House of Commons - The Operation of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009

The Operation of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 - Committee on Members' Expenses Contents

Part 4. Operations

132. In this part of our report we examine how IPSA's scheme has worked in practice, with particular emphasis on the process of claiming and IPSA's handling of claims.

14. The claims process and advice

CASHFLOW PROBLEMS AND DIRECT PAYMENTS

133. Under the old system, many bills, especially for office costs, were paid by the House direct to suppliers, with the great advantages that no money passed through MPs' hands and MPs were not left out of pocket. In 2008/09, around £7 million of the £11.5 million of office expenditure was paid in this way.[222]

134. IPSA's Board was opposed to such arrangements, apparently less because of any administrative difficulties than because (strangely) it regarded them as inconsistent with the principle of reimbursing payments already made.[223] In fact they are entirely compatible with that principle, as they are, by definition, for costs actually incurred. Instead, IPSA proposed a system of interest-free loans, a policy which our predecessors on the Committee on Members' Allowances criticised as likely to be "complex, expensive and cumbersome" and to create cashflow problems for MPs.[224] IPSA rejected the Committee's views, stating that "we remain confident that our approach will be straightforward to administer".[225]

135. IPSA's policy, combined with the time taken to pay claims, had exactly the effect predicted. The NAO concluded that "MPs are spending large amounts of their own money upfront on their Parliamentary functions and some told us they suffer cash flow difficulties as a result. ... we calculate that in 2010-11 MPs who used the Scheme spent an average of around 50 per cent of their basic pay after deductions on expenses for which they had to await reimbursement" (£1,549 per month).[226]

136. The Hansard Society, drawing on its surveys of new MPs, observed that "many MPs found their early months in office a real financial struggle; many had incurred significant personal financial costs as candidates and this was then compounded, to an unreasonable degree, by being required to fund the set up of their constituency office and then subsequently reclaim the costs from IPSA, payment of which was often delayed leaving many MPs in debt for a period". It added that paying out substantial sums and receiving them back often weeks later "is more manageable for some than others and will impact most detrimentally on MPs of modest means".[227] New MPs in May 2010 did not have the benefit of the start-up funding which IPSA has recently introduced, though IPSA told us some contingency funding was provided.[228] We are not aware of any other profession with outgoings in advance of reimbursement on such a scale as that of MPs under IPSA's scheme.

137. As regards the time taken for claims to be paid, IPSA's target is for 95% of claims to be processed within 12 working days, which has been achieved from January 2011 but was not met before that.[229] The NAO noted that in mid-2011 claims were on average being processed in six working days, but that that was only part of the time MPs had to wait for reimbursement: "Assuming they were to claim fortnightly, and taking into account the time between submission and reimbursement, claims may not be repaid for between two and three and a half weeks".[230] The NAO recommended that IPSA set itself a more challenging target for approving routine claims, and IPSA has revised its target somewhat to ten days.[231]

138. IPSA responded to the difficulties MPs were experiencing by completely reversing its policy. In addition to its loan scheme, it allowed claims for expensive items such as computers and office equipment in advance and in November 2010 introduced direct payment for office and residential rent payments and extended use of the payment card from travel to council tax and utilities.[232] In mid-2011, IPSA's view was that if MPs took full advantage of the facilities available (not including advances), those using the scheme would spend 13% of their basic pay after deductions on expenses for which they had to await reimbursement, instead of 50%.[233] IPSA's Director of Policy told us that the direct payments and payment card could now cover up to 77% of costs, and "In time, hopefully, we will cover pretty much everything."[234] A recent development is IPSA's agreement with the Trainline, which will provide IPSA with all the information needed for legitimate costs to be paid and published.[235]

139. The payment card avoids the problem of cash passing through MPs' personal bank accounts, but creates its own problems over reconciling card statements with claims. Direct payments offer a more promising approach, by simplifying the claims process. MPs, and especially new MPs, ought not to have been put in the situation they were in during the early months of this Parliament, but IPSA's steps to remedy that situation through greater use of the payment card and direct payments are welcome. In our survey, 95% of MPs who responded agreed or strongly agreed that IPSA was right to introduce more direct payments to suppliers, and 68% that the extension of the travel card was an improvement.

