Repayments made by Rodger Godsiff MP since 2009

Request

After the MP's expenses scandal Rodger Godsiff was found to have claimed for items such as a lawnmower and bath mats. How much over the past 5 years has the MP paid back to the taxpayer due to "accidental" claims


Response

IPSA began operations on 7 May 2010 and does not hold information relating to claims made or processed prior to that date.  Prior to 7 May 2010, the administration of business costs and expenses was the responsibility of the Department of Resources at the House of Commons.  For information relating to claims made prior to 7 May 2010, you may wish to contact the House of Commons FOI team at the following email address: FOICommons@parliament.uk.

IPSA hold information relating to any repayments which have been made since 7 May 2010.

Repayments are made by MPs to IPSA for a variety of reasons, including:

  • refunding business costs and expenses that an MP no longer wishes to claim;

  • refunding transactions on a payment card that an MP has been charged incorrectly or where the MP no longer wishes to claim; or

  • where an MP is in receipt of a rebate, a refund or a contribution towards business costs and expenses incurred from a third party, for example, where office space is shared.

Information relating to repayments may be found via this link to our publication website.  The following instructions will assist you in locating the information:

  1. Select the ‘Data Downloads’ section of the publication website

  2. Select the spreadsheet for the financial year your are interested in, under the ‘Annual Archive’ heading

  3. Open or save the spreadsheet

  4. Filter the ‘status’ column to ‘repaid’

The FOIA states that information that is easily 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).

For your reference, the next publication date is 8 January 2015, which will cover those claims processed by IPSA during August and September 2014.  Claims subsequently processed by IPSA will follow in future publications.

As some information is intended for future, publication. It is exempt from release under Section 22(1) of the FOIA.

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 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.

Ref:
F1415-107
Disclosure:
7 January 2015
Categories:
GENERAL EXPENSES ENQUIRY
Exemptions Applied:
Section 21