Administration CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Duncan Hames MP

Thank you for your letter dated 15 January regarding the support for new MPs.

I appointed temporary staff in May 2010 and ran a full recruitment process for permanent staff shortly after. For the recruitment of my permanent staff I made full use of the House of Commons Personnel Service throughout the process and found their support to be invaluable. Based on this experience, I would have made use of the Personnel Service even earlier.

In order to enable the service to provide this level of support to a potentially large number of new Members, it may be necessary to temporarily increase the resources available to it at the start of a new Parliament.

As a new MP in a newly formed constituency there was no infrastructure in place to support me with my constituency business, including casework. For office accommodation I had to use my party’s campaigning office until I was able to source office accommodation and move in. PICT would not supply IT equipment before this move happened. My staff therefore had to use their own and the party’s IT equipment until August 2010.

New MPs could therefore benefit from assistance from the House or IPSA in searching for accommodation, who could present them with potential options. This may in turn aid the more timely provision of services to constituents.

I hope that this is helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact me if there are any issues you would like to discuss further.

15 February 2013