THE SYSTEM FOR CLAIMING

140. IPSA's online claims system was criticised by almost all the MPs who responded to the NAO's survey, though some accepted that there had been improvements. The main criticism was that it was extremely time-consuming to use, especially with its combination of online claims and paper-based receipts, taking up time which MPs could be using to serve their constituents.

141. IPSA's view is that the system is "pretty standard" for expense management systems used by industry across the country, and that many other organisations use it.[236] However, as the NAO observes, certain aspects of the payments scheme are peculiar to MPs, including the high number of separate claims, the separate forms for different budgets and the inability to send e-receipts or scanned receipts to IPSA.[237] IPSA appears to have acquired a fairly standard system to do a far from standard job.

142. Specific criticisms made by MPs in May-June 2011 in response to the NAO's survey include:

Tendency of the system to crash;
Requirement to put in separate claims for each item, including daily claims for travel and monthly claims for items paid annually such as insurance, combined with repetitive data entry because information could not be pasted across and the system does not learn and offer defaults;
Absence of any way of recording explanations (eg the need for a taxi for a particular journey) without having to repeat them for every similar claim;
Forms which are too wide for the screen;
Requirement to print out and post claims with the relevant receipts attached (even in the case of mileage, for which no documentary evidence exists), combined with a clumsy procedure for printing out requiring numerous mouse-clicks;
Difficulty in correcting mistakes;
Uncertainty over which form to claim on;
Lack of clarity over whether the date should be that of the invoice or the payment, together with uncertainty over bills covering the end of the financial year and the start of the next;
Timing out if other tasks such as constituents' phone calls are attended to;
The time required to reconcile payment card statements with claims;
Inability to track claims and to link them with payments received, which are often aggregated and do not indicate what they cover;
Inability to determine how much of a budget has been spent without keeping detailed financial records in addition to the information fed into IPSA's system^.[238]

143. The observations of MPs' staff contributed to Unite's survey provide a similar picture, though in this case the comments are from January and February. About 70% of staff who had processed claims under the old system said they had spent less than an hour a week doing so, and only 1.5% spent three hours or more, whereas under the new system only 8% spent less than an hour and 59% spent three hours or more.[239]

144. The problems have been compounded by changing requirements, difficulty in obtaining advice and IPSA's unwillingness to say in advance whether a claim will be accepted. In effect, IPSA has outsourced a great deal of its administration to MPs and their staff, while providing less information to Members in return than the old paper-based system did. The way the online claims system works symbolises better than anything else IPSA's initial approach to its task.

145. IPSA has accepted that it could do more to reduce the burden on MPs, and has been taking steps to do so, including improvements to the electronic system, greater use of direct payments (for example for train travel and constituency office supplies) and a pilot scheme to simplify mileage payments.[240] It calculated that taking over some of the data entry would cost about £150,000, adding about 6% to staff costs, though adopting the Scottish Parliament's system would cost £800,000 extra.[241] In our survey, 18% of MPs agreed with the statement that 'Since June 2011, I have noticed a significant decrease in the amount of time my staff and I spend dealing with expenses", but 58% disagreed or strongly disagreed.

IPSA'S HANDLING OF CLAIMS

146. MPs made a range of criticisms of IPSA's handling of claims in their responses to the NAO:

Inconsistent decisions on similar claims;
A tendency to reject an entire claim when there is a problem (such as inadequate evidence) affecting only part of it;
A 90-day limit on claims, which causes difficulties with, for example, quarterly bills, or bills which suppliers are slow to submit;
Staff not reading explanatory paperwork sent with receipts;
Loss of documents (though there were relatively few claims of this);
A tendency to reject or send back claims rather than query them.

147. Similar criticisms were made by MPs' staff who responded to Unite's survey. These are all of course individual anonymised remarks, and it is not possible to check that all were well-founded, such as those relating to inconsistent decisions. In particular, IPSA rejected the suggestion made in evidence to us that documents were lost and the 90-day rule was imposed when they were re-submitted, stating that the electronic system made the risk of evidence being lost low and that, if IPSA lost the paperwork, it would waive the 90-day limit. It also told us that it would return claims if additional evidence was required, which was not the same as rejecting the claim.[242] In our survey of MPs, 63% stated that on at least one occasion in the previous six months IPSA had lost paperwork they submitted in support of a claim.

