Sign In
Privacy Policy
IPSA Logo
YOU ARE HERE: Skip Navigation LinksHome > IPSA for MPs > Business Costs & Expenses Scheme

Business Costs & Expenses Scheme and Guidance

 
Foreword by the board of IPSA

We undertook to review the Scheme for MPs’ Business Costs and Expenses each year. This year’s Review reflects our commitment to introduce improvements in the administration of the Scheme wherever possible. It also continues the process of evolution towards a Scheme which gives appropriate discretion to MPs in the management of their affairs, commensurate with assurance to taxpayers as to how their taxes are spent.

We conducted our Review in a time of severe economic restraint. MPs cannot be immune to this. What we set out, therefore, reflects a compromise between what may be appropriate in an ideal world and what can be afforded.

The Scheme has already evolved significantly, and therefore much of this Review was refining the rules rather than making substantive changes. In addition, the Review pays special attention to MPs’ needs for staff. It is an important issue: if MPs are to serve their constituents they need the support of staff. But, as MPs work in many different ways, arriving at some standard approach is not easy. We have carried out a thorough examination and set out a way forward that recognises the increased demands on MPs since the last review nearly five years ago. We give MPs a clear budget limit for staff, but one that allows for flexibility so as to reflect the differences in their ways of work. This staffing budget is not to meet the personal expenses of MPs: it is to cover the important business cost of employing staff.

One other area warrants comment here. We explored in this Review the separation between parliamentary functions and party political activities. Taxpayers’ funds are not to be used for the latter. Recognising that MPs are politicians, we have identified certain activities which will not be supported and left MPs to decide whether or not others support their parliamentary or their party political work. They must then account for those decisions. This is the great strength of having a system which has transparency at its centre.

This Review, and the consultation which was a central part of it, has been greatly assisted by the responses that we have received. We wish to single out for special thanks the staff of MPs, who contributed significantly to the process. We commend the Review to MPs and taxpayers alike. We believe we have established a Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses which is fair, workable and transparent, and which safeguards the public’s money while allowing MPs to do what they were elected to do.

Professor Sir Ian Kennedy

Sir Scott Baker

Jackie Ballard

Ken Olisa

Isobel Sharp

 
Summary of the Changes

 Below is a summary of the changes made to the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (the Scheme) for its Fourth Edition. The changes come into effect on 1 April 2012.

 • IPSA has expanded its guidance on the activities it does not regard as parliamentary to include attendance at party conferences, and campaigning and fundraising for a political party.

• The Accommodation Expenditure budgets have been raised to reflect inflation and, separately, for the average rent MPs pay for Band E properties. The budget for MPs claiming the mortgage interest subsidy has been reduced because the subsidy comes to an end in August 2012.

• The Office Costs Expenditure budgets have been raised to reflect inflation. They are now £24,750 for London Area MPs and £22,200 for non-London Area MPs.

• MPs can now display their party political logo on websites and still claim the cost of the website.

• IPSA will offer MPs the opportunity to purchase legal expenses insurance through a centrally arranged scheme. MPs can still choose not to purchase this insurance or to do so individually.

• Office costs and travel claims can now be made for staff members who live more than 20 miles from the constituency of the MP who employs them.

• The Staffing Expenditure budget limit has been increased to £137,200 for non-London Area MPs and £144,000 for London Area MPs, incorporating a 5% supplement for London Area MPs to reflect higher salary ranges for staff based in London. IPSA’s Estimate is subject to approval by the Speaker’s Committee for IPSA.

• New and more flexible job descriptions for staff members will be available, and the redundancy package for staff on IPSA’s contracts has been doubled from the statutory minimum.

• The Winding-Up budgets have been increased to £56,250 for London Area MPs and £53,150 for non-London Area MPs.

• MPs who leave Parliament can continue to claim associated expenditure on their accommodation for up to two months, as well as any security and disability assistance they were claiming before they left.

• MPs who lose their seats in an election before 2015 will be eligible for a resettlement payment. This is an interim policy in advance of the review of MPs’ pay and pensions, which will identify a longer term solution.

• MPs’ staff can claim the cost of a railcard where it represents value for money on their parliamentary-related journeys.

• Rules for the cost of travelling for a recall of Parliament have been introduced.

• Rules for claims during an election period have been introduced.

QUICK SEARCH

 

 

 
Search

©IPSA 7th floor, Portland House, Bressenden Place, London, SW1E 5BH