IPSA publishes Annual Report and Accounts for 2021-22

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority today published the annual report and accounts for the 2021-22 financial year.

IPSA’s Chair, Richard Lloyd, said:

"In late 2020, we created a three-year strategy, outlined in our Corporate Plan 2021-24, that will transform IPSA to become an innovative, intuitive, and lean regulator, providing an exemplary service that enables MPs to focus on what really matters.

"During 2021-22, we have made incremental but impactful changes that have stabilised IPSA, improved relationships with our stakeholders and made a difference to how MPs go about their parliamentary and constituency business. We have been focused on improving the service we provide, in close consultation with MPs, their staff and the House of Commons, embedding our new organisation design to make it easier for MPs and their staff to contact us. We have also regularly updated our policy and the Scheme, aligned to the external environment and the needs of MPs and their staff.

"We carried out our statutory responsibilities in full, setting, administering, and regulating MPs’ staffing and business costs, pay and pensions and ensuring that public money was used properly and efficiently. This year, MPs’ compliance with our rules remained very high at 99.85%. We again achieved extremely high accuracy in paying the salaries of more than 4,000 MPs and staff each month. In line with our commitment to act transparently, up until September 2021 we published MPs’ business costs every two months, enabling the public to see how taxpayers’ money was being used. The bi-monthly publication was paused following the shocking murder of Sir David Amess in October 2021, due to potential security risks. Based on advice, we were able to re-start routine publication in July 2022, making minor changes to the level of detail published on some claim types, in order to minimise risks.

"We also met our statutory duty to resource MPs appropriately to enable them to represent and support the UK’s 650 parliamentary constituencies, increasing staffing levels to enable MPs and their offices to better cope with the demand of increased caseloads driven by the lasting impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I am pleased that MPs and their staff are increasingly satisfied with our services and that, despite the backdrop of change across IPSA, we have seen an increase in the engagement of IPSA’s people.

"Building on the improvements we have already made we will now embark on a fundamental review of our approach to regulation that is consistent with our ongoing commitments to improving customer service, simplifying our policy, delivering financial value, and growing our people. Whatever the result of this review we will continue to fulfil our regulatory responsibilities and drive the same regulatory outcomes of very high compliance and value for public money. IPSA Annual Report and Accounts for 2021-22.

"The work of IPSA would not be possible without our dedicated, hard-working team. Among other new recruits, I was delighted to welcome Lea Paterson, who joined the Board as our fifth member.

"To all who have helped deliver year one of our 2021-24 Corporate Plan, thank you. We have made significant progress and while there is much more to do, I am proud of the vital part we play in supporting our democracy and promoting standards in public life."

The annual report is available here.

ENDS

For more details contact IPSA's Press Office: communications@theipsa.org.uk

Follow us on Twitter: @ipsauk

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 on MPs’ pay ourselves, without interference.

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

4. The next scheduled date for publication is 19 January 2023.