If so could you forward them to me;
3. If you do not have such invoices, how your
utility charges were broken down between each of the utilities.
I realise that at this remove you may need to rely on your best
estimate;
4. How you have incurred the same telephone costs
for each of the 24 months in question, including during parliamentary
recesses;
5. Details of your council tax liability for
this second home during the years in question, whether you had
a second home or single person discount for your council tax and,
if not, why not;
6. How on the basis of the complainant's evidence,
you apparently claimed for council tax in excess of the maximum
charged by Hammersmith and Fulham Council;
7. Whether you at any time consulted the Department
of Resources about these matters, and, in particular, whether
your council tax claims were subject to the arrangements for claiming
fixed sums a month set out in paragraph 3.7.2 of the 2003 rules.
It would be helpful if you could forward, if you
have them, copies of the claims relating to the period December
2005 to March 2006 which are missing from the parliamentary website.
Any other points you would wish to make to help me
in this inquiry would, of course, be very welcome.
I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow.
I have written to the complainant to let him know I have accepted
his complaint and I am writing to you about it.
It would be very helpful if you could let me have
a response to this letter within the next three weeks. If there
is any difficulty about that, or you would like to discuss any
other aspect of the complaint, please contact me at the House.
I would be grateful for your help on this matter.
12 November 2009
4. Letter
to the Commissioner from Mr Bill Wiggin MP, 16 November 2009
Thank you for your letter of 12 November. I will
try to answer all your questions as helpfully as possible.
1. I made claims for utilities, council tax and telephone
because to the best of my knowledge, these were what I thought
were the right amounts and which fell within the rules which were
also wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred within my parliamentary
duties.
2. I am sorry that I do not have the invoices which
you have requested. However to try to guide you as to how much
I have been spending, my current utility bills break down as follows
and are: Gas £174.00, Electricity £80.00,Water £50.27,Gas
service £24.94. Total £257.21.[126]
3. While this is more than I have claimed in the
past, fuel prices have risen while my home has become more energy
efficient.
4. You asked about costs for telephones. My wife
and others also used the telephones. My wife paid the bills and
there is more than one supplier. We were able to find some bills
in the attic from 2004/5 which show that in August 2004 the BT
bill was £596.97. The bills for November 2004 come to £502.55
and in February 2005 £551.86.[127]
Therefore in order to fall within the rules, I estimated my usage
incurred for parliamentary duties was £240 per month. While
I can understand how this estimate could be considered too high
in recesses it is much too low at other times of the year.
5. You asked about my council tax liability. My house
is in Band H. I did not receive a discount of any sort for council
tax. I live with my family and so I am not eligible for the single
occupancy discount and I could not claim the second home discount
because Hammersmith and Fulham Council do not allow residents
parking permits for second homes. Therefore I was not able to
claim any discount.
6. I apologise for accidentally submitting claims
for 11 months rather than 10 months. However these claims were
not paid. I enclose a spreadsheet demonstrating that although
I have put in claims for more than the total amount, I did not
receive from the Fees Office that amount, indeed I could not because
my allowances ran out before all the claims could be paid.[128]
7. I have always been willing to repay any money
which I received in error however you will see that my mortgage
claims were not paid in full either and any error on my part in
claiming is more than offset against my mortgage which was unpaid.
8. You asked about consulting the Department of Resources.
I have made mistakes in the past for which I have apologised.
So in 2006 I asked the Fees Office to check my ACA and ensure
that my claims were in order. They did this in 2007.
9. I have not claimed the maximum amount and I have
not varied it as that could have been misconstrued.
10. I have enclosed copies of all my claims between
December 2005 and March 2006.[129]
You will of course appreciate that I have no control over what
may be put on the parliamentary website. I made no claims for
this period in the previous year.
11. Mr Miller has suggested in his letter that he
would like to complain again and so to prevent the need for this
I have included my council tax records for every year.
12.1 also enclose a series of articles one of which
appeared in the Daily
Telegraph following the receipt of your
letter by my constituent. He also appeared with his message on
television.[130]
If I have in any way claimed more than I should,
I am very willing to pay back any money due. However, I do not
believe this to be the case and I hope you will confirm this.
16 November 2009
5. Mr
Bill Wiggin's schedule of claims made and amounts received for
council tax under the Additional Costs Allowance, 2004-05 and
2005-06
2004-05 ACA
Date of Claim Period Amount Claimed Amount
Received Notes
Apr 04 £240 £240
May 04 £240 £240
Jun 04 £240 £240
Jul 04 £240 £240
Aug 04 £240 £240
Sep 04 £240 £240
Oct 04 £240 £240
Nov 04 £216.69 £216.69 ACA
budget ran out
this month
Dec 04 No Claim £0
Jan 05 No Claim £0
Feb 05 No Claim £0
Mar 05 No Claim £0
Total £1,896.69 £1,896.69
Council tax £2,262.80 £366.11 Under-claim
2005-06 ACA
Date of Claim Period Amount Claimed Amount
received Notes
Apr 05 £240 £88 £88—overall
ACA claim
reduced by 11/30 due to
General Election period
May 05 £240 £201 £201.29—overall
ACA
claim reduced by 26/31
due to General Election
period
Jun 05 £240 £240
Jul 05 £240 £240
Aug 05 £240 £240
Sep 05 £240 £240
Oct 05 £240 £240
Nov 05 £240 £240
Dec 05 £240 £240
Jan 06 £240 £240
Feb 06 £240 £240
Mar 06 £240 £0 ACA
budget ran out
Total £2,880 £2,449
Council tax £2,316.08 -£132.92 Offset
against mortgage
16 November 2009
6. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 3 December 2009
Thank you for your letter and enclosures dated 16
November responding to mine of 12 November about this complaint
in respect of certain claims you made against your Additional
Costs Allowance. I received your letter on 2 December.
I was most grateful for this response.
I have it in mind to consult the Department of Resources
about this matter, but would be most grateful if you could first
provide me with the following further information:
1. Could you explain a little more about how
you arrived at the figures of £240 a month as being "the
right amounts" for your claims in each of the categories
of utilities, council tax, telephones?
2. Could you give me the same information for
your service/maintenance claim which is not part of the complaint
but which is identified on your ACA claim forms, along with what
that claim covered?
3. Your letter gives the figures for your recent
gas, electricity and water bills. Could you clarify for me the
period to which these refer?
4. I am grateful to you for forwarding examples
of your telephone bills for 2004-05. I see that these appear to
relate to a public relations consultancy and appear to cover three
different telephone lines. Could you confirm that these were
the lines that you used, and if they were indeed shared with a
business, how your share of the usage was calculated?
5. The spreadsheets attached to your letter give
a list of the monthly claims made and amount received from the
ACA for 2004-05 to 2008-09. They show a monthly claim of £240
only. It is not clear, however, what this monthly claim represents.
They would not appear to summarise your ACA2 claims forms which,
for example, for December 2005 identified claims of £240
each for utilities, council tax and telephone (as well as £240
for service/maintenance). Can you explain the figures on the spreadsheet?
6. Could you let me have a response to the suggestion
that it was your practice to claim £240 for different categories
of ACA expenditure even when your bills were in excess of that
figure, so that you did not have to produce invoices for each
of your claims?
7. In view of your reference to your mortgage
payments, it would be helpful if you could let me know how much
mortgage interest you paid for the relevant years 2004-05 and
2005-06; what you claimed for mortgage interest in those years
and how far these claims were met.
8. In relation to your council tax, it would
be useful if you could tell me how much council tax you were charged
for each year covered by the complaint. I see that you believe
you have accidentally claimed for eleven months rather than ten
months. I would be grateful to know in which year this happened,
and whether you claimed a fixed sum each month for your council
tax, with a statement of actual spend at the end of the year as
set out in paragraph 3.7.2 of the Green Book rules.
Finally, you have said that you no longer have copies
of the relevant invoices, but if it were possible to obtain copies
of any of these, or to obtain from your bank statements or business
records details of the payments you made to any of these suppliers,
that would be most helpful. (I see that one phone bill was paid
by direct debit.)
If you could let me have a response to this letter
within the next two weeks, then I would hope to be in a position
to seek the advice of the Department of Resources on this matter.
Thank you again for your help on this complaint.
3 December 2009
7. Letter
to the Commissioner from Mr Bill Wiggin MP, 7 December 2009
Thank you for your letter of 3 December.
I promised to be as helpful as possible and have
answered your questions in the order you asked them. I would be
grateful for resolution as soon as possible bearing in mind the
close proximity of the General Election.
Q1 +2.I have nothing further to add to my previous
answers and respectfully draw your attention to point 11 of the
Procedural Note which accompanied your first letter.
Q3. The figures I have given for my utility bills
are monthly.
Q4. I confirm that all and any of these phone
lines were used by me.
Q5. The amount expressed on the spreadsheet is
the amount of council tax which you enquired about. I think the
Fees Office would be better placed to explain the ACA claim forms
and this is true for my mortgage payments and receipts too.
Q6. I am sure that is what my constituent wrongly
believes however I have shown that I have not claimed more than
the phone and utility bills or received more council tax than
I should.
Q7+8. This information is held by the Fees Office
or is in the public domain.
7 December 2009
8. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 10 December 2009
Thank you for your letter of 7 December responding
to mine of 3 December.
I was grateful for the further information you have
provided. I apologise that I did not spot that the summary you
annexed to your letter of 16 November dealt only with council
tax. I should have picked that up from your answer to point 6
in your letter of 16 November.