AVAILABILITY OF ADVICE

148. MPs responding to the NAO made the following criticisms about the availability of advice from IPSA:

Guidance difficult to find;
Inconsistent advice from different people, or incorrect advice;
Advice by phone available only in the afternoons (from 1 to 5 pm), and difficulty in getting through by phone;
Slowness in responding to emails;
Difficulty in securing face-to-face meetings;
Absence of any system of case management or tracking of enquiries, so that the same explanations have to be made repeatedly to different people;
Refusal to say whether claims are within the rules in advance of a claim being made.

149. These criticisms were similar to those made by MPs' staff earlier in the year.[243] Some of these criticisms also featured in our more recent survey of MPs, but there was a mixed picture, with substantial numbers indicating that they had received "fairly useful" advice from IPSA in the previous six months; 74% said they had received "particularly helpful service from IPSA staff in the relation to the processing of expenses claims" at least once in the previous six months. There was some improvement in MPs' perceptions of the quality of IPSA's advice since the NAO asked a similar question in May/June, especially as regards advice provided in person.[244]

150. Again we cannot check what happened in individual cases. As regards inconsistent advice, IPSA told us that it had "seen no evidence, other than unsupported anecdotes, that such incidents are anything other than infrequent and isolated", and it would want to investigate any examples provided to it.[245] However, in our survey of MPs, 81% said they had received inconsistent advice from IPSA at least once in the past six months. Other items in the list are undisputed, such as the limited phone enquiry service, the absence of tracking of enquires and the refusal to say whether a claim is within the rules until it is made. The NAO noted that "IPSA's guidance is not currently consolidated in one place, or easily searchable".[246] It also observed that IPSA's handling of enquiries improved from October 2010 onwards, but that its speed of responding to written correspondence "remained variable".[247]

151. There is some evidence of some MPs being better able than others to secure help from IPSA. The response of one to the NAO was that "We bundle up receipts and then ask IPSA staff member to come to our office to input them. This works and reduces our exposure to risk." This clearly cannot be a general practice.

152. As regards unwillingness to give advice in advance of a claim on what might be allowed, IPSA's reason is, in part, "that MPs must take responsibility for their spending decisions".[248] That, however, would be an argument for IPSA having no rules at all and leaving MPs to take responsibility. The CSPL stated its view that "it is a proper function of a regulator to be prepared to give advice on the implications of the regulations for which they are responsible, and that they ought to be able to do so without prejudicing the fact that ultimately it is an MP's own responsibility to ensure the legitimacy of their claims".[249] Like the CSPL, we consider it reasonable that IPSA should give advice on whether its own rules permit or do not permit a particular claim; this would not remove the responsibility for making the claim from the MP. It is already the practice to give such advice in the Scottish Parliament. As unsuccessful claims are published whatever the reason for them, not giving such advice exposes an MP to the reputational risk of having a claim rejected and publicised.

COMPLIANCE FUNCTION

153. The CSPL recommended that "Responsibility for investigating allegations about breaches of the rules on expenses should be vested in the independent regulator, which should be able to appoint its own compliance officer for this purpose. The compliance officer should be able to conduct an investigation on his or her own initiative, at the request of the independent regulator, or in response to a complaint from a member of the public or an MP."[250] Such a person was duly provided for in the 2010 Act, to be appointed by IPSA for a non-renewable five-year term. He has responsibility for adjudicating between MPs and IPSA about disputed claims, for investigating alleged abuses notified by members of the public and for launching his own investigations of suspected abuses.[251]

154. An interim Compliance Officer was appointed on 10 May 2010, a permanent Compliance Office (Luke March) was in place from 31 March to 27 July 2011, and the present interim Compliance Officer (Martyn Taylor) was appointed on 28 July.[252] We took evidence from the last two of these. To date, there have been two requests by MPs for reviews of decisions by IPSA (one resulting in a formal review); 41 investigations, of which 18 have been closed after a preliminary investigation and 21 after a substantive investigation, leaving two open; and 36 complaints accepted as "qualifying complaints", 35 from members of the public and one from an MP.[253] Of the 21 results of investigations published recently, 20 were about the use of party-political logos on websites.[254]

