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“Serious Data Breach” by Expenses Watchdog

Expenses watchdog IPSA has written to all MPs and their staff to apologise for what it calls a “serious data breach” on its website last night. IPSA says it accidentally published confidential documents on its site which revealed “MPs staff names, salaries, rewards, working patterns and holiday entitlements”. IPSA says the material was accessible for about four hours and has now been removed.

31 March 2017

Dear Staff Member

I am very sorry to write to inform you that last night there was a serious data breach on the old IPSA website. Some documents were published in error. These should not have been made public as they contained confidential personal information about MPs‘ staff names, salaries, rewards, working patterns and holiday entitlements.

I would like to reassure you that no information relating to the security of the individuals affected was made public – no addresses, no bank account details, no phone numbers, and no National Insurance numbers were disclosed. However, we recognise that this was still extremely sensitive personal information.

We take information security very seriously and the safety and security of MPs and their staff is a priority. An investigation is currently undenNay and we have notified the Information Commissioner. We will be writing directly to all of those affected.

Our first priority was to remove the data from our website as soon as we were first notified and it was taken down from our website last night within an hour of becoming aware of the issue. We believe that the information was accessible for around four hours and we will keep you updated with further details as we carry out a full investigation.

Please contact us if you have any questions at this stage. I sincerely apologise to you for the distress this has caused.

IPSA, already loathed by MPs, about to become even less popular…

March 31, 2017 at 4:28 pm

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Labour Plan to Abolish MPs’ Expenses Receipts Because Filing Them is a “Chore”

Labour have drawn up plans to end the requirement for MPs to provide receipts for expenses claims. The staggeringly opaque proposals have been made by Shadow Leader of the House Paul Flynn, who is responsible for his party’s policy on MPs’ expenses. Flynn admits his plan is “provocative“, but claims it is necessary to abolish the expenses watchdog and implement an unreceipted allowance for MPs, because filing expenses is a “chore“. The text of the plan, seen by Guido, states:

“A monthly 30 minute chore was complicated by IPSA into hours of tedious frustrating trawling through a bureaucratic morass of rules that are complex and tedious. IPSA robs MPs and our staff of much of their most precious possession – time. There is continuing resentment against unnecessary chores that diminish MPs ability to do their numberless essential tasks.”

Hundreds of thousands of workers across the country take the time to file expenses claims, but Flynn says that’s too much effort for MPs…

He argues the current system, which allows the public to hold MPs to account on each expenses claim they make, should be abolished and replaced by a new “automatic” allowance with no receipts and no transparency whatsoever:

“MPs would embrace a new system without claims or the expensive IPSA. It could be based on an allowance calculated on average expenses based on distance from Westminster and paid automatically.”

So he wants the taxpayer to write MPs a cheque for tens of thousands of pounds and never know how the money is spent. Opaque, unaccountable and ripe for corruption, this is Labour’s new policy on expenses…

UPDATE: A Labour spokesman says “What Paul Flynn has suggested is not Labour Party policy”. But as Shadow Leader of the House Flynn is responsible for their policy on MPs’ expenses…

August 30, 2016 at 8:09 pm

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Named and Shamed: Full List of MPs Shagging Their Secretaries

This morning IPSA revealed MPs had sent £21 million of taxpayer cash to family members in the last five years. Guido names and shames the MPs who employ wives, husbands and children on the public payroll below…

MPs who currently employ their spouse/partner according to the Register of Members Interests:

