Details of new starters employed by MPs

Request

The number of new starters employed by all MPs between 5th September 2017 and the most recent date that data is available. 

For this to be reported in as a dataset

By month or as close to that as the payroll data allows (e.g. September 2017, October 2017)

By MP’s office (if necessary this can be anonymised e.g. MP1/MP2….MP650)

And to indicate the job family (executive, administrative and research)

New starter refers to any member of staff who is newly employed by an MP. Not to include staff promotions or renewed contracts with the same MP.

Response

I can confirm that we hold information relevant to your request, but it is subject to a Refusal Notice under section 12(1) of FOIA.

This exemption applies because we estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit as laid down in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. For IPSA this amount is £450 or 18 hours.

In order to provide information for this request we would need to run a report on two payroll systems; the current system has only been in use since April 2019. Lists of new starters are updated each month, so we would download about 40 files in total. We would then need to go through each file, identify each MP office and remove any information which does not fall in the scope of this. We would also need to check and remove the details of any staff who had received promotions and those who had had a contract renewed.

There are currently 650 MPs sitting in Parliament, and therefore I estimate that complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit.

Ref:
CAS-150324
Disclosure:
6 July 2020
Categories:
MPs' STAFFING
Exemptions Applied:
Section 12