155. Hugh Thomas told us that he would expect a compliance officer to be "very much the conscience of the board and the chief executive", advising the Board and others and much closer to the Board and the organisation as a whole, with unfettered access to people and documents and the ability to begin a review of any aspect of the organisation; IPSA's, on the other hand, seemed to be more of an investigations officer.[255] Luke March considered the role was "a bit better than that"¯more of an ombudsman or an adjudicator; however, the equivalent person in any other regulator would be the enforcement director, who would probably be a member of the Board.[256] IPSA response is that the internal assurance role is undertaken by officials, and "it is correct to say that the Compliance Officer's main role is therefore investigatory".[257]

156. The Compliance Officer is appointed by IPSA, which determines his terms and conditions, and has a contract from IPSA but is said to be "functionally independent".[258] The Act requires that IPSA provide him with adequate resources. IPSA does stipulate the procedures for investigation and determines what is published, but the Compliance Officer is independent in carrying out the investigations and determining the timing of publication.[259] Martyn Taylor told us he had not needed to remind the Board about his independence, and emphasised that the Compliance Officer, not being an employee, was able to comment freely on IPSA's actions and processes.[260] Luke March referred to "an extraordinary climate of suspicion towards the compliance role", though he added that "I certainly felt independent of the Board".[261]

157. The cost of the compliance operation in 2010/11 was £307,000, though this included the cost of setting up processes and procedures and recruiting staff. The cost is expected to fall to £265,000 in 2011/12 and to around £190,000 from 2012/13.[262] There is only one member of staff besides the Compliance Officer himself, who is part-time.[263] Martyn Taylor told us that IPSA's procedures for investigation had proved over-restrictive, but the changes currently being consulted about would make the process simpler and clearer. For example, they would remove the requirement to open a preliminary investigation before making enquiries of IPSA or an MP about a particular complaint. He did not believe changes to the legislation were needed.[264]

158. While IPSA is both administrator and regulator, a Compliance Officer based within IPSA but independent of it seems unavoidable. We consider later whether IPSA's regulatory and administrative functions should reside within separate organisations,[265] in which case different arrangements would be appropriate, with the present compliance function possibly developing into something like the enforcement function in other regulators.

15. What may be claimed

159. 76% of MPs who responded to the NAO's questionnaire said there had been occasions when they had not been able to claim enough because of the levels at which the various budgets are set. 45% of those responding had found staffing expenditure insufficient, and the figures were 34% for office accommodation expenses, 33% for accommodation expenses, 22% for subsistence and 21% for travel expenditure. 91% tended to agree or strongly agree with the proposition that "MPs have to subsidise their own constituency work".[266] However, that MPs are not always able to claim as much as they believe is needed for their parliamentary functions is not on its own evidence that more should be made available, especially at a time of financial stringency. As the NAO observed, the fact that most MPs have not claimed the full amount under most budgets in 2010-11 suggests that the amounts available are not the central issue,[267] though this is also bound up with the matter of deterrents to claiming the full sums, as discussed above.[268] IPSA pointed out that some flexibility is provided by contingency arrangements, under which £700,000 was made available to 140 MPs in 2010-11, for reasons such as very high levels of casework, shortage of suitable office space at reasonable rents and high start-up costs.[269] We concentrate here on several matters which have caused particular difficulties. One such matter, support for families, has been discussed already.[270]

STAFFING EXPENDITURE

160. Staffing is the budget which MPs have found most constrained. IPSA states that it has continued the practice of providing funds for each MP to employ 3.5 (full-time equivalent) staff.[271] However, it made two significant changes:

It included in staffing costs the employer's contribution towards pensions (then averaging £8,119). The staffing budget was increased in response, but it was suggested to us that the increase did not fully compensate for the change.[272]
It prevented MPs "vireing" funds to their staffing budget from other budgets. In 2008/09, 120 MPs topped up their staffing budget from other budgets by vireing funds.[273] IPSA's reason for doing so was its view that virement was "not consistent with the principles of openness and transparency, treating MPs like other citizens, or of designing a clear and understandable system",[274] no part of which explanation we find at all convincing.

