“Abuse of staff will not be tolerated“. A familiar sign at railway and underground stations; but not at the Houses of Parliament – until now.
There have been so many ill-tempered and unpleasant verbal altercations between MPs and staff at IPSA, their new expenses body, that the latter had to resort to warning members to behave. Bear in mind that many of those working at the authority are young civil servants in their 20s who are only recently out of university. Some of these have been left “close to tears” by MPs’ behaviour.
Some of IPSA’s new rules do seem unfair; for example the fact that it will only pay for 85 per cent of MPs’ work calls. But the way in which it reimburses expenses is not particularly draconian.
The new system functions like those in most private companies; you go online, click a few buttons and fill in various lines with your expenditure. Tedious, but not rocket science. The computer will automatically prevent MPs from making claims that overstep the limits. They will then – once the system is up and running on June 23 – receive a weekly payment.
Yet around 70 MPs are still resisting IPSA’s demands for them to attend a compulsory 15-minute course to learn how to do this and get their access key. Feelings are running high.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey
