Invoice for claim made by Martin Docherty-Hughes for computer hardware

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. The Office Costs budget for non-London MPs for the 2017-18 financial year was £24,850. As long as MPs have funds remaining in the appropriate budget for the financial year, they are not required to provide a specific reason why a claim is being made for expenditure which is eligible under the Scheme.

The only additional information that we hold relating to this claim is the invoice and receipt submitted in support of it. Please find attached a copy of these documents. Please note, we have redacted payment information from this receipt under section 31 of the FOIA. More information on this exemption can be found below.

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.