Nigel Adams employs his wife
David Amess employs his wife
Caroline Ansell employs her husband
Richard Arkless employs his wife
Adrian Bailey employs his wife
Margaret Beckett employs her husband
Henry Bellingham employs his wife
Hilary Benn employs his wife
Paul Beresford employs his wife
Clive Betts employs his partner
Bob Blackman employs his wife
Peter Bone employs his wife
Karen Bradley employs her husband
Graham Brady employs his wife
Julian Brazier employs his wife
Alistair Burt employs his wife
Liam Byrne employs his wife
Gregory Campbell employs his wife
Ronnie Campbell employs his wife
Douglas Carswell employs his wife
William Cash employs his wife
Maria Caulfield employs her partner
Christopher Chope employs his wife
Alberto Costa employs his wife
Stephen Crabb employs his wife
David Crausby employs his wife
Byron Davies employs his wife
David Davies employs his wife
Glyn Davies employs his wife
Jeffrey Donaldson employs his wife
Steve Double employs his wife
Jackie Doyle-Price employs her partner
Michael Dugher employs his wife
Graham Evans employs his wife
Michael Fallon employs his wife
Caroline Flint employs her husband
Paul Flynn employs his wife
Yvonne Fovargue employs her husband
Roger Gale employs his wife
Barry Gardiner employs his wife
Mark Garnier employs his wife
Cheryl Gillan employs her husband
John Glen employs his wife
Robert Goodwill employs his wife
Helen Grant employs her husband
James Gray employs his wife
Chris Grayling employs his wife
Stephen Hammond employs his wife
Simon Hart employs his wife
Alan Haselhurst employs his wife
John Hayes employs his wife
Oliver Heald employs his wife
John Healey employs his wife
Simon Hoare employs his wife
Sharon Hodgson employs her husband
Kelvin Hopkins employs his wife
George Howarth employs his wife
Lindsay Hoyle employs his wife
Dan Jarvis employs his wife
Diana Johnson employs her partner
Gareth Johnson employs his wife
Gerald Jones employs his partner
Helen Jones employs her husband
George Kerevan employs his wife
Greg Knight employs his wife
Ian Lavery employs his wife
Edward Leigh employs his wife
Emma Lewell-Buck employs her husband
Ian Liddell-Grainger employs his wife
Tim Loughton employs his wife
Ian Lucas employs his wife
Angus MacNeil employs his wife
John Mann employs his wife
Karl McCartney employs his wife
Patrick McLoughlin employs his wife
Alan Meale employs his wife
Johnny Mercer employs his wife
Grahame Morris employs his wife
James Morris employs his wife
Sheryll Murray employs her partner
Andrew Murrison employs his wife
Brendan O’Hara employs his wife
Neil Parish employs his wife
Priti Patel employs her husband
Owen Paterson employs his wife
Teresa Pearce employs her partner
Mike Penning employs his wife
Jess Phillips employs her husband
Stephen Pound employs his wife
Yasmin Qureshi employs her husband
Jonathan Reynolds employs his wife
Laurence Robertson employs his wife
Alec Shelbrooke employs his wife
Dennis Skinner employs his partner
Angela Smith employs her husband
Henry Smith employs his wife
John Stevenson employs his partner
Bob Stewart employs his wife
Gary Streeter employs his wife
Julian Sturdy employs his wife
Desmond Swayne employs his wife
Hugo Swire employs his wife
Robert Syms employs his wife
Mark Tami employs his wife
Michael Tomlinson employs his wife
Derek Twigg employs his wife
Valerie Vaz employs her husband
Martin Vickers employs his wife
Charles Walker employs his wife
Ben Wallace employs his wife
David Warburton employs his wife
Iain Wright employs his wife

MPs who currently employ other family members:

Ian Blackford employs his step-son
Rehman Chishti employs his sister
Thérèse Coffey employs her sister
Alex Cunningham employs his son
Nadine Dorries employs her daughter
Jim Dowd employs his nephew
Julie Elliott employs her son
Pat Glass employs her niece
Neil Gray employs his brother-in-law
John Howell employs his daughter
Simon Kirby employs his sister
Paul Monaghan employs his brother
Kate Osamor employs her son
Albert Owen employs his son-in-law
Dan Poulter employs his mother
Graham Stringer employs his step-daughter
Graham Stuart employs his sister
Craid Whittaker employs his daughter
Corri Wilson employs her son

MPs are doing to the taxpayer what they do to their secretaries…

May 11, 2016 at 11:12 am

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Ex-War on Want Boss Recommended As IPSA Chair

Guido was intrigued to see who would be chosen as IPSA’s new chair, an important role that fetches £70,000-a-year for only two days work a week. Turns out the the speaker has opted for Ruth Evans. She’s the former general secretary of the left-wing campaign “War on Want”.