The purpose of my letter of 3 December was to ask
for information and relevant explanations to assist me in the
resolution of this inquiry. I note your reference to paragraph
11 of Procedural Note 3 which I sent you. I was, I believe, acting
within the expectations of that paragraph in asking for your account
of matters which have given rise to the complaint. I know that
you are ready to cooperate at all stages with my inquiry, as provided
for in the Guide to the Rules at paragraph 110.
I will, therefore, if I may, take it from your letter
of 16 November that you arrived at the figures of £240 a
month, even though on occasions the bills came to more than that,
because you considered that that figure was the right amount,
but you are not able to help me with any more detailed recollection
of why you came to this conclusion. I assume also that you are
not able to provide the documentary evidence I requested about
the payments you actually made to these suppliers, because you
cannot obtain this information from your own records, from the
suppliers, or from your bank. If any of this is wrong, please
let me know.
I am now seeking the advice of the Department of
Resources and will come back to you once I receive their response.
If they are not able, as you think they will be, to provide the
information which I have sought from you, I may need to ask again
for your help in providing me with the necessary material.
I do assure you that I will, as with all complaints
I receive, deal with this matter with as much dispatch as I can,
consonant always with arriving at a fair and accurate conclusion.
10 December 2009
9. Letter
to the Director of Operations, Department of Resources from the
Commissioner, 10 December 2009
I would welcome your help and advice on a complaint
I have received against Mr Bill Wiggin MP in respect of certain
claims he made against his Additional Costs Allowance for the
financial years 2004-05 and 2005-06.
I enclose a copy of the complainant's letter of 6
November together with its attachments. I enclose also: a copy
of my letter to Mr Wiggin of 12 November; his letter to me which
I received on 2 December; my response to him of 3 December; his
reply to me of 7 December, and my letter to him of 10 December.
In essence, the complaint is the Mr Wiggin made claims
against his Additional Costs Allowance for utilities, council
tax and telephone costs which were not wholly, exclusively and
necessarily incurred on his parliamentary duties.
I would welcome your comments on this complaint.
In particular, it would be helpful to have your views in the light
of Mr Wiggin's explanation about his decision to claim £240
a month for utilities (gas, water, electricity) , council tax,
telephones (and maintenance and services) because he considered
that these were the right amounts to claim even though, on the
basis of his evidence, the actual costs may have been different.
It would also be helpful if you could let me have
any information you hold about Mr Wiggin's mortgage interest claims
for the relevant financial years, including how much mortgage
interest he paid and how much he claimed in those years. In addition,
it would be helpful if you could confirm Mr Wiggin's council tax
claims, including the amount of council tax he was charged for
each year covered by the complaint, which he says is held by you;
and whether he lodged a statement of actual spend at the end of
the year, as apparently required by paragraph 3.7.2 of the Green
Book rules at the time.
I should also be grateful to know about any discussions
Mr Wiggin may have had with the Department about the ACA claims
he made for these two years which are the subject of the complaint.
Mr Wiggin says in his letter to me of 16 November that at his
request, the Fees Office checked his claims in 2007. And he notes
on the spreadsheet which he forwarded with that letter that £132.92
from his council tax claim was offset against his mortgage for
2005-06.
Any other information or comments that you may be
able to provide to help me with this inquiry would be most welcome.
As you will see, Mr Wiggin is anxious that this matter
should be resolved as soon as possible, and so it would be very
helpful if you could let me have any comments by the end of the
first week in January.
Thank you for your help.
10 December 2009
10. Letter
to the Commissioner from the Director of Strategic Projects, Department
of Resources, 11 January 2010
Thank you for your letter of 10 December to [the
Director of Operations]. I have been asked to reply on behalf
of the Department of Resources. I apologise for the delay in doing
so.
Claims under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA)
were only permitted to be made in respect of costs incurred by
Members personally when staying overnight away from their main
home for the purpose of performing parliamentary duties. Reimbursement
could only be made when an expense had already been incurred and
the bill paid by the Member.
Receipts were required for any item of expenditure
greater than £250. Some Members were in the habit of submitting
regular rounded monthly claims at a lower level than £250
because they considered that they had spent this amount or more
in total on the service in question in that month. In so doing
they were certifying that they had incurred at least that cost
in that month for that service. Members were permitted to claim
a fixed sum per month for council tax, mortgage interest or rental
costs so that payments were evened out through the year. This
was not allowed in respect of other items. It was not the practice
of the Department to query Members' claims when they were below
£250.
You ask about Mr Wiggin's statement that the amounts
he claimed were the "right
amounts". If Mr Wiggin means that
he incurred costs of at least £240 per month on the services
for which he claimed £240, then those were indeed "right"
amounts for him to claim. However, from Mr Wiggin's letter to
you of 16 November, I infer that he may not have incurred telephone
charges of £240 during recess months for which he claimed
this amount, though, averaged over the year, his costs would have
been £240 per month. Strictly this was not in accordance
with the rules, though I can understand why he may have thought
this acceptable if his cumulative totals exceeded a monthly £240
average.
The rules on mortgage interest and council tax were,
as I explain above, slightly different at the time. A Member was
permitted to claim a fixed sum per month in order to cover these
costs. To benefit from this, he or she was required to submit
a statement of expected expenditure at the beginning of the allowance
year, along with a copy of his or her latest council tax statement
or mortgage interest statement. Each month the Department would
pay a fixed sum, which would not exceed one twelfth of the annual
allowance. The Member was required to submit a statement of actual
spend at the end of the year, together with a copy of the latest
statement of mortgage interest from his or her lender. The arrangement
to pay fixed amounts was conditional on the Member providing the
required documentary evidence at the end of the year.
On council tax, I confirm the figures which Mr Wiggin
has provided to you for the claims he made and the amounts he
received. We have no record of the submission of statements of
expected expenditure on council tax at the beginning of the year,
or of statements of actual expenditure at the end of the year,
in respect of either of the two years in question and a file note
from 2007 indicates that no such records were held at the time.
We cannot therefore confirm the amounts he actually paid. Furthermore,
Mr Wiggin should not have claimed for more council tax than his
liability, as he appears to have done in 2005-06, albeit that
the excess of what was claimed over what was paid was offset against
other costs which he properly incurred.
On mortgage interest, I enclose a table setting out
the amounts claimed by Mr Wiggin during the two financial years.
We do not have on file either the estimate required at the beginning
of the year, or the statement or documentation required at the
end of the year, in respect of either of the two years in question.
However, a file note from 2007 suggests that mortgage interest
documentation was held at the time, and that approximate monthly
mortgage payments of £500 were being made. We cannot however
confirm the amounts he actually paid.
There is a further complication; Mr Wiggin nominated
his Herefordshire home as his second home from January 2004 to
January 2007 and his claims were made in respect of that home
(except in respect of April 2004: we do not hold the forms for
January to March 2004). However, following a discussion with Mr
Wiggin in January 2007, the Department accepted that this had
been an administrative error, and that the nomination should have
been for his London address in respect of which the costs were
in fact incurred, and in respect of which the claims should have
been made.
You ask about Mr Wiggin's contacts with the Department
about his claims for 2004-05 and 2005-06 under ACA. We have no
records of such contacts, but this does not mean that they did
not occur. You also ask about Mr Wiggin's request to the Department
to check his claims in 2007. I believe this is a reference to
the discussion which led to the regularisation of his affairs
to which I refer in the previous paragraph.
Please let me know if I can help further.
11 January 2010
11. Mr
Bill Wiggin MP: Department of Resources' schedule of claims for
mortgage interest and council tax, 2004-05 and 2005-06
Details of Mr Bill Wiggin's ACA claims
Address of 2nd home Mortgage interest
Council tax
Apr-04 [London home] £453.91 £240.00
May-04 [Constituency home] £568.81 £240.00
Jun-04 [Constituency home] £568.81 £240.00
Jul-04 [Constituency home] £568.81 £240.00
Aug-04 [Constituency home] £610.48 £240.00
Sep-04 [Constituency home] £576.07 £240.00
Oct-04 [Constituency home] £576.07 £240.00
Nov-04 [Constituency home] £0.00 £216.69 Claim
reduced—insufficient funds
Dec-04 [Constituency home] £0.00 £0.00
Jan-05 [Constituency home] £0.00 £0.00
Feb-05 [Constituency home] £0.00 £0.00
Mar-05 [Constituency home] £0.00 £0.00
£3,922.96 £1,896.69
Apr-05 [Constituency home] £207.90 £88.00 Claims
reduced—Dissolution
May-05 [Constituency home] £475.56 £201.29 Claims
reduced—Dissolution
Jun-05 [Constituency home] £567.01 £240.00
Jul-05 [Constituency home] £567.01 £240.00
Aug-05 [Constituency home] £567.01 £240.00
Sep-05 [Constituency home] £567.01 £240.00
Oct-05 [Constituency home] £567.01 £240.00
Nov-05 [Constituency home] £567.01 £240.00
Dec-05 [Constituency home] £567.01 £240.00
Jan-06 [Constituency home] £567.01 £240.00
Feb-06 [Constituency home] £567.01 £240.00
Mar-06 [Constituency home] £0 £0 Insufficient
funds
£5,786.55 £2,449.29
12. Letter
to the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources,
from the Commissioner, 14 January 2010
Thank you for your letter of 11 January responding
to my letter to the Department of 10 December about this complaint
in respect of certain claims made by Mr Bill Wiggin MP against
his Additional Costs Allowance for the financial years 2004-05
and 2005-06.
