MPs with staff on casual contracts

Request

As of today's date how many MP's employ staff on a flexible contact, could you name the MP and how many each they employ?


Response

IPSA holds the information that you request.

We have interpreted your request as the names of MPs who have employed staff on casual contracts.

Members of Parliament may employ individuals on casual contracts, whereby the staff member is paid an hourly rate rather than an annual salary. You can view a sample casual contract on our website at the following address: http://parliamentarystandards.org.uk/IPSAMPs/HR%20Payroll%20and%20Interns%20libruary/A%20-%20Employing%20Staff/1.%20Contracts/Sample%20MP%20staff%20contract%20-%20casual.pdf

Individuals employed on casual contracts may include any short-term staff taken on – for example, to provide paternity, maternity or sickness cover – part-time as well as full-time staff and apprentices and interns whose employment conditions have fulfilled the conditions set out in paragraphs 7.8 and 7.9 of the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’). As such, some individuals may have only been in the MP’s employment for a very short period.

As part of our annual publication for claims made in the 2014-15 financial year, we published information relating to each MPs’ staffing arrangements. This information included whether each MP employed a member of staff on a casual contract during the financial year. The following instructions may assist you in locating this information on our publication website.

  1. Go to the ‘Aggregate Data’ page via the tab at the top of the page.

  2. Select the financial year ‘2014-15’.

  3. Click the link to ‘Other Data for ‘2014-15’. Click the subsequent link to ‘Open’.

  4. The spreadsheet containing other data for the 2014-15 financial year will open. Column N of the spreadsheet contains information on MPs’ staff contracts.

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).

This information will be updated annually, in line with our stated publication policy. Section 22(1) of the FOIA states that information intended for future publication is exempt from release. We have considered whether the public interest in releasing the information outweighs the application of the exemption. It is our opinion that the public interest is best served by publishing a full list relating to a whole financial year rather than publishing on an ad hoc basis. In this way, a clear and complete set of information is published, avoiding any potential confusion. It is for this reason that we believe the application of the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure at this stage.

Ref:
CAS-27436
Disclosure:
27 September 2015
Categories:
MPs' STAFFING
Exemptions Applied:
Section 21