Annual totals paid to all connected parties each financial year

Request

I would like to request under FOI the annual total paid to "connected parties" - relatives or business associates of MPs - in each of the financial years since IPSa was established ie separate annual totals.


Response

IPSA holds the information that you request.

MPs are permitted, under the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’) to employ one employee who is a ‘connected party’ (unless they employed more than one connected party on 7 May 2010). Connected party is defined in the Scheme as:

  1. A spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner of the member;

  2. parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece of the member or of a spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner of the member; or

  3. a body corporate, a firm or a trust with which the MP is connected as defined in section 252 of the Companies Act 2006.

MPs must complete a connected party declaration when employing staff members, stating whether the employee is or is not a connected party, as defined by the Scheme.

You may be aware that we publish annualised data that includes the names of all MPs who have declared to IPSA that they employ a connected party, the name of that connected party and the salary band they are paid. This annualised data can be found via this link to our publication website. The annualised data for 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14 is already available on our website and the annualised data for 2014/15 will be published following the end of the financial year.

Please find below, at Annex A, the total amount paid, as gross pay, to connected parties registered with IPSA, for each financial year since 2010/11. This figure relates just to gross pay, and does not include any National Insurance or pension contributions.

Annex A

Financial yearTotal amount paid to all connected parties (£)
2010/112,411,236.27
2011/123,183,381.26
2012/133,553,033.85
2013/143,766,504.96

Ref:
F1415-080
Disclosure:
19 November 2014
Categories:
MPs' CONNECTED PARTIES
Exemptions Applied:
None