I was most grateful for this response. I would be
grateful if you could confirm my understanding of the way the
Department operated the rules at the time. My understanding is
as follows:
1. It was allowable for Members to claim up to
£250 monthly on each of their utilities without producing
receipts, provided that they had spent this amount or more on
the relevant service that month;
2. Mr Wiggin was in breach of the rules in apparently
claiming during the recess for the cost of telephone calls which
he did not make at that time. I would be grateful if you could
confirm my assumption that it would otherwise have been open to
Mr Wiggin to claim in excess of £250 for his telephone bills
at other times of the year as long as he presented with those
claims a copy of the telephone company's invoice and as long as
he had incurred those costs in the performance of his parliamentary
duties and had capacity in his allowance for the claim to be met.
3. The Department has no record of any council
tax invoice or end of year statement on actual end of year spend
on council tax for the two financial years in question. It would
be very helpful to have your confirmation that the Department
would have expected to have retained copies of such statements
on its files and to know whether it is possible at this remove
to say whether such statements were submitted by Mr Wiggin at
the relevant times.
4. Mr Wiggin is correct in saying that the Department
did not in fact meet his council tax claim for the 11th month
in 2005-06;
5. As the Department has no record or knowledge
of the council tax bills which the local authority sent Mr Wiggin
during this period it is not possible, to say with certainty how
Mr Wiggin's annual payment from the allowance, related to his
actual council tax liabilities.
6. With the exception of April 2004, Mr Wiggin's
ACA forms from January 2004 to January 2007[131]
stated that his claims were for the costs of his Herefordshire
home which due to an administrative error he had nominated as
his second home, but in fact you consider that his claims for
utilities, telephone and council tax were made in respect of his
costs incurred on his London property which he had intended to
nominate as his second home. It would be helpful to know why you
take this view and if you have any information you can give me
about how this mistake occurred and who is responsible for the
administrative error you refer to, how it was resolved and whether
you consider that Mr Wiggin was in breach of the Green Book rules
in making these claims over that period.
I would be very grateful if you could confirm or
modify my understanding of the position and, if possible, provide
the additional information I have sought. I am most grateful for
your continued help with this.
14 January 2010
13. Letter
to the Commissioner from the Director of Strategic Projects, Department
of Resources, 25 January 2010
Thank you for your letter of January 14th. Please
find below the Department's response to each of your questions.
1. Yes.
2. Your assumption is correct.
3. The Department has no record of council tax invoices
or end-of-year statements. Any such statements should have been
retained on file for four years. We cannot say whether statements
were ever submitted—but please see the final paragraph of
this letter.
4. In 2005-06 Mr Wiggin submitted claims for council
tax every month. However, the Department did not meet his total
ACA claim in the twelfth month because the ACA limit had been
reached: he claimed £2,077.01 that month but £437.34
was paid.
5. Correct.
6. A file note indicates that a discrepancy was noticed
between the second home address nominated by Mr Wiggin (Herefordshire)
and the location of the claims which could be geographically identified
(London). These geographically identifiable claims were in respect
of mortgage interest and works. Utility and telephone claims were
not geographically identifiable. This discrepancy was discussed
with Mr Wiggin in January 2007 and the position was rectified.
Mr Wiggin confirmed the accuracy of his claims in respect of his
London home. The administrative error was on the part of the Department
in not noticing this discrepancy earlier, and on the part of Mr
Wiggin in not aligning his address with the claims. In strict
terms, Mr Wiggin could be said to have been in breach of Green
Book rules, but the view was taken that his actions were inadvertent
and that the Department's failure to question those actions had
given him security that he was doing nothing wrong. On a small
point, we know what Mr Wiggin's nomination of second home was
for January to March 2004, but the claim forms for those months
are no longer held.
You letter has given me the opportunity to discuss
the interpretation of paragraph 3.7.2 of the Green Book in effect
from June 2003 with staff who dealt with claims during the period.
I now understand that paragraph 3.7.2 of the Green Book at the
time was only applied to Members who did not submit monthly claims.
These Members could send in a statement of expected expenditure
at the beginning of the year and a twelfth of this would then
be paid to them monthly without further claims. Mr Wiggin was
not in this category (he claimed monthly) and therefore statements
under this paragraph were not expected from him. He would, however,
have been required to produce the mortgage statement (and other
documentation) required under paragraph 3.6.1. The fifth paragraph
of my letter to you of 11th January, while correct, did not therefore
apply to Mr Wiggin, and the sixth and seventh paragraphs of that
letter ought not to have implied that statements under paragraph
3.7.2 of the 2003 Green Book were required of him. I apologise,
but I was not aware of this when I wrote to you on 11th January.
I can confirm that we do not have on file any mortgage documentation
from the two years in question (though I have asked that we continue
to search our records which have been disturbed as the result
of recent events), but that we did hold mortgage documentation
in January 2007. I should also point out that paragraph 3.7.2
of the Green Book in effect from June 2003 was omitted from the
Green Book which took effect in April 2005.
Please let me know if I can help further.
25 January 2010
14. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 27 January 2010
I have now heard back from the Department of Resources
with their advice on this complaint about certain of your claims
against the Additional Costs Allowance.
I enclose a copy of my letter to the Department of
10 December; their response of 11 January; my letter to them of
14 January; and their response of 25 January.
You will see from the Director's letter that you
may have been making your claims for utilities and telephone costs
on a home, your London home, which you had designated as your
main home. If so, this would appear to have been in breach of
the rules of the House. You will see also that the Department
has no information relating to the amount of council tax you were
charged in each of the years in question. I am asking the Department
for copies of the relevant nomination and claim forms.
In the meantime, I would be very grateful if you
could let me know as soon as possible:
1. Your explanation of why you identified, apparently
wrongly, your main home as being in London when you had intended
to claim against your ACA for that property.
2. Whether you have any evidence to substantiate
your belief that your claims for utilities and for the telephone
bills for 2004-05 and 2005-06 were for your London property. If
so it would be helpful if you could let me see that evidence.
3. Whether you accept the council tax figures
given by the complainant in the annex to his letter of 6 November
which, when compared with the sums you received for council tax
included in the annex to your letter of 16 November, suggest that
you over claimed on this tax by £133 in 2005-06.
4. Whether the Department is correct in noting
that, for some months at least of the period covered by this complaint,
your claims (for example, for telephone bills) were likely to
have been greater than the amount you actually incurred that month.
You will know better than I where you might be able
to obtain the relevant information if it is not already available
to you, but other Members have been able to assist me by checking
their bank records, or with their bank, particularly in cases
where there is a standing order.
I do need this information if I am to resolve this
complaint because I need to be able to form a conclusion on whether
your claims were made against your London property (despite you
having nominated that property as your main home) and whether
any claims you made in 2004-05 and 2005-06, were greater than
the amount you were in fact charged in each relevant month.
Once I have your response to this letter, I hope
to be able to consider how best to resolve this complaint. Thank
you for your help.
27 January 2010
15. E-mail
to the Commissioner from Mr Bill Wiggin MP, 28 January 2010
Thank you for your letter which I received today.
I list the answers to your questions.
1. I filled out the nomination forms wrongly. I have
always and only claimed for my London house.
2. I have only ever claimed for my London house.
The telephone bills I submitted to you already have the address
on them. You can also tell that they are for London by the 020
7 telephone area code.
3. Mr Miller wrongly accused me of over claiming
several thousand pounds. I provided you with the correct and accurate
figures in my spread sheet and while apologising for over claiming
£133 it is clear from the letters from the Department that
I did not get the money.
4. Yes[132]
In your final paragraph you asked if I have claimed
greater amounts than I spent and the answer is no.
28 January 2010
16. Letter
to the Department of Finance and Administration from Mr Bill Wiggin
MP, received 12 January 2007
Thank you for this form. Following our discussion
it is clear that I should have filled this out earlier as my mortgage
is on [the London property] and not on my [Herefordshire] home.
I am sorry and realise that I cannot claim mileage for travel
in London.
I am most grateful to you for your help.
12 January 2007
17. Letter
to the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources,
from the Commissioner, 2 February 2010
Thank you for your letter of 28 January with the
relevant forms to help me with my consideration of this complaint
against Mr Bill Wiggin MP in respect of some of his expenses claims.
I have now heard further from Mr Wiggin. I attached
a copy of my letter to him of 27 January and his e-mail response
of the following day.
In the light of your letter and Mr Wiggin's e-mail,
I would welcome some further help.
You included with the forms a copy of a letter from
Mr Wiggin which you received on 12 January 2007 about his ACA1
nomination forms. It refers to a discussion with House officials.
Is there any record of that discussion? And could you throw any
light on the words: "it
is clear that I should have filled this out earlier as my mortgage
is on [the London property]" ("this"
presumably being a reference to the nomination form ACA1).
As I read the ACA1 forms, Mr Wiggin identified his
London home ([...]) as being his second home in July 2003; he
changed the second home designation to his [Herefordshire] home
in January 2004 and did not change it back again until January
2007. Mr Wiggin's evidence is that he has always and only claimed
for his London home.
I note, however, that on the second page of the ACA2
forms for October and November 2004, the address of Mr Wiggin's
second home has twice been changed in manuscript, and it would
appear that the mortgage claim was disallowed. It would be most
helpful to know the circumstances in which those changes were
made, whether they were made by officials or the Member, and—if
you can tell me this—whether there were any discussions
with the Member at that stage about his nomination.
The matter on which I need your help is whether the
statement in Mr Wiggin's letter of 12 January 2007, taken together
with the alterations made to the ACA2 claim forms of October and
November 2004, could in your view be taken as evidence to suggest
that in these months at least Mr Wiggin made claims or intended
to make claims for his [Herefordshire] home.
Once I have a response to these further points, I
will copy our correspondence to Mr Wiggin for any comments he
may wish to make before I bring this inquiry to a conclusion.
Thank you again for your help.
2 February 2010
18. Letter
to the Commissioner from the Director of Strategic Projects, Department
of Resources, 15 February 2010
Thank you for your letter of 2 February. I apologise
for the delay in replying. It has been necessary to conduct some
inquiries which have taken some time.
The only correspondence between Mr Wiggin and the
Department about his nominated main/second homes which we have
on file is the letter which you already have. This letter followed
contact which the Department made with Mr Wiggin after officials
had discovered that his addresses for main home for travel and
main home for ACA purposes did not match, as required by rules
introduced in 2005. The Department holds a file note from January
2007 which partially records discussions with Mr Wiggin on this
matter, draws inferences from those discussions, and records actions
taken and to be taken.
You are correct in your analysis of the identifications
of second homes made by Mr Wiggin between July 2003 and January
2007.
Mr Wiggin's claims for ACA for October 2004 and November
2004 were both dated 20th December 2004. I believe that we have
identified the official who dealt with these forms, but he cannot
be sure of what happened six years ago.
On the October claim, Mr Wiggin denoted his London
address as his second home on the back on the claim form and added
"unchanged".
Given that he had previously entered his constituency address
on his earlier claims and that this was the address on his most
recent nomination form, the official believes that he manually
crossed through the London address and entered the constituency
address. We do not know whether or not Mr Wiggin was consulted
about this change.
The recollection of the official who processed the
claims is that the mortgage amount of £576.07 for October
was crossed through by him (or a colleague) because there was
uncertainty over how much money remained in the budget. This was
compounded by the fact the two claims had been submitted at the
same time. Although the amount was crossed through, the full amount
of mortgage interest was, in fact, paid as part of a total payment
of £2036.07. Why the amount under the "Cleaning"
category was amended is not clear since the amount paid appears
to match the total as originally entered (ie before the amendment
in respect of cleaning).
On the November claim, Mr Wiggin entered both the
London and constituency addresses on the back on the claim form,
further adding "unchanged".
As with the October claim, the official believes he manually amended
the address on the form. The reason for the alterations to the
front of the form is unclear. I cannot confirm for certain whether
or not Mr Wiggin was consulted about these changes, though the
official concerned believes that, if he made the alterations,
he would have been.
You ask if Mr Wiggin's letter of 12th January 2007
and the alterations referred to could suggest that he was intending
to make claims against his [Herefordshire] home. I do not think
that this inference can be drawn. The alterations to the amounts
do not seem to me to give any reason for such a conclusion. The
alterations to the addresses, so far as they were made with Mr
Wiggin's agreement or by him, tend to confirm the view that he
continued to confuse his designations of second and main homes.
Evidence which corroborates the view that claims made for these
months were for the London property is that the amounts claimed
for mortgage interest in October and November 2004 were identical
to a mortgage interest claim made in September 2004.
Please let me know if I can help further.
15 February 2010
19. Letter
to the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources,
from the Commissioner,18 February 2010
Thank you for your letter of 15 February responding
to mine of 2 February about the ACA forms which Mr Wiggin submitted
in 2004 and 2005 in respect of his ACA claims.
I was most grateful to receive this. You refer to
a file note from January 2007. It would be very helpful if you
could let me have sight of this note so that I can fully understand
the position.
I have also reviewed your letter of 11 January in
the course of summarising the factual information I have received.
In that context, it would be very helpful to have a little fuller
explanation of the process by which Mr Wiggin's over-claim of
£133 in his council tax claim for 2005-06 was offset against
other costs—according to Mr Wiggin his mortgage interest.
It would be helpful to know if this was the normal practice in
the Department at the time the action was taken, and whether it
was suggested by the Department or by Mr Wiggin.
I would be very grateful for your help with this.
18 February 2010
20. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 18 February 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 28 January responding
to my letter of 27 January asking for some further information
to help me in my consideration of this complaint.
When I wrote to you on 27 January, I said that I
would be asking the Department for copies of the relevant nomination
and claim forms which you signed in 2004 and 2005. I have now
heard back from the Department. I enclose: a copy of my letter
of 27 January to the Department; their response of 28 January
with copies of the relevant forms; my follow-up letter to them
of 2 February; and their response of 15 February. As a result
of that response, I am asking the Department for a copy of the
file note of January 2007 referred to in the Department's latest
letter, and for a little more information about the process for
off-setting your council tax over-claim in 2005-06 against your
mortgage interest costs.
I would now like to move towards a resolution of
this complaint. I will need to consider whether it is a matter
which I can resolve by: (i) not upholding the complaint or (ii)
agreeing with you to resolve it through the rectification procedure;
or (iii) submitting a memorandum to the Committee on Standards
and Privileges for their consideration. If I decide on the last
of these, you should draw no inferences from that.
I think that it would be helpful at this stage to
have an agreed understanding of the facts and the evidence and
information you have provided. I enclose a note summarising the
position as I understand it.[133]
I would be very grateful if you could confirm that this is an
accurate and fair summary of what you have told me and of the
evidence provided by the Department. If you would like to add
to this information and evidence, that would be very welcome.
I would be very grateful if you could let me have
a response to this within the next two weeks so that I can decide
on the best way forward. Thank you for your help with this.
18 February 2010
21. Mr
Bill Wiggin MP: Commissioner's statement of facts, 18 February
2010
Complaint
Mr Wiggin put in monthly claims on his London property
of £240 in 2004-05 and 2005-06 for each of utilities, council
tax and telephone costs when his actual monthly expenditure was
less than this. He "made
up" the figures for these services
in order to avoid having to produce invoices for these claims,
which under the rules of the House, were required for all claims
over £250.
The Facts
1. Mr Wiggin made claims apparently against his London
home for utilities, council tax and telephone, maintenance and
service costs, as well as other items, including mortgage interest.
2. He had mistakenly designated his London home as
his main home on his ACA 1 designation form of January 2004 and
each month in his ACA 2 claim form throughout this period—May
2004 to March 2006.
3. Mr Wiggin has retained no evidence of his utility
costs for that period and is unable to provide any corroboratory
information. He has not responded to the suggestion that he seek
such information from the utility companies or his bank.
4. Mr Wiggin has declined to give any information
about his claims for property maintenance and services on the
grounds that he is not required to prove his innocence.
5. Mr Wiggin has declined to explain his decision
to claim £240 in a month for those items other than to say
that he considered they were the "right
amounts" on the grounds that he is
not required to prove his innocence. Mr Wiggin has stated that
he has not claimed for more than the sums necessary to meet his
telephone and utility bills or received more payment for his council
tax than necessary to cover his costs.
6. There is no direct evidence to support Mr Wiggin's
claim for his gas, water and electricity bills, but some circumstantial
evidence that his combined monthly utility bills are currently
a little above the £240 he claimed in 2004 and 2005 (£257).[134]
7. There is evidence that some of Mr Wiggin's telephone
bills for his London address in 2004 exceeded the £240 a
month he claimed. These telephone bills were in the name of Wiggin
Public Relations. There were three or more lines and they were
used by his wife and others. Mr Wiggin has estimated his usage
for parliamentary duties at £240 a month, but has not provided
any basis for this estimate.
8. While Mr Wiggin's telephone usage did not come
to £240 a month in the recesses—some four months of
the year—he believes that this evened out over the year.
9. Mr Wiggin has confirmed that his council tax bill
for his Band H property was £2,263 in 2004-05 and £2,316
in 2005-06. He claimed no discounts.
10. Mr Wiggin made council tax claims for 8 months
in 2004-05 (one reduced to £216.70 because the budget ran
out); and for 12 months in 2005-06, one month of which was not
met because the ACA budget had run out. (There was a further reduction
in 2005 to take account of the General Election.) The £133
which he over-claimed in 2005/06 was put towards meeting some
of the costs of his mortgage interest.
11. Other than for telephone usage, Mr Wiggin appears
not to have taken any account of the use of his home by Wiggin
Public Relations in his claims for utilities and council tax (or
for maintenance and servicing).
18 February 2010
22. Letter
to the Commissioner from the Director of Strategic Projects, Department
of Resources, 23 February 2010
Thank you for your letter of 18 February.
I enclose a copy of the file note. It was written
by two officials of the Department (one responsible for the typescript;
the other for the manuscript). We are, of course, happy for you
to see this internal document, but would be grateful if you could
consult us again if you are minded to give it wider circulation.[135]
You ask about the offsetting of Mr Wiggin's over-claim
of £133 for council tax in 2005-06. The Department did not
know at the time that Mr Wiggin was claiming more in respect of
council tax than he had expended. However, the Department was
aware that his annual ACA would have been exceeded by his March
claim. The Department therefore allowed Mr Wiggin the total sum
remaining to him for that month, but did not determine the services
to which that amount should be applied. Therefore £133 was
not offset against his mortgage claims. I emphasise that Mr Wiggin
was not paid any more than he was entitled to have received.
This process described in the previous paragraph
was one for which the Department was responsible and Mr Wiggin
is very unlikely to have been informed of anything other than
the total payable. Had Mr Wiggin made the Department aware that
his claim for council tax was greater than the amount he actually
paid, the Department would have looked at his total claims and
would have determined that the amount he was over-claiming was
offset by the significantly greater difference between his legitimate
claims for March 2006 and the amount of the allowance remaining
to him. In these circumstances, for the convenience of all concerned,
it would not have been the practice to ask a Member to refund
an overpayment and then to pay the same amount to the Member.
Please let me know if I can help further.
23 February 2010
23. File
Note, Department of Resources, 12 January 2007
Bill Wiggin MP—ACA and Travel Claims
1. Bill Wiggin has had his main home registered as
London […] and his second home in the constituency, [ …
]. His last nomination form was signed on 26th January 2004. All
DFA records, including the CAF and ACA compliance spreadsheet,
accurately reflect this. (The details have now been changed.)
This arrangement should allow him to claim ACA costs
on his [constituency] home as well as being able to claim travel
between Westminster and his London home.
2. However, all ACA documentation (mortgage interest
statements etc) relate to his London address. Although this appears
to have been on file for a number of years, the discrepancy has
not been noticed until recently. (He has now submitted a revised,
and correct, nomination form, reversing the details that were
previously on file.)
3. Mr Wiggin's most recent claims (ie back to April
05) do correspond with the detail on the mortgage interest documentation
on file (approximately £500 a month). However, there are
other items on his claim forms for which no documentation has
been provided and which total around £1,500 a month (food,
utilities, council tax etc).
4. Mr Wiggin has given the impression that he has
applied the ACA rule in a fairly cavalier manner and that he believes
that as he uses both homes on an equal basis, he can, in effect,
claim for both of them (although there is no outstanding loan
on his constituency property).[136]
As such, there can be no guarantee that the additional costs claimed
all relate to his London home.
5. We will need to write to Mr Wiggin to determine
whether these costs did/do relate to his London property. Additionally,
the journeys he has claimed (and been paid for) between Westminster
and SW6 will need to be recovered. This totals £394.74. We
will need to inform him that such journeys can be claimed for
in the future.
[In manuscript] 25.01.07 [Official in department]
spoke to MP. Explained that mortgage interest claims must exclude
any additional payments MP makes. (MP is paying off his mortgage
early.)
[Official ] explained that interest claim for
Oct/Nov/Dec will be reduced to match [building society] statements.
MP confirmed that all other expenditure claimed are [sic]
accurate and represent the minimum sums MP has paid each month.
[Official] confirmed that claims will be paid. [Official]
to ask [other official in department] to recover costs
at (5).
12 January 2007
24. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 3 March 2010
I last wrote to you about this complaint on 18 February
with copies of the correspondence which I had had with the Department
of Resources, and a statement of facts as I understood them. This
letter is to let you have the further responses which I have received
from the Department.
I said in my letter to you of 18 February that I
was asking the Department for a copy of the file note of January
2007 referred to in their letter of 15 February, and for a little
more information about the process of offsetting the council tax
over-claim in 2005-06.
I now enclose a copy of the Department's response
of 23 February, together with a copy of a file note from January
2007.
In the light of the Department's explanation of the
council tax over-claim, I suggest that the final sentence of point
10 of the statement, which I enclosed with my letter to you of
18 February, might be revised to read: "Mr
Wiggin over-claimed £133 in 2005-06, but, since claims for
claimable expenditure exceeded his ACA allowance, this sum was
deemed to have been offset by his other legitimate claims."
I would welcome any comments you may wish to make
on this further correspondence, perhaps when you respond to my
previous letter of 18 February. I look forward to hearing from
you.
3 March 2010
25. Letter
to the Commissioner from Mr Bill Wiggin MP, 4 March 2010
Thank you for sending me a copy of your facts as
you find them. Given that it is possible such a document will
find its way into the public domain and given the proximity of
the General Election I hope you will accept some additions so
that you can proceed with your report.
Incidentally the complainant Mr Miller has announced
that he will be standing against me at the General Election.
Fortunately there are some points which I have been
able to add to assist you and I have also been able to find two
water bills which I will send through the post, although for 2007/8/9.[137]
I will also send you the latest press cuttings and
freedom of information act requests which fit with questions asked
by you. I hope you find them useful too.
I stand by to help in case there are any other points
with which I can assist.
4 March 2010
26. Mr
Bill Wiggin MP: Member's statement of facts, 4 March 2010
Mr Wiggin put in monthly claims on his London property
of £240 in 2004-05 and 2005-06 for each of utilities, council
tax and telephone costs when his actual monthly expenditure was
less than this. He "made up" the figures for these services
in order to avoid having to produce invoices for these claims,
which under the rules of the House, were required for all claims
over £250.
The Facts
1. Mr Wiggin made claims against his London home
for utilities, council tax and telephone, maintenance and service
costs, as well as other items, including mortgage interest. In
2004-05 According to the rules Mr Wiggin was not expected to produce
receipts or records for claims below £250. Mr Wiggin's claims
of £240 were below the maximum allowable without receipts.
Mr Wiggin was not challenged at any time on what he claimed and
six years later it is hard to find evidence which was not required
at the time.
2. He had mistakenly designated his London home as
his main home on his ACA 1 designation form of January 2004 and
each month in his ACA 2 claim form throughout this period—May
2004 to March 2006. This was recognised in 2006 and corrected.
This was a form filling mistake which gave him no financial benefit.
3. In 2006-07 Mr Wiggin asked the Fees Office to
ensure that he had not taken any money to which he was not entitled.
This was done. Mr Wiggin apologised for his form filling error.
All the money claimed was spent on his London house and his [building
society] mortgage.
4. Mr Wiggin has retained no evidence of his utility
costs for that period and is unable to provide corroboratory information.
Six years ago Mr Wiggin was not required to produce utility bills
and so has not kept helpful records. The sort of corroboratory
evidence which might assist in this enquiry is simply not available.
5. Mr Wiggin has given the following information
on property maintenance. Mr Wiggin was entitled to claim for electricians
or plumbers who did work on electrical or plumbing incidents.
Leaks, heating repairs, gas repairs etc. There is a burglar alarm
and similar items which require maintenance. Mr Wiggin believes
such repairs are both worthwhile and sensible. Major jobs which
required a receipt were reported and are shown in the records
so Mr Wiggin does not have records for items under £250.
Mr Wiggin carries out some maintenance jobs himself and would
have been entitled to claim items such as paint, wall filler and
materials for ensuring repairs were done.
6. Mr Wiggin has stated that he has not claimed for
more than the sums necessary to meet his telephone and utility
bills or received more payment for his council tax than necessary
to cover his costs.
7. Mr Wiggin's claims for utilities are significantly
less than he currently pays which includes gas services (£24.94
per month), water (£402.16 per annum), gas (£174.00
per month) and electricity (£80.00 per month) and accurately
reflect what he believes he was charged six years ago. The water
bill amount is not monthly and Mr Wiggin was able to find 2008
and 2009 bills.
8. There is evidence that some of Mr Wiggin's telephone
bills for his London address in 2004 exceeded the £240 a
month he claimed. These telephone bills were in the name of Wiggin
Public Relations. There were three or more lines and they were
used by his wife. Mr Wiggin has estimated his usage for parliamentary
duties at £240 a month, but has not provided any basis for
this estimate.
9. The amount Mr Wiggin claimed for telephone bills
is £240. He was able to find some telephone bills from that
period which show monthly figures of £596.97, £502.55,
£551.86, a great deal more than the amount claimed. Because
Mrs Wiggin also used the telephone for her business Mr Wiggin
estimated his usage and did not vary it. It would have been deceptive
to have varied the amount and while the figures could have been
altered to reflect recesses this would have been as difficult
to justify as altering the amount. As it is impossible to give
exact figures so Mr Wiggin claimed what he believed was the right
amount.
10. Mr Wiggin has confirmed that his council tax
bill for his Band H property was £2,263 in 2004-05 and £2,316
in 2005-06. He claimed no discounts. Mr Wiggin did not claim second
home discount because he would not have been allowed a residents
parking permit.
11. Mr Wiggin made council tax claims for 8 months
in 2004-05 (one reduced to £216.70 because the budget ran
out); and for 12 months in 2005-06, one month of which was not
met because the ACA budget had run out. (There was a further reduction
in 2005 to take account of the General Election.) The £133
which he over claimed in 2005-06 was put towards some of the costs
of his mortgage interest.
4 March 2010
27. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 10 March 2010
Thank you for your letter of 4 March, responding
to my letter of 18 February with my summary of the facts as I
believe you had then told me.
You have provided additional information which I
will need to separate out from the statement so that it can be
identified as evidence for this inquiry. I would be very content
to receive a letter from you with this additional information.
Alternatively, I attach a schedule which identifies this information
and, if you agree it, I will enter it as the evidence which you
provided me with your letter of 4 March.
You have helpfully provided me with information about
your property maintenance claims. It would be very helpful if
you could just confirm the implication of the final sentence in
your paragraph on property maintenance, which is that you did
not claim for the materials for the maintenance jobs which you
carried out yourself.
I think I now have a clear enough understanding of
the circumstances of your claims, to give you the opportunity
to respond briefly to the principal points which have been raised
during this inquiry. It would be helpful to know:
1. Whether you accept that you were in breach of
the rules of the House in identifying your London home as your
main home from January 2004 to March 2006 when you made claims
for that property against your Additional Costs Allowance.
2. Whether you accept that the reason that you decided
that £240 was the right amount to claim for each of these
items was because it avoided you having to keep or submit receipts
for this expenditure.
3. Whether you accept that it is not possible at
this remove and in the absence of receipts to say for certain
whether your expenditure on utilities, telephone and property
maintenance in each case exceeded the £240 which you claimed
each month for each item.
4. Whether you accept that your telephone usage did
not come to £240 a month in the recesses (some four months
of the year), although you believe that it exceeded that sum in
other months, thus evening it out over the 12 month period.
5. Whether you accept that you should have reduced
your utility, council tax and maintenance claims (as well as your
claims for telephone bills) to take account of the apparent use
of this property by Wiggin Public Relations—and if not,
why not.
I am putting these points to you not to suggest that
I have myself come to a conclusion, but because I need to be clear
whether or not you accept that you were in breach of the rules
in respect to any of the allegations which have arisen from this
inquiry.
Once I have your response, I will consider whether
I should prepare a memorandum to the Committee on Standards and
Privileges. At present, I think I do need to prepare such a memorandum,
although you should draw no inferences from that. If I do prepare
such a memorandum, then I will draw on the statement of facts
which I sent you, taking account of the additional points which
you have made in explaining those facts, which I will be likely
to put in a separate paragraph so that there is a clear distinction
between the facts and your explanation and interpretation of them.
I do not myself think I need to invite you to give oral evidence
but if you wish to do so, please let me know.
It would be very helpful, therefore, if you could
let me know whether you are content with the attached schedule
(or would like to submit a separate letter on these points), and
to have your response to the allegations against you described
in this letter which have come out of this inquiry.
I look forward to hearing from you about this, and
for any comments you may wish to make to my letter to you of 3
March, which I suspect you had yet to receive before you e-mailed
me. If you could let me have these responses within the next two
weeks I would be most grateful.
Thank you for your help with this.
10 March 2010
28. Letter
to the Commissioner from Mr Jim Miller, 23 March 2010
I wish to make a complaint against my Member of Parliament,
Bill Wiggin, for claiming money from the Parliamentary Fees Office
to which he was not entitled. These claims were not for monies
actually paid as the rules require, and were not wholly and necessarily
incurred in pursuit of his Parliamentary duties as the rules also
require.
The complaint relates specifically to 29 monthly
claims made for "utilities"
in the three years 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07. I enclose supporting
evidence of my complaint in the form of Additional Costs Allowance
forms published on Parliament's website.
In these years Mr Wiggin habitually claims £240
a month for utilities. This figure is clearly not the true amount
of his utilities bills for those months: he has claimed this figure
in order to benefit from the parliamentary rule which requires
no receipts be provided for any claim less than £250.
In 2004-05 he makes the claim of £240 a month
for 8 months (there are several months worth of claims missing
from the Parliamentary website for this year).
In 2005-06 he makes the £240 claim for 12 months.
And in 2006-07 he makes the £240 claim for the
first 9 months.
I enclose a printout of a typical month from each
of these years, in evidence.
The first time that Mr Wiggin actually itemises what
he really paid for utilities is in the first few months of 2007-08:
I enclose a printout of the first of these itemised Additional
Cost Allowance claims as evidence.
One can see that he specifies the following:
Gas £71.50
Electricity £46.75
Water £30.47
Total Utilities: £148.72
I have no reason not to believe these were the true
amounts Mr Wiggin was paying per month for his utilities at his
second home.
Now it is of course likely that Mr Wiggin's utilities
bills in years previous to 2007-08 would have been somewhat less
than this (gas, electricity and water charges do tend to rise
over time!). My own belief is that the best thing Mr Wiggin could
do would be to hand his Additional Costs claims and all his utilities
bills to an auditor who might then assess exactly how much he
has over claimed by.
But it is easy to calculate the very least Mr Wiggin
has over-claimed by.
If we assume that his utilities bills did not increase
over these three years, and instead assume that he was charged
£ 148.72 per month for utilities, as he was in 2007-08, the
minimum discrepancy can be calculated.
In 2004/05 he claimed £240 a month for 8 months
a total of £1,920.00
If he were charged £148.72 for those 8 months
he should have paid £1,189.76 He has therefore over-claimed
by at least £730.24
In 2005-06 he claimed £240 a month for 12 months,
a total of £2,880.00 If he were charged £148.72 for
12 months he should have paid £1,784.64 He has therefore
over-claimed by at least £1,095.36
In 2006-07 he claimed £240 a month for 9 months
a total of £2,160.00 If he were charged £148.72 for
9 months he should have paid £1,338.48. He has therefore
over-claimed by at least £821.52
Mr Wiggin has in these three years claimed at least
£2,647.12 more for utilities than he was entitled to.
Since the rules require that expenses are only claimed
for monies paid, and Mr Wiggin was never asked by the utilities
companies to pay this excess of £2,647.12, I hope you will
understand why I am requesting you to instruct Mr Wiggin to pay
this sum back.
23 March 2010
29. Letter
to Mr Jim Miller from the Commissioner, 30 March 2010
Thank you for your letter of 23 March about your
complaint against Mr Bill Wiggin MP.
Some of this letter appears to go over ground already
covered in your complaint of 6 November which, as you will know
from my letter to you of 12 November, I am currently inquiring
into. Your letter does, however, appear to seek to extend my inquiry
to 2006-07.
I do not propose to extend my inquiry beyond the
two years covered in your original complaint. I think that it
would be right for me to conclude my work on that complaint without
the inevitable delay which would occur if I were to extend it
into further years.
Your letter does however compare Mr Wiggin's claims
for 2007-08 to his claims for earlier years. Since that may be
relevant to my current inquiry, I am copying your letter for Mr
Wiggin for his comments.
Finally, following any report which I make to the
Committee on Standards and Privileges, it would be for that Committee
rather than for me to consider penalties and to make recommendations
to the House. My remit does not extend to penalties.
30 March 2010
30. Letter
to the Commissioner from Mr Jim Miller, 31 March 2010
Thank you very much for your letter of March 30th.
I fully appreciate that, in order to conclude your
enquiry speedily, you do not wish to extend it beyond the two
years of my original complaint.
I would wish therefore to amend my complaint about
Mr Wiggin's Utilities claims to cover just 2004/05 and 2005/06.
In these twenty months (four months are missing from the MPs allowances
website) Mr Wiggin claimed £4,800 for utilities. Had he claimed
for the actual bills as he revealed them to be in 2007 (not £240
a month but £148.72) he would have claimed, at most, £2,974.40.
My complaint is that he therefore over-claimed at
least £1,825.60 in the period concerned.
You say in your letter that comparing Mr Wiggin's
claims in later years may be of relevance, and I would therefore
like to mention the relevance of the allowances record for 2008-09,
which has been published since my complaint in November about
Mr Wiggin's claims for "Telephone"
costs.
My complaint was that Mr Wiggin in 2004-2006 claimed
£4,800 for telephone costs at his second home when these
could not have been "wholly,
necessarily and exclusively" for
parliamentary duties. Mr Wiggin in those years claimed a Communications
Allowance which would cover all costs made at his Westminster
office, mobile phone etc: that is, the overwhelming majority of
telephone costs incurred in pursuit of his duties.
Might I draw attention to the fact that in 2008-09
Mr Wiggin makes absolutely no claim for telephone costs? This
is in fact honest and correct as the amount of calls made on parliamentary
duty at one's second home and out of parliamentary hours must
be negligible.
I hope the fact that Mr Wiggin has now honestly ceased
to claim telephone costs at his second home reinforces my original
complaint that he was wrong in 2004-2006 to claim £4,800
for this.
Thank you for your time and attention.
31 March 2010
31. Letter
to the Commissioner from Mr Bill Wiggin MP, 25 March 2010
Thank you for both your letters.
I agree with the letter dated 3 March and I accept
your conclusion that due to offsetting I have not benefited from
my error on council tax.
With regard to your letter of the 10th March, let
me answer the five questions you have asked.
1. No. I am not in breach of the rules. My main home
has always been in Herefordshire and my second home on which I
claim the ACA has always been in London. This has not changed
from 2001 to the present day.
No claims have ever been made for Herefordshire at
any time, on anything. All mortgage statements and my receipts
support this. All claims were made on my house in London.
2. No. This is a smear. The rules were clear and
were not broken. I did not claim the maximum amount. I did not
seek to alter amounts or to deceive.
3. No. It is clear from the telephone bills which
I have been able to find and from the utility bills which I am
currently paying that my expenditure exceeded £240.
4. No. It is not safe to assume that the claims should
have been altered in such a way. The suggestion is only theoretical.
Just as any good MP should, of course I love to spend as much
time as possible in my constituency however it is not always possible
to stay there for every recess day. I still have to return to
London during recesses and so it would not have been accurate
to alter the bills. You might also note that recesses do not fit
exactly within calendar or billing months therefore to alter the
amounts accurately could be misconstrued as deception.
5. No. My wife's professional activity was on the
telephone. The temperature, council tax, water usage and electricity
are not in anyway affected by her work. However it is still clear,
point 3, that my bills are higher than the amount I claimed. When
my wife was not on the telephone at home she would have been looking
after my baby daughter. There is no possible taxpayer contribution
towards my wife's business.
In your third from final paragraph you mention separating
the facts as I see them from the facts as you see them.
I hope that you will look very carefully at the differences.
I looked up the original document you sent me and I would like
to make the following comments.
Point 1. You used the word "apparently"
in your version. I have not claimed for any other house and so
I hope you will withdraw a word which creates doubt.
Point 3. I do not have the sort of detail which you
ask for from my bank or utility company
Point 4. I realised that I was able to be even more
helpful and so I have provided more information on maintenance.
Point 5. is somewhat aggressive and looks muddled
with point 4 until the second sentence.
Point 6. I did find some water bills which I sent
to you.
Point 8. is wrong. I did not say that my bills were
less during recess.
Point 11. The only relevant cost was the telephone
bill (above No 5.) which I did take into account.
While you ask me to draw no conclusions from your
comment that you are minded to write a report for the committee.