That is the same War on Want that actively supported the Sandinista regime on her watch and throughout the 1980s, even going as far as to launch a “Nicaragua Must Survive” campaign backed by George Galloway at the height of the tyranny in 1985. Aside from their Nicaraguan antics they are well known for their anti-Israel campaigns that lead to a number of investigations by the Charities Commission. Nice to see that IPSA is continuing the great Parliamentary tradition of appointing left-wingers in supposedly neutral roles…

March 21, 2016 at 2:41 pm

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Best Reponses to MP Pay Rise Consultation

Sitting somewhere in an office on Millbank, an IPSA employee sifts through the hundreds of responses to their consultation on MPs’ pay while trying to justify giving them an extra 10%. Here are some of the Great British public’s more forthright contributions.

D.W. Jukes speaks for a nation:

“Obviously shut up in your little Westminster bubble, you have not noticed that the rating of MPs among the electorate is at an all time low. People feel that MPs are totally out of touch with voters, and your decision to review their pay now only confirms it.”

While John F Roga is a fan of caps lock:

“THE DICTIONARY DEFINES WATCHDOG AS ONE THAT CLOSELY OBSERVES GOVERNMENTS AND ORGANISATIONS. A POODLE IS DEFINED AS AN ‘ASSIDUOUS FOLLOWER’. I KNOW WHICH CATEGORY THE PUBLIC WOULD PLACE YOU IN”

Though he’s not as angry as this anonymous writer:

“The watchdog whoever he is is he an IDIOT or what saying the MPs should get 90k a year they DON’T DESERVE 50k a year or there CARS & EXPENSES should be STOPPED until the economy is a lot better.”

Captain Bryn Wayt is getting religious on them (his use of bold):

“I submit this document as a private individual and Christian taxpayer. I furnish my thoughts on the proven fact that the majority of MP’s were fiddling their “expenses” and robbing the public purse before the Telegraph blew their game apart in 2009. Somehow, most of them escaped jail by the skin of their teeth. Such despicable and dishonest behaviour will not be tolerated ever again.”

Mr JR McAvoy makes a not unreasonable point:

“Under no circumstances should you even consider raising their generous salary’s. There would be a national outcry against if you did”

Made slightly more forcefully by F. Biard:

“WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER EVERYONE GETS THE SAME DEAL ITS A SCANDAL”

This anonymous contributor used a powerful sign-off:

“It is immoral for an MP to draw a full salary and hardly ever appear in the house. The excuse of doing constituency work does not wash. Gordon Brown, Chris Huhne, David Miliband, Liam Fox, George Galloway just some names to consider. Yet another disillusioned citizen of what was once Great Britain.”

While John Bell gave greedy MPs a choice:

“MP’s have the same option as every one else if they are unhappy. They can resign and get another job more to their liking and they should be reminded they have this option.”

Best of the bunch? Here is Robert Nielson Donald:

“sir i put it to you they do not need a pay rise they first need to stop double dealing with renting their house to a fellow member then claim expences on another house it is day light robbery, i would love to tell them face to face exactly how the public feel about this. any increase in their salary when the nation is facing price rises in fuel and many being laid off would be a kick in the teeth for the rest of the nation whilst these parasites want more, in closing can i wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year”

Well said, Robert. Well said.

June 5, 2015 at 8:53 am

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Rent Your Flat To an MP, If You Dare

Nice to see the mansions of SW1 getting a look in – this letter has been posted to flat owners near Westminster – but surely this has to be the biggest fib of the election? MPs will be “good quality, respectable tenants”:

Dolphin Square landlords need not apply…

April 17, 2015 at 10:41 am

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MPs Moan as IPSA Boss Wants Second Term

Sir Ian Kennedy, Chairman of their expenses watchdog IPSA, will be seeking another term as chief defender against the piggy-fiddlers, Despite being widely disliked by both MPs and officials, Sir Ian has told friends he has ‘thrown his hat in again’ despite some confusion about whether he’s even allowed to serve a second term in the £100,000 job.

Well at least MPs of all colours will have something to grumble about for the summer.

July 14, 2014 at 10:22 am

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IPSA's False Deal

IPSA have confirmed their recommendation to whack up MPs’ pay to £74,000. Their reforms in full:

A one-off uplift in salary to £74,000 in 2015, an increase of 9.26%, to address the historic shortfall. Thereafter, MPs’ pay will be linked to average earnings – if they go up, so will MPs’. If they don’t, neither will MPs’.
A new pension on a par with those in other parts of the public service, saving the taxpayer millions. Following public consultation on our proposals from earlier this year, we have decided to increase MPs’ pension contributions further, reducing the cost to the taxpayer even further.
Scrapping out-of-touch “resettlement payments” worth tens of thousands of pound per MP. These will be replaced with more modest loss-of-office payments, which will be available only to those who contest their seat and lose.
A tighter regime of business costs and expenses, including ending the provision for evening meals.

