Fees Office/Operations Directorate Running Costs

Juliet Samuel made this Freedom of Information request to House of Commons

The request was partially successful.

From: Juliet Samuel

1 July 2009

Dear FOI Officer,

I request that a copy of the following documents be provided to the
Sunlight Centre for Open Politics.

a) the Operations Directorate annual budget for all years
2005-2009, including the breakdown of expected costs
b) the Operations Directorate actual annual running costs for all
years 2005-2009, including the breakdown of all costs incurred (or
as many as are available - I accept 2009 might not yet be
available)

Disclosure of the requested information to me is in the public
interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public
understanding of the operations or activities of the government and
it is not primarily in my commercial interest.

By "Operations Directorate" I mean the House of Commons body
responsible for administering MPs' expenses, commonly referred to
in the press as the "Fees Office".

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Yours faithfully,

Juliet Samuel
Sunlight Centre for Open Politics

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From: FOICOMMONS
House of Commons

2 July 2009

Attachment Freedom of Information request Fees Office Operations Directorate Running Costs.txt
1K Download View as HTML

Dear Ms Samuel

Thank you for your request for information dated 1 July 2009, received
by us the same day, which is copied below.

Following the recent publication of information about MP's expenses, we
are receiving unprecedented numbers of requests which, unfortunately,
has affected our ability to consistently meet the statutory targets for
a response. We are allocating additional resources to deal with this but
in some cases our responses are taking longer than we would like or we
commit to normally.

Information relating to allowances for the period 2008/09 - 2009/10 is
currently being prepared for publication and will be available as soon
as possible.

We will endeavour to respond promptly to your request within 20 working
days, i.e. on or before 29 July 2009.

If you have and queries about your request please use the request number
quoted in the subject line of this email.

Yours sincerely
________________________________________________________________
Brenda Brevitt
Project Officer
FOI, Department of Resources
House of Commons
P Please consider the environment before printing

Dear FOI Officer,

I request that a copy of the following documents be provided to the
Sunlight Centre for Open Politics.

a) the Operations Directorate annual budget for all years
2005-2009, including the breakdown of expected costs b) the
Operations Directorate actual annual running costs for all years
2005-2009, including the breakdown of all costs incurred (or as
many as are available - I accept 2009 might not yet be available)

Disclosure of the requested information to me is in the public
interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public
understanding of the operations or activities of the government and
it is not primarily in my commercial interest.

By "Operations Directorate" I mean the House of Commons body
responsible for administering MPs' expenses, commonly referred to
in the press as the "Fees Office".

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Yours faithfully,

Juliet Samuel Sunlight Centre for Open Politics

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From: FOICOMMONS
House of Commons

29 July 2009

Dear Ms Samuel

FOI Response F09-426

Thank you for your request for information which is copied below.

You have clarified your request as follows: by "Operations Directorate" I
mean the House of Commons body responsible for administering MPs'
expenses, commonly referred to in the press as the "Fees Office".

In 2001 the Fees Office ceased to exist to be a separate office within the
Department of Finance and Administration (now known as the Department of
Resources). The work of administering MPs' expenses was subsumed into a
broader Operations Directorate with responsibility for:

o Payment of salary to Members, their employees and House of Commons
staff
o Payments to suppliers of goods and services to the House
o Payment of parliamentary allowances
o Pensions payable to Members, their staff and staff of the House
(Pensions for Members are managed on behalf of the Pension Trustees,
not the House of Commons)
o Guidance to Members on personnel issues
o Training for Members' staff

Given the range of services provided it is not possible to separately
identify operating costs just for the administration of MPs' expenses and
allowances. However, I hope that you will find the following figures which
relate to the Operations Directorate as a whole useful.

Operations Directorate
2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09
Budget Actual Budget Actual Budget Actual Budget Actual
£000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000s
Receipts (2) 0 (3) 0 (2) 0 (2)
Salary related 1,920 1,521 1,912 2,098 2,212 2,333 2,884
Other Staff
Costs 62 0 83 50 58 0 29
Travel and
Subsistence 3 0 1 0 2 0 11
Office Supplies 0 10 15 0 6 0 12
Information 4 0 2 0 8 0 4
Work
commissioned 119 0 105 0 91 0 110
Computer
support 1 0 2 0 6 0 7
Total - 2,107 1,531 2,117 2,148 2,382 2,333 3,055

Notes:

(1) The 2005/06 budget for the then Department of Finance and
Administration was not broken down to an extent which allows a budget for
the Operations Directorate to be separately identified;

(2) A PCPF (Members' Pensions) Secretariat staff cost re-charge is not
included in the above figures. This was £231,140 in 2007/08and £258,889
in 2008/09 - figures for the earlier years are not readily available.
This re-charge should be offset against the salary related costs shown.
The salary related figure shown for 2005/06 excludes a one-off technical
accounting adjustment related to pensions;

(3) Increased staff costs in 2008/09 arose primarily from additional work
on Members' Allowances (e.g. £250 limit on claim receipt requirement
reduced to £25) and growth in the number of enquiries received under
Freedom of Information Act 2000.

