Receipts for claims made by Jim Shannon for accommodation and office costs

IPSA holds the information that you request.

Under the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’), all claims for reimbursement under the Scheme must be supported by evidence. You can view a copy of the Scheme on our website via this link. As such, we hold all supporting documentation provided in support of claims made by MPs.

Office Costs Expenditure (OCE) is provided to meet the costs of renting, equipping and running an MP’s office or offices and surgeries. This includes the costs of utilities, rates and telephone rental incurred at an MP’s constituency office.

Accommodation Expenditure is designed to meet costs necessarily incurred on overnight accommodation which is required for the performance of an MP’s parliamentary functions – including the costs of hotels in London.

The following information has already been published on our publication website relating to claim 440810 submitted by Jim Shannon MP.

Please click here to download the documentation submitted by Mr Shannon for the claim specified in your request.

A small amount information, such as the phone number and account number of the MP, is ‘personal data’, as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). As such, we have withheld such information in accordance with section 40 of the FOIA. For reference, section 40(2) provides that personal information about third parties is exempt information if disclosure would breach the fair processing principle (Principle 1) of the DPA, where it would be unfair to those persons or is confidential. You can find out more information about personal data and FOI via guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on their website: http://ico.org.uk.

Further, we have withheld information pertaining to travel expenditure incurred by Mr Shannon under section 38 of the FOIA. This section of the Act states that information is exempt if its disclosure under the FOI Act would, or would be likely to, endanger the safety of any individual. After considering the nature of the withheld information it is our opinion that were a disclosure to be made into the public domain it is likely that this information could be used to endanger the safety of Mr Shannon. Ongoing and exceptional security threats continue to be made to MPs representing Northern Irish constituencies. Although we recognise the public interest in transparency surrounding the publishing of this information there is also a strong public interest in ensuring that as an organisation we are able to protect our service users from threats to their safety. In our opinion the public interest in protecting the personal safety of MPs outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.