IPSA seem to be taking the approach that they have to come to some sort of deal with MPs; that if MPs agree not to fiddle their expenses, sign up to a more reasonable expenses regime, increase their contribution towards their gold-plated pensions and give up their resettlement payments, then they can have a pay rise. This is a false offer. There is absolutely nothing to stop IPSA toughening up on expenses and pensions and ditching the resettlement grant with no pay rise sweetener attached. The only ‘deal’ on the table should be that all these things happen without the condition of a pay rise…

December 12, 2013 at 10:44 am

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IPSA's Imaginary Pay Problem

Writing in The Times this morning, IPSA’s Sir Ian Kennedy is adamant

We will announce a one-off pay rise. Thereafter MPs’ pay will move with the pay of the rest of us. That’s a sensible way forward, which we will implement after a further review of conditions in 2015.
…
I know there is a tension between the reasoning and the politics but we were asked to fix the problem for a generation, not for a news cycle. That is what we have done. The alternative approach takes us back to the days of political deals, with scandal never far away. I can’t believe anyone seriously believes that is the way forward.

Of all the problems in politics, the problem of underpaid MPs is not one that Guido or the voters have noticed. MPs are paid a handsome £66,396, plus another £14,728 if they chair one of the 39 select committees. If they make it to Cabinet, the pay goes up to £134,565 — more than doubling their salary. They are paid a basic salary that puts them in the top income decile. For this, as Gordon Brown shows, they have to do nothing. They also get another £20,100 towards accommodation expenses. Hundreds of them are paid more as ministers or for having extra responsibilities – chairing committees. The average MP costs taxpayers over £100,000 in pay and personal expenses.

It is little acknowledged by IPSA that since 2000 MPs’ earnings have outstripped the consumer price index and since the 1980s their earnings have risen from double the average to the triple figure that they enjoy today. Although politicians are professionally skilled in advancing an argument, they will find it impossible to convince the public that they have gone from being worth twice the average wage to being three times as much. There is no lack of applicants for MPs’ jobs. There is no pay problem.

December 12, 2013 at 9:11 am

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IPSA-daisy

Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the Public Administration committee, said of the re-renting scandal:

“There must be no impression that parliamentary expenses are being used as back door funding for political parties.”

Kicked into action, last week IPSA published a list of MPs that rent off their parties or unions.

When IPSA was set up former Labour MP Tony Wright was appointed as the only politician to its board, on account of his seemingly clean expenses. So awkward then that Wright spent the better part of two decades renting an office in “Jennie Lee House” in his constituency. The clue is in the name – Lee was the widow of Nye Bevan and the building is owned by Labour. Always good to have an expert nearby!

November 18, 2013 at 12:41 pm

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Exclusive: IPSA Makes Thousands of False Tax Declarations

The pen-pushers at IPSA are meant to restore confidence in the expenses system and avoid the pitfalls of paperwork cock-ups, deliberate or not, that have blighted Parliament for so long. Red faces all round then as it seems thousands of MPs staff will get a bit of a shock when they open their annual P60 certificate.

When IPSA was founded, they hammered home the fact that Members would remain the legal employer of their staff. Their contracts make this very clear:

Staff pay-slips back this up. However, the P60 end of year tax certificates, sent to every staffer, state that the employer is “IPSA 7th floor, Portland House, Bressenden Place, London, SW1E 5BH”:

Simply not the case.

A P60 is proof that tax has been paid and the details are meant to be watertight. Guido understands this is what is known technically as “a massive cock-up” rather than a deliberate shift in the employment rules. IPSA have made clear they will replace the P60 with a correct one if staff complain, but it seems they weren’t going to announce the blunder publicly. MPs will be chortling into their subsidised pints that IPSA has messed up their own paperwork. The fact that IPSA can’t get something as basic as Parliament’s P60’s right, doesn’t bode well for the rest of their duties…

June 22, 2011 at 3:31 pm

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How Do You Solve a Problem Like IPSA?