(4) Changes in the volume and scope of work (e.g. introduction of the
Communications Allowance from 1 April 2007) makes it difficult to compare
years against each other.

You may, if dissatisfied with the treatment of your request, ask the
House of Commons to conduct an internal review of this decision.
Requests for internal review should be addressed to: Freedom of
Information Officer, Department of Resources, House of Commons
London SW1 OAA or [House of Commons request email]. Please ensure that you
specify the nature of your complaint and any arguments or points
that you wish to make.

If you remain dissatisfied, you may appeal to the Information
Commissioner at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9
5AF.

Yours sincerely

Bob Castle

Head of Information Rights and Information Security House of Commons

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From: Juliet Samuel

7 August 2009

Dear Mr Castle,

Thank you for your reply and the information. The format in which
you sent the information was a little confusing and I would like to
clarify a few things so that I can put the figures you gave me into
an easily understandable table.

Am I correct in thinking the following?: There are four years for
which you have given me information, for each year both a budget
figure and an actual figure. However, 2005-2006 is an exception in
not having any budget figures available solely for the Operations
Directorate.

You then list different categories (staffing, computers etc), each
followed by seven numbers, in thousands of pounds – so that, for
example the last Total figure of 3,055 equates to £3.055million. If
this is incorrect, please let me know what amount of money (in £)
all the figures refer to.
Here are my queries:

- When you list the seven figures under each category, do the
figures begin with the budget number or the actual cost number?
This obviously makes quite a big difference in determining whether
the figure is over or under budget.
So, for example, under "Salary related" you list the first three
figures as: a) £1,920, b) £1,521, c) £1,912. We have established a)
cannot be a budget figure for 2005-06, because there are none
available for that year. Is a), then the actual figure for 2005-06?
If so, is b) then the budget figure for 2006-07 and c) the actual
figure for 2006-07 (and so on down the list). The basic query is,
when I read down the list of seven figures under each category, am
I first reading the actual figure for 05-06 and then a budget
figure for 06-07, or am I first reading the budget figure for 06-07
and then the actual figure for 06-07?

- Am I correct in interpreting that this information shows the
budget for Receipts, Travel and subsistence, Information, Work
commissioned, and Computer support is £0 for all four years? And
that it is £0 for Other Staff costs three out of the four years?
But despite the budget being 0 in these cases, actual costs were
not 0.

- Why are half the Receipts figures in parentheses? Are those
budget or actual cost figures? Also, to what does the “Receipts”
category refer? E.g., Is it for the processing cost of scanning
MPs’ expense receipts? Or if not, what kind of cost would go in
this category? (examples are fine if you do not have a full list of
what kind of costs go into the “Receipts" figures)

- For the category, “Travel and Subsistence”, whose travel and
subsistence does it mean? Is this a general figure for all the
Directorate's staff’s spending on Travel and Subsistence? If not,
by whom or on whom is this Travel and Subsistence money spent?

- Could you clarify what, other than staff salary, might go in the
“Salary Related” category? You have said that pensions costs are
not listed here but does it include things like redundancy packages
for Operations Directorate staff? If not, what kind of things would
be listed in this category other than just staff salaries (just
some examples would be fine if you don’t have a full list).

- Does “Information” refer to computer or website costs? If so, how
should it be understood as different from “Computer Support”? If
not, what does “Information” refer to (as before, examples of the
kinds of costs that go into this figure are fine; we do not need a
full list)

Finally, this is just a general question not related to the figures
you sent: What are the Operations Directorate’s other primary
duties aside from administering MPs expenses? Is it possible to
roughly estimate what proportion of the Operations Directorate’s
work involves administering MPs’ expenses as opposed to other
tasks, and if it is possible, please supply an estimate.

I would be very grateful if you could answer my questions point by
point so as to keep things from getting confusing for either party.
And please let me know as soon as possible if any aspect of this
query is not clear. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Juliet Samuel

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From: Juliet Samuel

10 August 2009

PS: Many of my queries could be answered easily by putting the
information into an excel spreadsheet or table and attaching the
file. This would be an acceptable answer to the queries relating to
what the different figures represent.

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From: FOICOMMONS
House of Commons

24 September 2009

Attachment F09 426.pdf
44K Download View as HTML

Dear Juliet Samuel,

I apologise for not answering to your query earlier. There seems to have been a formatting problem whilst transferring data to the 'whatdotheyknow' website. I attach a scanned copy of our response. Please review this and let me know if anything else is required.

Yours sincerely

Katarina Ndrepepaj | Freedom of Information Coordinator

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