Details of any claims by MPs for telephony from Cellhire

Request

Can you tell me how much money has been claimed by MPs for invoices from Cellhire the mobile phone supplier? Also how many MP's have submitted claims from this company?


Response

You requested information relating to amounts claimed by MPs for invoices from Cellhire. Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). 

I can confirm that IPSA holds the information that falls within the description specified in your request. However, IPSA has estimated that it will cost more than the appropriate limit to consider your request. The appropriate limit is set at £450 (Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the FOIA). This represents the estimated cost of determining whether IPSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. 

You requested information on the number of MPs who have had claims relating to Cellhire’s services approved and the corresponding amount reimbursed to MPs. IPSA does not keep a record of the specific service providers MPs choose to use. The online expenses system IPSA administers would categorise such claims under the following headings: “Payment Telephone / Mobile”, “Telephone / Mobile Purchase”, “Telephone / Mobile Hire” and “Other”. In order to extract the information you have requested IPSA would have to conduct a search through these four categories, with an estimated 8,700 scanned images of invoices to search through. It is therefore estimated that extracting the information you require will take over 37 hours to complete. Consequently, IPSA is not obliged by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to respond to your request (see section 12(1)).

Ref:
FOI098
Disclosure:
1 December 2010
Categories:
GENERAL EXPENSES ENQUIRYMPs' OFFICE COSTS
Exemptions Applied:
Cost limit