Before Parliament has even resumed for the year, the battle between IPSA and the MPs has flared up again, with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority attempting to use the public as a human shield against aggrieved members. IPSA clearly isn’t working, but the MPs prove time and again that they cannot be trusted to be their own expenses regulator. This morning IPSA have opened up a public consultation for six weeks on how to fix the problems. The PM has warned they have until April to sort it out…

Guido has said it before, and will submit the idea formally, that a House of Commons debit card is the best way to regulate legitimate expenses. The transactions would as normal be electronically recorded automatically and could thus be published online automatically, the spending limits would be automatic and bureaucracy would be minimal. The idea was proposed in Disinfecting Parliament, a 2009 report from the Sunlight Centre that recommended a number of measures based on best practice in the private sector that could easily be transferred to IPSA. MPs have called for a fairer and simpler system, what could be easier than the debit card plan?

January 5, 2011 at 8:41 am

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+++ Auditor General Refuses to Sign Off MPs Expenses +++

The £800,000 worth of non-existant receipts between 2009/10 was, unsurprisingly, a bit of an issue. And that was before the £1.8 million claimed by MPs on trial or under investigation by the Police was taken out of consideration…

Developing…

UPDATE: The statement:

“The qualification arises because the House authorities were unable to provide evidence to support payments to MPs of £2.6 million, including £0.8 million that remains unsupported despite a major exercise to obtain evidence retrospectively and £1.8 million where evidence is not available for audit because the MPs are under investigation by the police.In addition, the evidence supporting £11.3 million of costs reimbursed to Members was not sufficient for the C&AG to confirm the expenditure had been incurred for Parliamentary purposes. This is despite the evidence having been obtained in accordance with the rules governing the MPs’ Expenses Scheme.”

So around £1,200 per Member that they cannot support? Who was it that said they had changed…

December 15, 2010 at 1:45 pm

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IPSA-Daisy III

The MPs got to have a good moan about IPSA, some of it justified, a lot of it hot air, in the House yesterday. Amongst the rants and rages was one snippet that stood out from Labour’s Ann Clewyd. She directly accused IPSA’s ironically named communications director Anne Power of leaking details to the press of MPs expenses.

Since IPSA’s inception stories have appeared about MPs and staffers that they certainly wouldn’t be briefing to hacks. An official denial has been sent out, but it’s certainly a leaky organisation. Obviously the accusation was protected by parliamentary privilege, but something tells Guido that she wouldn’t be suing if it was said in the real world…

December 3, 2010 at 10:10 am

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First Piggy on Trial as IPSA Blows More Cash

As Elliot Morley’s trial gets underway today, the MPs’ expenses bee will simply not leave the Westminster bonnet. ePolitix reports that IPSA are going to spend a million pounds releasing the MPs expense claims data, though there is some confusion over whether receipts will be included in that. While this undoubtedly a good move theoreatically, ironically it will happen on the same day, the 2nd December, that the future of the omnishambolic IPSA is debated in the House. Guido cannot get his head around why it’s going to cost such a staggering amount of money though? He is pretty sure he could do the job with a couple of scanners and some interns for half the price…

November 22, 2010 at 3:42 pm

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IPSA-a-Daisy II

Last month they were accidentally paying people when they shouldn’t and now today, payday, it’s the turn of the bag-carriers and researchers to rage at IPSA. Scores of Parliamentary staff have been underpaid this month, with errors ranging from £20 to £300 shy. An all round saving for the taxpayer.

When one lowly staffer phoned the IPSA offices to complain, they could not come up with an explanation, though ever helpful they replied – “We’ve got some P45 forms if you want one of those?”

June 30, 2010 at 3:00 pm

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IPSA-a-Daisy

The IPSA mission statement proclaims that it “wants to contribute to restoring the public’s confidence in Parliament, to make sure the taxpayer gets value for money from how MPs’ expenses are managed.” All very noble but in reality things don’t seem so new and fresh.

The Commons was paying MPs staff salaries until the election day. The ill-fated Authority was supposed to have taken over for the new Parliament. One female bag-carrier saw that she was paid by both the Commons and IPSA at the end of last month. Clearly one of the few honest dwellers on the Parliamentary estate, the young researcher rang IPSA to let them know about the mistake. What did the new open and honest expenses body say? Keep the money and keep schtum…