Simon Reevell MP's staffing costs

Request

Please could could you give me a breakdown of Simon Reevell MP's staffing costs for the financial years 2010/11, 2011/12 and 2012/13.

Please could you include the Job title/description and the accompanying salary for all staff and state if this is for the constituency office or parliamentary.


Response

IPSA holds the information that you request.

You will be aware that the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’) states that ‘Staffing Expenditure may be claimed to meet the cost incurred in the provision of staff to assist with the performance of an MP's parliamentary functions’.  The Scheme does not specify where a member of staff should be located.

IPSA publishes the details of annual staffing expenditure on our website, which include annualised figures for 2010/11 and 2011/12. The annualised figures for 2012/13 are due to be published on 12 September 2013.

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 comparable list rather than on an ad hoc basis, as in this way a clear and complete set of information is published, avoiding any potential confusion. It is for this reason that the application of the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure at this stage. 

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).

Please find attached, in Annex A, a list of job titles for the members of staff employed by Simon Reevell MP for the financial years requested, alongside the location they were based at.  Needless to say, the list provided only relates to job titles and not individuals, and the inclusion of a job title in a financial year  does not necessarily imply that an individual was employed in that position for the entire financial year.  As well as permanent members of staff, the list may include part-time as well as full-time staff. The number of staff employed in each financial year, as set out in the Annex, do not therefore equate to the number of full time equivalents or, necessarily, to the number of staff actively working in any particular office.

In IPSA’s view, the information you have requested relating to the precise salaries of staff members is exempt under section 40 (personal information) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), as it constitutes personal data.

Section 40(2) provides that personal data about third parties is exempt information if one of the conditions set out in section 40(3) is satisfied. Under the FOI Act disclosure of this information would breach the fair processing principle (Principle 1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), where it would be unfair to those persons or is confidential. For further information, you may wish to visit the UK Legislation website.

We do, however, publish salary ranges for each job title, which are available via the link to the job descriptions provided above.

2010-11

Job titleLocation
Senior Parliamentary AssistantLondon
Senior CaseworkerOutside London
Caseworker & Office ManagerOutside London
CaseworkerOutside London

2011-12

Job titleLocation
Senior Parliamentary AssistantLondon
Senior CaseworkerOutside London
Caseworker & Office ManagerOutside London
Parliamentary AssistantLondon
CaseworkerOutside London

2012-13

Job titleLocation
Senior CaseworkerOutside London
Caseworker & Office ManagerOutside London
Parliamentary AssistantLondon
CaseworkerOutside London

Ref:
F1314-091a
Disclosure:
14 August 2013
Categories:
MPs' STAFFING
Exemptions Applied:
Section 21