Details of IPSA staff visits to MPs' offices

Request

  1. Please let me know if, as part of their training, IPSA telephone representatives visit Members’ offices to watch Members and staff making expense claims?

  2. Please let me know which IPSA staff have visited which MPs’ offices since May 2010 where they have watched expense claims being made.


Response

In response to the first part of your request, I can confirm that visiting MPs offices to watch make expense claims being made does not form part of their training. IPSA telephone representatives are however trained in how to make claims and are trained in assisting MPs and their staff in doing so. do not visit MPs offices to watch them and their staff making expense claims. MPs and their staff are however able to input expense claims themselves.

With regards to the second part of your request, I can confirm that IPSA staff have regularly visited MPs offices since May 2010 and assisted MPs and their staff in making claims. It is not IPSA practice to release staff names below senior management level into the public domain. We have therefore withheld the names of staff who visited MPs offices since May 2010 under section 40 (personal information) of the FOI Act as the information 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. (Please see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/contents). Under the FOI Act disclosure of this information would breach the fair processing principle contained in the Data Protection Act (DPA), where it would be unfair to those persons or is confidential.

Ref:
FOI2011-015
Disclosure:
10 February 2011
Categories:
IPSA - STAFF
Exemptions Applied:
Section 40