Publication of Allowances etc

Over the years I have always published details about the Allowances used to run my constituency Offices. They have always been published on this website. At the moment various details are spread around the website - including a full list of my staff and their work hours for example. This page has been created to bring all of that information together to make it easier for you to find.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Yours

Andy Reed

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Staffing

Details of my staff are available on the Contact Andy Reed pages. This includes staff names and roles and their salary band. As you will see most of my staff are not paid a great deal. All have full job description, person specifications and work programmes. All were recruited in open recruitment with full Equal Opportunity Practises followed.

I do not get any money paid to me for my staff. All staff are paid direct by the House of Commons Fees Office based on the completion of the Contract of Employment agreed by the Commons Authorities.

So although this figure of about £85,000 is showed as an expense which I get lumped into my allowances/expenses by most of the media I do not ever see the money! So I am not sure why it is still called an expense by the media. I am sure there are not many editors who would list their journalists salaries as an 'Expense'!

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My suggestions for making this more transparent:- I don't think we need to do much more than already suggested. I think we could produce an open list of staffing and their salary bands. We could also register family members working for us. But as most of us already make this public anyway I am not sure what the big deal is here.

Incidental Expenses Budget - Office Running Costs

I am allowed to claim about £21,000 for running my offices. As you can see from the attached information it currently just about covers the costs incurred. For about the first 5 years as an MP the allowance was far too small and I had to cover the additional costs from my own salary. I estimate I subsidised the offices I run for my constituents to the tune of about £30,000 from my own salary. Strange how the media never cover this side of the story isn't it?! I doubt if many of them do the same!

The costs are claimed for running a typical office housing my staff and dealing with 500 emails a day, 30 telephone calls, 100 letters and 50 invitations. At any one time I will have about 120 local issues we are dealing with as well as 20-30 live constituents cases.

The Allowance is paid retrospectively. So I have to pay for items like telephone bills and then submit a claim. My annual telephone bill at the Loughborough office alone is about £1200 per annum. The allowance covers; rent, charges, office stationery and printer toners, staff training and travel, data protection fees, postage, a FREEPOST service for constituents, insurance, hiring rooms for surgeries, mobile phones, broadband, etc etc. ie all the normal items paid to run a fairly typical local office.

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My suggestions for making this more transparent.

I would be happy for all my bills to be paid direct by the Fees Office. This would save the worry of cash flow for me and cut down on having to claim and then these bills appearing as 'expenses'. I Don't know many people who would call the desk they work at an 'expense'. It would be far simpler for the House of Commons to pay the phone bills direct. They already pay items like rent direct. I am happy to publish the breakdown of this £21,000 below.

However, as many people know who work for large organisations this is not always an easy or cost effective method. I have negotiated better deals on IT equipment, servicing and mobile phones for example than the packages available from the Fees Office. Like all small businesses I am keen to drive a good bargain to maximise the amount of money available for a wider range of goods and services in providing an efficient constituency office.

Additional Costs Allowance

As MPs we are required to work away from home. Therefore a system of paying for overnight stays has to be in place. At the moment we have a system based on recovering costs of running a second home or hotel costs for example. I have never liked the way this system works.It would be much better if we were given an allowance for overnight stays (as most people are) and then it was for the individual how they then spent it. This would then end the crazy system of so many rules and regulations about what can and can't be bought. For example my old employer Leicestershire County Council has rates published on its web site. For example the rate would be about £100 for an overnight stay with breakfast and £5.50, lunch at about £10 and an evening meal £17.50.

I claim nothing like this amount. I believe I claim about £8 a day for ALL food & meals for example! I am away from home 4 out of 5 work days - so this would also be about £400 per week - ie about £20,000 per annum on overnight stay alone. Food and other costs on top at £30+ would be another £6240.

I believe this is the Allowance best set for reform. It does seem wrong that we have to make such claims. I would prefer we moved to a genuine Allowance based system based on the nights away from home and based in London like most other sectors.

I attach the breakdown of expenditure and where my claims go. It is illustrative and I am happy to set out even more details. It is the rules of the Allowance which I think need rethinking - not how much detail we have to produce.

ONE BIG ISSUE though. The Freedom of Information request on this matter has one major problem. MPs having to declare publicly their address and details. I have no intention of having my HOME address available to every terrorist, and overzealous protester making their way to London. Never mind every burglar who needs to know where houses are empty during a recess period. Decisions like this make one wonder who these Commissioners making these decisions have been all their lives!

Travel and Mileage

Travel is provided between the constituency and Parliament. I can travel by train and this is paid direct by the House of Commons. This is just like any other organisation I have worked for.

I can also claim for travel to London by car and for the miles I travel in the constituency on parliamentary business. We are paid the standard rate of 40p per mile for the first 10,000 miles and about 20p thereafter.

I use a mixture of travel to London - train and car. In London I walk to work everyday. In the constituency I use a mixture of walking, bus, bike and car.

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My suggestion for making this more transparent:- well this is already published every year with details of what type of transport is claimed. So I am not sure there is much more we could do. What more do people need to know about this to be satisfied? I would be interested to know.

The Communication Allowance

In 2007 a Communication Allowance was introduced. They did this by limiting the number of postage letters we were allowed to use. As an MP I have always kept constituents informed on issues they had raised with me in parliament - so my postage bill was quite high. This was then rolled into this allowance. It is about £10,000 per annum.

This amounts to about 14pence for each voter - not enough for a second class stamp - never mind an envelope and a newsletter.

I have used my Communication Allowance to:-

* Pay for this website hosting
* Pay for an annual report (35,000 printed)
* Pay for its distribution to every household
* Pay for pop up displays for my roving surgeries and coffee mornings
* Pay for advertising surgeries and office contact details in a wide range of local publications - papers, magazines, posters for public places
* Pay for adverts in community, Student Union and sports programmes to reach a wider audience