Chuka Umunna's constituency office staff

I will take your questions in turn.

1. How many paid staff he had at his constituency office during that period that form his expenses claim for staff costs.

IPSA does not record the day to day working locations of MPs’ staff. The information we hold on staffing locations relates to whether or not the individual is based primarily in London or outside London. As Mr Umunna is a London MP, all staff are based in London, whether they are based in Westminster or in the constituency office. As such, we cannot separately identify constituency office staff from staff based in Westminster.

During the course of 2013-14, there were a total of 9 individuals who were employed by Mr Umunna, at some point during the financial year, in both his Westminster and constituency offices. As this figure is based on individuals employed across the whole financial year, it does not accurately reflect the number of individuals actively working for the MP at any one point in time.

1. Whether any of these staff / employees were related to himself.

MPs are permitted, under the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’) to employ one employee who is a ‘connected party’ (unless they employed more than one connected party on 7 May 2010). Connected party is defined in the Scheme as:

1. A spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner of the member;

2. parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece of the member or of a spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner of the member; or

3. a body corporate, a firm or a trust with which the MP is connected as defined in section 252 of the Companies Act 2006.

MPs must complete a connected party declaration when employing staff members, stating whether the employee is or is not a connected party, as defined by the Scheme.

We publish annualised data that includes the names of all MPs who have declared to IPSA that they employ a connected party, the name of that connected party and the salary band they are paid. This annualised data can be found via this link to our publication website. The annualised data for 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14 is already available on our website and the annualised data for 2014/15 will be published following the end of the financial year.

The FOIA states that information that is accessible by other means is not subject to release. Therefore, as the information you have requested is already available on our website, it is exempt from disclosure under section 21 of the FOIA (information accessible to applicant by other means).

We do not hold information on staff members who are related to their employing MP outside of the criterion defined above.

1. How many of those staff / employees were related to his family.

IPSA does not hold this information. As just noted, we do not hold information on staff members who are related to their employing MP outside of the criterion defined above.