IPSA Chair appointment and Annual Report and Accounts publication

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority today confirmed that Richard Lloyd has been appointed as the permanent Chair of IPSA for a five-year term running until 31 August 2026.

IPSA has also published its Annual Report and Accounts and announced that Annual Publication of MPs’ business costs will now be on 20 January 2022.

IPSA’s Chair, Richard Lloyd, said:

"The year saw profound changes to the way we all live and work because of the pandemic. MPs, their staff, and IPSA were no exception.

"Despite such a turbulent year, IPSA carried out our statutory responsibilities in full. There was no interruption to our core work in setting, administering and regulating MPs’ staffing and business costs, pay, and pensions. This year, MPs’ compliance with our rules remained very high at 99.7%.

"IPSA has a statutory duty to resource MPs appropriately to enable them to represent and support the UK’s 650 parliamentary constituencies. The less visible but vital bulk of what most MPs do is casework: helping local people with almost any kind of problem but especially in dealing with public services or the Government.

"This year, MPs dealt with an unprecedented demand for their help as anxious constituents struggled to cope with Covid. In response, IPSA implemented a rapid, practical package of support for MPs’ staff to help them work safely from home as they continued to serve local people throughout the crisis.

"Our role is to support the day to day working of democracy. We are committed to stronger collaboration with the House of Commons Service and others in the Parliamentary standards landscape, particularly on joining up support to MPs and their staff. And, as the funding authority, we will continue to work closely with the police and security services to make MPs safer following the appalling murder of Sir David Amess.

"I am pleased to have been appointed IPSA’s permanent Chair from 1 September 2021 and am grateful for the confidence and support of the Speaker, the Speaker’s Committee for the IPSA and indeed the entire House of Commons.

"We must now follow this extraordinary year by doing more but better, as we begin our new three-year strategy. That is our challenge and I look forward to working with our renewed Board, Executive, and wider team, as well as with MPs and their staff, to make this ambition a reality."

ENDS

For more details contact IPSA's Press Office.

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Notes to Editors:

1. IPSA was created in 2009 by the Parliamentary Standards Act. The Act was amended in 2010 by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act. Together they gave IPSA three main responsibilities:

• to regulate MPs’ business costs

• to determine MPs’ pay and pension arrangements

• to provide financial support to MPs in carrying out their parliamentary functions

2. IPSA is independent of Parliament and the Government. This allows us to make decisions about the rules on business costs and expenses and on MPs’ pay ourselves, without interference.

3. The Scheme of MPs' Staffing Business Costs governs what MPs can and cannot claim. We review our rules regularly and consult the public when we do so.

4. The next scheduled date for publication is 20 January 2022 when annual data from 2020-21 will be published.