161. There is some anecdotal evidence of MPs reducing the number of staff employed, or making greater use of unpaid interns.[275] There is scope for debate about whether enabling MPs to employ more staff is necessarily a good thing, but we do not regard a reduction in the ability to employ staff compared to the period before 2011 as justifiable. We note that IPSA has begun a consultation on staffing requirements and funding.[276]

ACCOMMODATION

162. We raise just three issues in respect of accommodation, in addition to provision for families which is discussed elsewhere.[277] As regards constituencies deemed too close to London for additional accommodation to be justifiable, the House increased the number of such constituencies to 54 in 2008, the CSPL would have increased the number much further (to anywhere with a door-to-door commuting journey of less than an hour), IPSA initially proposed 56, and IPSA's initial scheme raised the number to 128, including constituencies as far from London as Aldershot, Basingstoke, Chelmsford, Guildford and Milton Keynes.[278] If being an MP were a Monday to Friday 9 to 5 job, that might be seen as treating MPs like other citizens, but that is not so when there are late-night sittings and early-morning committees. IPSA's funding for occasional hotel stays and use of taxis and its reduction of the number of constituencies whose MP is not entitled to accommodation expenses to 97 (those 20 miles or less from London) has ameliorated this situation.

163. As regards the amount which can be claimed, the cap in the London Area is £19,900, or £1,658 per month, covering rent together with associated expenditure such as utility bills, council tax and contents insurance (replacing, at no extra cost to the taxpayer, the previous limit of £1,450 per month for rent plus a payment for associated expenditure).[279] In February 2010, the Committee on Members' Allowances obtained advice from chartered surveyors that the range for a one-bedroom property in the Victoria area was between £1,538 and £2,058 per calendar month. That Committee also noted that the Ministry of Defence paid rents in central London up to a limit of £3,030.[280] IPSA states that it analysed rental prices in London in February 2011, in relation to the limit then of £1,450 per month, and concluded that in 76 London postcode areas, the average rent of a one-bedroom property was £1,450 per month or less. Most of these postcode areas are some distance from Westminster, but they included several close to Westminster south of the Thames.[281]

164. Abolition of support for mortgage interest was probably inevitable in view of the abuses uncovered in 2009. Mortgage interest is likely to be cheaper than rent, if there are sufficient safeguards against abuse, which was not the case before 2009. We note that in some cases the withdrawal of support for mortgage interest for existing mortgages on 31 August 2012 will result in the taxpayer having to meet higher claims being made for rent. The matter of MPs who claimed for mortgage interest before May 2010 being liable for capital gains requires attention.

RESETTLEMENT GRANT

165. The CSPL argued that MPs who stood down voluntarily at a general election should no longer receive resettlement grant but instead eight weeks' pay from the date of the election. It recommended that those who lost their seats at a general election should continue to receive resettlement grant, which should be one month's salary for each year of service up to a maximum of nine months.[282] IPSA in its consultation proposal expressed scepticism about whether there should be any form of redundancy payment for MPs, and made the bizarre suggestion that MPs could insure themselves against losing their seats.[283] The Committee on Members' Allowances noted that the effect of IPSA's proposal would be that MPs would continue to be subject to redundancy at an unpredictable time without any possibility of preparing for it, would not even receive statutory redundancy pay (as they are office-holders rather than employees), and would be expected to wind up their constituency affairs without pay. This would be to treat MPs worse than other citizens, and would strongly discourage anyone without private means from entering Parliament.[284] IPSA's response was that redundancy pay was not a reimbursement of expenses but part of an overall package of employment terms and conditions, and would therefore be considered with MPs' pay and pensions if it became responsible for setting those.[285]

FLEXIBILITY

166. Another aspect is flexibility, for example when an MP seeks to combine in a single journey parliamentary purposes and party-political, family or personal purposes. Clearly IPSA should pay only as much of the cost as was necessary for the parliamentary purpose, and would need to be satisfied that that purpose was sufficient justification in itself for the journey, but not to pay at all because several purposes have been combined is to impose unnecessary constraints on an MP's activity. On the other hand, the rules need to be sufficiently precise that MPs know what claims are within the rules and can demonstrate that their claims have been legitimate ones within the rules set by an independent body. The Chair of IPSA told us that "we would wish to move more to greater discretion for the MP rather than to increasingly detailed rules, because of the diversity of MPs"; this depended on growing trust, and was "an evolutionary process".[286] Any such change will need to be handled carefully, as, while MPs must take responsibility for their own claims, IPSA has a responsibility for determining what claims are legitimate and endorsing them as such.

