Whether establishment of EU Parliament and Scottish Parliament influenced IPSA's determination on MPs' pay

Request

I have read the report that provides the basis for the recent MPs pay review.

In it previous pay was compared with public sector pay and this appeared to form a key part of the justification for the increase.

Public sector pay is determined by various rules and grading evaluation models that very simply link pay to the level of responisibility of a post holder.

In the case of MPs estimates vary however a typical estimate is that some 75% of UK law is now made by the EU.  Can you explain how this reduction in responsibility was factored into the recent review please?

Similarly over the last decade regional parliaments have been established that enable large areas to be controlled regionally thus reducing the responsibilities of MPs.  How was this reduction in responsibility factored in?

Public sector staff can claim meagre expenses but nothing like of the scale and scope of MPs.  How was the salary comparison for MPs adjusted to reflect this key difference in income?

For the avoidance of doubt I am requesting this information under the Freedom of Information Act.


Response

All of the information relating to our review of MPs’ remuneration, including the evidence we considered and our conclusions, can be found at the Pay and Pensions Homepage, on our website.

Details on the framework against which MPs’ pay was considered can be found in the October 2012 consultation document, available via this link. In this consultation, we considered the role of the MP in its current state (rather than any changes in responsibilities over a given period); discussion of this can be found at Chapter 4 of the consultation document.

In Chapter 5, we compared the remuneration of MPs to legislators in devolved legislatures and the European Parliament, amongst other national parliaments.

As we set out on page 11 of the October 2012 consultation document, the reward for doing the job should continue to be separate from the resources that are needed to perform it. We consider that MPs have a unique role that, unlike most other public sector workers, necessitates they work in two separate locations – and that there are many costs associated with this division of responsibilities between the two locations. We reimburse MPs for expenditure that we consider necessary to support MPs in carrying out their parliamentary functions in both places of work, but we do not cover costs that are considered personal or party political in nature.

The subsequent report, which was published in January 2013 once the consultation was concluded, contains details of responses we received and our position. This can be found on our website via this link.

We have also conducted two further consultations on this issue of MPs’ remuneration, in July 2013 and June 2015. The consultation documents and reports relating to these consultations can be found at the link to the Pay and Pensions Home, above.

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).

Ref:
CAS-24747
Disclosure:
12 August 2015
Categories:
MPs' PAY AND PENSIONSIPSA - POLICY
Exemptions Applied:
Section 21