Invoices and receipts for Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP website hosting in 2011-12

The name of the company that provided the website hosting service for the £2,664.00 claim above is Buttermountain Limited. Details can be found in Annex A.

IPSA does not, as a matter of course, publish images of receipts or invoices supporting claims. We believe that the information we publish proactively on IPSA’s Publication website provides a significant amount of detail and gives a clear picture of what MPs are claiming for and affords reassurance that claims are both appropriate for MPs to carry out their parliamentary functions and in accordance with the rules set out in the MPs’ Expenses Scheme.

The following tables at Annex A provide the information released on IPSA’s publication website relating to all of the website hosting related claims made by Mr Clifton-Brown to date, as well as all additional information contained on each invoice/receipt. Please note that we have withheld telephone numbers, account numbers, invoice numbers, VAT numbers and BACs codes. We have withheld this information under Section 31(1)(a) (Law enforcement) of the FOI Act. This section of the Act states that information is exempt if its disclosure under the FOI Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention (or detection) or crime.

After considering the nature of the withheld information it is our opinion that were a disclosure to be made into the public domain it is probable that this information could be traced back to sensitive personal or commercial information which could be used for criminal activity. Although we recognise the public interest in transparency surrounding the publishing of invoice information there is also a strong public interest in ensuring that as an organisation we are able to protect our service users from the threat of being subjected to criminal activity, which is achieved through our capacity to withhold certain information from disclosure. It is for this reason that we have decided that the application of the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

You also requested details of the Scheme rules in regards to how much an MP can claim on their website. MPs are able to claim some of the costs associated with their websites under Part C: Office Support, Section Six: Office Costs Expenditure of the MPs’ Expenses Scheme which can be found on the IPSA website. MPs can claims for the cost of websites provided the conditions set out in chapter 6.6 have been met. IPSA does not specify the amount a Member can claim on websites.  We do however have a cap on the Office Costs Expenditure budget.

Annex A