I confess my thought is that you are now seeking
to justify your enquiry.
Because I feel that this is a very one sided attack
on me, through you, by my political opponent.
It may also be worth gently pointing out that you
said you intended to write the report using the language in the
list of disputed facts which even the most dull-witted journalist
can sensationalise.
You have been shown some evidence of his personal
campaign against me in the national media.
25 March 2010
32. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 30 March 2010
Thank you for your letter of 25 March responding
to my letters to you of 3 and 10 March.
I was grateful to receive this. I should make clear
that I have myself come to no conclusion on this matter and will
not do so until I have completed work on the factual sections
of my memorandum to the Committee, which I will show you. I have
not, therefore, come to any conclusions about your council tax
claims. The statement in my letter of 3 March was intended to
be a statement of the facts as I understand them—your over-claim
was deemed (by the Department) to have been offset by your other
legitimate claims. I will need to come to a view on that decision.
I will take account of your comments on the original
statement of facts which I sent you on 18 February in preparing
the factual sections of my draft memorandum. You will, as I say,
have an opportunity to comment on the factual accuracy of these
when you receive them.
I would welcome clarification of two of the points
you make in relation to your telephone bills. First, you say
in your letter of 25 March, "I
did not say that my bills were less during recess."
I have some difficulty in reconciling this with your letter of
16 November (your point 4) where you say, "While
I can understand how this estimate could be considered too high
in recesses it is much too low at other times of the year."
Could you therefore confirm whether you believe that your telephone
usage for parliamentary purposes amounted to £240 each month
during all recesses in 2004-05 and 2005-06?
Secondly, in your letter of 25 March (point 5) you
say that the temperature, council tax, water usage and electricity
were not in any way affected by your wife's work. When not on
the telephone at home, she would have been looking after your
baby daughter. In your letter of 16 November, however, you say
that your wife "and
others" also used the phones. If
there were others in your home using the phones, it could follow
that they—and therefore the business—benefited from
the various services on which you made your claims. You have said
that you believe you took full account of the company's telephone
usage in making your claims for the telephone bill and I will
need to come to a conclusion on that. It would appear from your
evidence that you took no account of the business's other usage
of utilities—council tax and maintenance and services—and,
if so, I will need also to come to a conclusion on that. Any comments
or clarification you wish to give me on this would be welcome.
Finally I enclose a copy of a letter of 23 March
which I have received from the complainant. Some of this letter
appears to go over ground already covered in the complaint which
I have accepted. But it does appear to seek to extend it to a
further year, 2006-07. I have told Mr Miller that I do not think
that it would be right for me, at this stage of the inquiry, to
extend my inquiry beyond the two years covered in his original
complaint. I am, however, sending you a copy of his letter since
he has identified evidence from your 2006-07 claims which could
be relevant to the levels on which you made your claims for the
previous two years. In particular, it would be helpful if you
could let me know why your monthly claims for utility bills (which
appear to be for £148.72 a month from April to August 2007,
followed by £150 un-itemised for two months, and £240
for two further months) are, in all but the final two cases, lower
than the monthly claims of £240 you put in for utilities
in 2004-05 and 2005-06. It would also be helpful if you could
explain why your telephone and telecommunications charges (where
your claims in 2007-08 are for between £50 and £200
a month from April to December 2007) appear to be significantly
less than the monthly claims for £240 you put in for these
items in 2004-05 and 2005-06.
Subject to your responses to the matters I have raised
in this letter, I think we are agreed that there is no need for
you to give oral evidence, since you have provided me with everything
you wish to in writing and I have at present no particular points
I need put to you orally. I would be happy to meet you informally,
but we would not, of course, be able to discuss your evidence
or my likely conclusions.
I should add that it is for me to judge whether I
should prepare a draft memorandum for the Committee on any particular
matter, and I can assure you that my decision has nothing to do
with any need to justify the inquiry itself, or with the identity
of the complainant. The imminent Dissolution of Parliament does,
however, mean that it will not be possible for me to have concluded
this inquiry before the end of the Parliament. But I will aim,
with your co-operation, to have completed this inquiry as soon
as possible in the new Parliament.
30 March 2010
33. Letter
to Mr Jim Miller from the Commissioner, 6 April 2010
Thank you for your letter of 31 March following my
letter to you of the previous day in response to your letter of
23 March about your complaint against Mr Bill Wiggin MP.
I am copying your letter to Mr Wiggin so that he
can have your comments on the question of his claims for utility
bills which you also covered in your previous letter. I have also
drawn his attention to the comparison you make between his telephone
costs of 2004-05 and 2005-06 with what you say were his claims
for 2008-09.
I have not asked Mr Wiggin to respond to your point
about the Communications Allowance, since that allowance was not
available to Members in 2004-05 and 2005-06 and did not anyway
extend to telephone costs.
6 April 2010
34. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 6 April 2010
I attach a further letter, this one of 31 March,
from the complainant, following up his previous letter to me of
23 March. I enclose also a copy of my letter to him of 30 March.
The complainant first compares your utility claims
for 2004-05 and 2005-06 with the claims you made in 2007-08. I
raised this with you in paragraph six of my letter to you of 30
March.
Additionally, the complainant has compared your claims
for telephone bills in 2004-05 and 2005-06 with your claims for
2008-09, when, according to the complainant, you made no claims
for telephone calls from your London home that year. I have pointed
out to the complainant that the Communications Allowance was not
available to Members in 2004-05 and 2005-06—nor did it cover
Members' telephone costs.
I would welcome your comments, perhaps when you respond
to my letter of 30 March, on the complainant's comparison between
your telephone costs for the two years into which I am inquiring
and for the later year, 2008-09.
As I said in that letter, I will need to return to
this when Parliament resumes, so a response by the end of the
first week of the new Parliament would be most welcome.
6 April 2010
35. Letter
to the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources
from the Commissioner, 15 April 2010
I have been reviewing the evidence in relation to
the complaint against Mr Bill Wiggin in respect of his regular
claims of £240 in the two financial years from 2004-05, on
which you wrote to me on 23 February.
In that letter, you address the question of offsetting
the over-claim of £133 which Mr Wiggin said he had made for
council tax in 2005-06. You explained how the Departmental processes
would not have identified that specific over-claim, but noted
that the amount he was over-claiming was offset by the significantly
greater difference between his legitimate claims for March 2006
and the amount of the allowance remaining to him.
I have checked the figures which Mr Wiggin produced
and which I sent to the Director of Operations on 10 December.
I attach a further copy. It seems to me that Mr Wiggin's calculation
of his overall claim did not take account of the effect on his
claims of the Dissolution period in the first two months of that
year. Taking this into account, it would seem to me that the over-claim
was £368. I attach a table showing my calculations. [138]
It would be very helpful if you could let me know
whether you agree with this recalculation and, if so, whether
it is your view that Mr Wiggin had legitimate unmet claims of
at least £368 for 2005-06.
I would be very grateful if you could let me have
a response to this letter by 18 May
15 April 2010
36. Letter
to the Commissioner from the Director of Strategic Projects, Department
of Resources, 28 April 2010
Thank you for your letter of 15 April.
Members were not entitled to claim ACA for the period
of Dissolution up to and including polling day. Entitlement recommenced
on the day after polling day. In fact, therefore, Mr Wiggin was
entitled to 11/30 of his council tax in April 2005, and 26/31
of the council tax in May 2005. The table which Mr Wiggin sent
you with his letter of 16 November 2009 should therefore have
said "reduced to"
rather than "reduced
by".
The total council tax claimable by Mr Wiggin for
2005-06 should therefore be reduced by 24/365, to £2163.79,
rather than by 37/365 as in your calculation. This means that
the excess claimed was £716.27 and the excess paid was £285.21.
Mr Wiggin's ACA claim of March 2006 was reduced from
£2077.01 to £437.34—a total reduction of £1639.17.
So even allowing for the increased over-claim for council tax,
Mr Wiggin's legitimate costs still exceeded the maximum of the
allowance.
I therefore believe that all arguments presented
in my letter of 23rd February still stand, but that the figure
of £285 should be substituted for the figure of £133
in that letter.
Please let me know if I can help further.
28 April 2010
37. Letter
to the Director of Strategic Projects, Department of Resources,
from the Commissioner, 4 May 2010
Thank you for your letter of 28 April in response
to mine of 15 April, about the reimbursement of Mr Wiggin's council
tax in 2005-06. I am grateful for your recalculation, which suggests
that Mr Wiggin was repaid for his council tax £285 more than
he should have been, having over-claimed by £716.
I would however welcome clarification of one further
point. In your letter you say that you believe that Mr Wiggin's
"legitimate costs"
still exceeded the maximum of the allowance in 2005-06. I would
be grateful if you could give me the basis on which you formed
this assessment. Given the absence of documentation with Mr Wiggin's
claims, could you identify how you have established that in 2005-06
at least £285 of Mr Wiggin's claims which exceeded his allowances
could otherwise have been met?
If would be very helpful to have a response to this
letter by 21 May if possible.
4 May 2010
38. Letter
to the Commissioner from the Director of Strategic Projects, Department
of Resources, 6 May 2010
Thank you for your letter of 4 May.
You ask about the use of the term "legitimate
costs" in the following sentence
of my letter to you of 28th April: "so
even allowing for the increased over-claim for council tax, Mr
Wiggin's legitimate costs still exceeded the maximum of the allowance."
