Copies of MPs' invoices

IPSA holds some of the information that you request.

As you will be aware, we publish details of all claims made by MPs for business costs and expenses on our website. Full details of the expense claims IPSA will reimburse MPs is also published on our website.

Please find attached copies of the invoices submitted in support of these claims.

Office costs

Under the Scheme of MPs’ Business Costs and Expenses (‘The Scheme’), the Office Costs budget is provided to meet the costs of renting, equipping and running MPs’ constituency offices. This includes the costs associated with the provision of IT services.

We have redacted information from the receipts under section 31 (Law Enforcement), section 38 (Health and Safety) and section 40 (Personal Data) of the FOIA. Further information is available below.

• 665460

• 18-Jun-18

• Tim Farron

• Expenses - Staffing Volunteer costs

• House of Commons catering

• £1.55

• Allowed

Professional services

Under the Scheme, staffing or office costs can be claimed for payments for bought-in services provided by companies, self-employed individuals or others not on the payroll.

Volunteer services

Staffing Costs may also be claimed to meet the costs of incidental expenses incurred by volunteers. MPs who engage volunteers must submit a signed volunteer arrangement with the volunteer to IPSA before any claims for incidental expenses will be made. The signed arrangement must comply with the model volunteer arrangement published by IPSA. Incidental expenses are limited to reasonable travel and food, and non-alcoholic drinks.

Volunteers are not required to carry out specific duties for the MP, and they are assisting the MP with his or her duties on a voluntary basis. This often includes students on short periods of work experience, or individuals who simply require reimbursement for costs incurred on a one-day event.

Expenses incurred by volunteers are often paid to the MP who then reimburses the volunteer themselves. Details of all such claims are published on our website.

Some information has been withheld in accordance with s.31 (Law enforcement) and s.40 (Personal Information). Further information on the application of these exemptions is available below.

Under the Scheme, travel claims may be made for the costs of travel and travel-related subsistence expenditure undertaken by an MP or others, which are necessarily incurred in the performance of the MP’s parliamentary functions.

Claim under form number 672415 relates to mileage costs, for which no supporting documentation is required. As such, IPSA does not hold the information that you have requested.

Section 31

Section 31(1)(a) (Law enforcement) of the FOIA states that information is exempt if its disclosure under the FOI Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention (or detection) or crime.

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 probable that this information could be traced back to sensitive personal or commercial information which could be used for criminal activity. Although we recognise the public interest in transparency surrounding the publishing of information relating to MPs’ expenses there is also a strong public interest in ensuring that we are able to protect our service users from the threat of being subjected to criminal activity. In our opinion the public interest in protecting the financial security of staff and volunteers engaged by MPs outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information. In addition to this, we believe that withholding information related to an MP’s travel is also exempt, where this could identify an MP’s travel patterns leading to increased risk to the individual or those associated with them.

Section 38 – health and safety

We have withheld some information under Section 38(1)(b) (Health and safety) of the FOI Act. 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. This includes: the mapped routes of each taxi journey, any information which may identify the private residence or overnight accommodation of the MP, and details relating to MPs’ vehicles including the specific locations at which they are located.

 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 the individuals who rely upon these locations for accommodation. 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.

Section 40

Information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person is ‘personal data’, as defined by the General Data Protection Principle (GDPR). Section 40(2) of the FOIA provides that personal information about third parties is exempt information if disclosure would breach any of the data protection principles, defined in the GDPR.

The most relevant of these principles is that personal data can only be disclosed where it would be fair and lawful. In this instance, we do not consider that it would be fair to disclose the personal data of individuals employed by third party organisations. As such, this information is exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) of the FOIA.

 This is an absolute exemption so a public interest test has not been conducted.