Employment details of staff member employed by Nadine Dorries

IPSA holds some of the information that you request.

Under IPSA’s publication policy, we provide annual publication of additional information about MPs’ use of public funds which includes information on the employment and salary bands of connected parties.’ 

IPSA has therefore published details of MPs’ annual expenditure for the years 2010-11 and 2011-12 on its website, which includes the employment details of connected parties, and can be viewed here.

As a result, part of the information you have requested is exempt from disclosure under section 21 of the FOIA (information accessible to applicant by other means) because the information can be searched and located through the IPSA publication website.

We are of the view that any additional information relating to the employment arrangements of Philippa Dorries, other than what has already been published, constitutes personal data and its disclosure would be unfair to the member of staff in question.    Section 40(2) provides that personal data about third parties is exempt if one of the conditions set out in Section 40(3) is satisfied.  Under the FOI Act disclosure of this information would breach the fair processing principle (Principle 1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) where it would be unfair to those persons or is confidential.  Please see www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/40 for further information on this exemption. 

In considering the exemption, we balanced the legitimate public interest in disclosing the information against the right of the employee.  Bearing in mind the employee in question is a junior employee, we came to the decision that the application of the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

This approach is in line with guidance provided by the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance on requests for personal data about public authority employees which states that “it is reasonable to expect that a public authority would disclose more information relating to senior employees than more junior ones.”

IPSA does not hold any information relating to evidence of work carried out by Parliamentary staff.