Overtime paid to connected parties employed by MPs during 2017-18

Under the Scheme of MPs' Business Costs and Expenses ('the Scheme'), IPSA will not pay the salaries or other costs of any new employees who are connected parties and are employed on or after 9 June 2017. For connected parties employed before this date, their continued employed is not in any way affected. MPs must declare whether or not the staff member falls within the definition of a connected party when registering the individual with IPSA.

At the end of each financial year, we publish information on each MPs’ expenditure over the course of the year. This includes information relating to any connected parties employed during the year, including their name, job title, salary band and whether they were employed full or part time. This information can be found via this link.

Where a staff member employed by an MP works hours additional to their contracted hours, overtime payments may be paid from the Staffing budget.

Overtime is typically paid to part-time members of staff at their standard hourly rate, until their full-time equivalent hours are reached. For full-time staff (and part-time staff who have reached their full-time equivalent hours), the overtime rate is typically paid at 1.5 times the hourly rate. In the figures, below, we have separated additional hours worked by part-time staff members from overtime hours worked by full-time staff (and part-time staff exceeding their full-time equivalent hours).

Overtime may also be paid to existing staff members who are providing cover for staff members who are absent due to long term sick leave or parental leave, for example. In these instances, overtime may be paid through the contingency fund where the MP has notified IPSA of the need to cover staff absence.

Overtime claimed during 2017-18

Please find figures below for overtime paid to connected parties during 2017-18.

Alongside the total number of hours paid, we have broken down this figure by those hours paid as regular overtime from Staffing Costs budget and those paid as contingency payments to cover staff absence.

Holiday pay and pay-in-lieu-of-notice

No payments of this nature were made to connected parties in 2017-18.