All Mr Wiggin's claims in the last month of 2005-06
(except for council tax and food) were below the level at which
receipts were required. These would therefore have been regarded
as legitimate claims. The claim for food did not require receipts
but did not exceed the level permitted. Again, this would have
been regarded as legitimate. These claims amounted to £1,510
and are what I referred to as "legitimate
costs".
Of course, I do not intend the adjective "legitimate"
to presuppose any finding which the Committee may make about whether
Mr Wiggin did, in fact, incur the costs for which he claimed.
Please let me know if I can help further.
6 May 2010
39. Letter
to the Commissioner from Mr Bill Wiggin MP, 10 May 2010
Thank you for your letter of the 30th March.
I will try to help to clarify the points you asked
me about.
First was the size of my telephone bills six years
ago during recess. I believe that my telephone bills were £240
throughout the year irrespective of the recess. That is why I
claimed this amount. I can understand why Mr Miller would want
you to think otherwise but I think he is wrong.
Next, you are concerned that my wife's fledgling
business might have had some sort of financial advantage from
the taxpayer. I really don't think that is possible given that
we are talking about three telephone lines one of which is used
for the burglar alarm and fax machine. When I meant "others"
I meant that we had a nanny who may also have used the phone.
I guess that you might have been worried that there were huge
numbers of staff which sadly there were not. I am very sorry if
I misled you with any such delusions of grandeur. My wife started
her little business from home and I cannot imagine how I could
have charged her any meaningful amount for our council tax. It
is my wife who is allowed to live in our home, not some large
multinational firm. The same is true for maintenance and service.
If there had been any sort of financial benefit to her business
like the telephone bill then I would have made deductions in the
same way.
I have read Mr Miller's letters which seem to focus
on mathematical amounts rather than providing any new evidence
of any error. Whether Mr Miller's letter widens or narrows the
enquiry, he has not provided anything other than calculations
and I am confident that your team could have managed these by
themselves with great ease.
Mr Miller's further complaint seems to depend on
the assumption that I should claim more in later months, although
this does not actually need to happen as the allowances are fixed
amounts. The Nolan principles suggest that under claiming is preferable.
I am certain that I have under claimed a great deal in the later
years. I know that I cannot now claim the difference because the
years are closed and the full amount of the allowance was used
in each year. I am now paying considerably more than £240
which means that I should perhaps have claimed larger amounts
in the previous periods. The same is true for telephone bills.
I am sure you will confirm that I am not in the wrong by claiming
too little?
Thank you for taking such trouble over this enquiry.
10 May 2010
40. Letter
to Mr Bill Wiggin MP from the Commissioner, 18 May 2010
Now that the new Parliament has assembled, I am writing
to confirm that I am resuming my inquiries into this complaint.
I am grateful for your letter of 10 May in response to my letter
of 30 March and, I assume, my subsequent letter to you of 6 April.
It was most helpful to have this response.
In the complainant's letters of 23 and 31 March he
makes comparisons between your utility claims for 2004-05 and
2005-06 and those for the first few months of 2007-08. He points
out that some of these claims for utilities in 2007-08 were itemised.
The parliamentary webpages show that in 2007-08, in each of the
months in which your utility costs were itemised, you claimed
a total of £148.72 for utilities (gas, electricity, water),
and that your claims were supported by an annual bill of £365.69
for your water charges, which divided by twelve gives a monthly
charge for water of £30.47, the figure which appears on five
of your monthly bills. The webpages also show that in 2008-09
your claims for utilities increased to £203 in each month
in which they were supported by evidence of your direct debit
charges and that they were supported by the invoice for your gas
and electricity charges for August 2008 to February 2009.
The complainant believes that it was likely that
your utility bills for 2004-05 and 2005-06 were less than your
later bills. I shall need to come to a view on this. In the light
of the evidence it may be difficult to reconcile the detail of
these later utility claims with your suggestion that you under-claimed
in the later years (2007-08 and 2008-09) at least for utilities.
In relation to your telephone bills, I note from
your letter of 10 May that one of your telephone lines—presumably
one of your business lines—was used for a burglar alarm
and fax machine. Could you let me know whether that fax machine
was used for your wife's business as well as any parliamentary
duties, and if so, broadly what was the split between the two?
Finally, I enclose copies of letters of 28 April
and 4 May from the Department of Resources, and of my letters
to the Department of 15 April and 6 May. As you will see, the
Department have recalculated the council tax due to you in 2005-06.
This is because your original calculations, set out in the table
which you sent me with your letter of 16 November, did not take
account of the fact that you were not entitled to reimbursement
of council tax incurred during the Dissolution of the House in
2005. The Department now believes that in 2005-06 the amount of
your over-claim was £716, and that you were overpaid by £285
for council tax incurred in that year.
If you wished to comment further on any of these
matters I would be grateful if you would do so by 7 June. I will
then prepare the factual sections of my draft memorandum to the
Committee on Standards and Privileges and show them to you so
that you can check their factual accuracy. I am grateful for your
help with these matters.
18 May 2010
41. E-mail
to the Commissioner from Mr Bill Wiggin MP, 26 May 2010
I have received your latest letter and hope we are
at the end. You have put three questions to me this time.
1) First, the issue of my bills.
I know you will come to your own view but I still
think that my later bills were too low. My direct debit payments
have always been drawn on estimated usage. I am currently paying
£329.24 through direct debits for my utilities. Even though
my house is more energy efficient than it previously was, this
sum exceeds the previous £240 per month I was claiming in
the months you have questioned following Mr Miller's letters to
you.
2) You also asked about the fax services, which in
all honesty I do not remember nearly seven years later what faxes
were sent or received.
3) The council tax figures have been checked again
and although I have already apologised for inadvertently over
claiming. Having seen your own difficulties with the calculations
it would seem that the amount I received is still less than a
single mortgage payment which I forwent due to the allowance having
been used up. As you will know, the mortgage interest payment
for March 2006 was £567.01, far exceeding the £285 figure
which the calculations now appear I over-claimed and was inadvertently
over-paid in respect of the council tax element of my ACA. You
will also be aware that the Fees Office accepts that any over-payment
inadvertently received in respect of council tax claims offsets
other legitimate claims made by me which were reduced due to the
ACA running out.
Furthermore, having looked at a sample of claims
made by other Members of Parliament, I note that over-claiming
due to the Dissolution period appears to have happened inadvertently
to other colleagues but not in all circumstances have the amounts
been automatically adjusted by the Fees Office. As you will know,
the amounts I received were adjusted accordingly by the necessary
fractions for my April and May 2005 claims to reflect this.
I look forward to the factual sections you are preparing
and I request that they will be very precise and not worded in
a sensational way.
26 May 2010
42. Mr
Bill Wiggin MP: Claims made in relevant categories of ACA in 2004-05
and 2005-06
| 2004-05 |
| |
| 2005-06
| |
|
| | utilities
| telephone/telecoms |
service/ maintenance | council tax
| |
| utilities | telephone/telecoms
| service/ maintenance |
council tax |
| April | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| † April | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| *May | £240.00
| £240.00 | £0.00
| £240.00 |
| † May | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| June | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| June | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| July | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| July | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| August | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| August | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| September | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| September | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| October | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| October | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| **November | £176.07
| £0.00 | £0.00
| £216.69 |
| November | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| December | £0.00
| £0.00 | £0.00
| £0.00 |
| December | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| January | £0.00
| £0.00 | £0.00
| £0.00 |
| January | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| February | £0.00
| £0.00 | £0.00
| £0.00 |
| February | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| March | £0.00
| £0.00 | £0.00
| £0.00 |
| ‡ March | £240.00
| £240.00 | £240.00
| £240.00 |
| TOTAL claimed | £1,856.07
| £1,680.00 | £1,440
| £1,896.69 |
| TOTAL | £2,880.00
| £2,880.00 | £2,880.00
| £2,880.00 |
| TOTAL received |
£1,856.07 | £1,680.00
| £1,440 |
£1,896.69 |
| TOTAL received |
£2,449.00 | £2,449.00
| £2,449.00 |
£2,449.00 |
| | |
| | | |
| | | |
| * In his May 2004 claim, Mr Wiggin claimed £3,557.90 for work to his roof and water tank, and £900 for redecoration to the front of his house, making a total of £4,457.90.
|
| ** Mr Wiggin's budget ran out in November 2004.
|
| † Mr Wiggin's April and May 2005 claims were reduced respectively by 19/30 and 5/31 to take account of the Dissolution period.
|
| ‡ Mr Wiggin's allowance ran out in March 2006. He was paid £437.34, but the Department did not allocate this sum to particular claims.
|
124 WE 2 Back
125
Presumably December 2004 and January, February and March 2005 Back
126
Actually £329. Mr Wiggin has informed me that this was a
typing error. Back
127
Not included in the written evidence. Back
128
WE 5 Back
129
Not included in the written evidence Back
130
Not included in the written evidence Back
131
Mr Wiggin's last claim under his Herefordshire nomination was
in December 2006. Back
132
Mr Wiggin has confirmed that, in answer to my fourth question
(see WE 14), he intended to say "No". Back
133
WE 21 Back
134
Mr Wiggin has informed me that £257 was a typing error. The
correct figure was £329. Back
135
The Director subsequently confirmed that the Department was content
for this note to be shown to Mr Wiggin. Back
136
In commenting on 28 June 2010 on the factual sections of this
draft memorandum, Mr Wiggin told me, 'I believe that is actually
the National Audit Office who picked up my error and that this
quote is being used to defend the Fees Office, who failed to spot
my error. It is a personal comment about me from a file note
which I feel is being given more weight than it deserves.' Back
137
Not included in the written evidence. Back
138
WE 38 Back
| 