16. Impact on MPs' staff

167. We received evidence from the Unite Parliamentary Staff Branch and the Members' and Peers' Staff Association about the impact of IPSA's scheme on the terms and conditions of MPs' staff. Some of the staff observations related to the difficulties of the claims process, and were similar to MPs' observations. As one member of staff put it, "I feel the constituents have been let down by the amount of time we are diverted away from day to day business to deal with admin and expenses matters". There were several criticisms relating to the impact on staff.

168. As discussed above, under the IPSA scheme, the staffing budget has risen from £105,264 in 2009/10 to £115,000 in 2010/11, but it is now expected to cover staff pension payments and child care costs, previously met from a central budget.[287] The Chair of the Parliamentary Staff Branch of Unite noted a "huge amount of disquiet" about the changes. He said that IPSA's defence was that it had removed a number of elements previously included in the staff expenditure budget, but these elements made a "negligible difference" to the budget, and the end result was "evidence of staff hours being reduced and redundancies taking place as a result".[288]

169. Staff employed before May 2010 are eligible for £8 a day as a contribution to childcare costs. However, those taken on after May 2010 are eligible only for a salary sacrifice scheme. Unite told us that a number of their members who were made redundant at the election when their MP stood down or was defeated had subsequently found employment with another MP, but were finding that the change to child care support was making it "increasingly difficult to make ends meet". Unite believed the change had been "purely for budgetary reasons", and considered that "It is a backwards step and sends a message that Parliament is not a family-friendly place to work".[289] IPSA states that it "recognises that its Scheme is less generous than the previous Scheme administered by the House of Commons, but it believes its Scheme provides a suitable level of support to staff members, comparable to the schemes administered by other public sector organisations".[290]

170. Another concern is redundancy payments. The Chair of the Unite Parliamentary Staff Branch informed us that MPs' staff used to be eligible for a maximum 15% bonus in a given year, at the discretion of the MP concerned and if funds were available in the MP's staffing budget. In the event of redundancy, this could be "matched" with an additional bonus, again at the discretion of the MP concerned and if funds were available. This was in addition to statutory redundancy pay.[291] Under the new scheme, staff redundancy payments are paid from the contingency fund; IPSA's standard contract for staff states that these will be "made in accordance with statutory requirements"¯in other words, without the possibility of a bonus.[292] Unite suggested that, combined with the move to fixed-term parliaments, the reduction in redundancy provision for MPs' staff was likely to make retention a "real problem" in the period leading up to an election.[293]

171. Some staff who responded to Unite's survey mentioned delays in receiving payments when they had incurred costs on behalf of the MP, sometimes of a month or so, slowness in paying the expenses of unpaid interns and the fact that payments are made to the MP rather than directly to them. For example: "Trying to claim for train tickets to attend surgeries in the constituency every month typically takes four weeks; when you're on a low salary of 17K, waiting for IPSA to refund £60 every month is a nightmare"; "When a bill needs to be paid urgently I have to put it on my card and then wait to reclaim it from IPSA, via my Member"; "I have to pay BT bills myself then claim the money back as I know from experience they are slow and we have been threatened with bailiff action"; "It is my money that I have paid out of my pocket [for mileage, train tickets and office supplies] ... doing the work I am expected to do yet I have a monthly battle trying to work out if any of the monies have been paid". One constituency worker said that attending training courses at Westminster, involving train and hotel costs, had become "virtually impossible due to the claiming back system—those of us on low wages ... simply cannot afford to have such an outlay". IPSA is not the employer of MPs' staff, but it has a duty of care towards them and needs to take much more account of their relatively low wages.

222 MAC, para 36. Back

223 IPSA, MPs' expenses: a consultation (January 2010), paras 7, 10.10. Back

224 MAC para 34. Back

225 IPSA, The MPs' expenses scheme (March 2010), HC 501, 2009-10, para 34. Back

226 NAO, paras 20, 2.25. Back

227 Ev 29-30. Back

228 Ev 77, para 51. Back

229 NAO, p 26. Back

230 NAO, para 2.26. Back

231 NAO, para 25f; Ev 77, para 48. Back

232 Ev 77, para 50. Back

233 NAO, para 20. Back