Bulletin, 21 July 2022 (form trackers, feedback and complaints policy, McCloud judgment, feasibility study)
Last week we published business costs data covering the period June 2021 to January 2022. We have a number of articles on our website, as well as a page dedicated to tackling some common misconceptions, that might help you answer queries about MPs' pay and business costs.
The deadline to complete our survey for December pay is Friday, 29 July. See below for more details.
As part of our commitment to sustainability, we no longer accept paper Leaver Forms. All Leaver Forms should now be completed in IPSA Online.
This week's bulletin contains information on:
New feedback and complaints policy
New form trackers in IPSA Online
Responding to the McCloud Judgment
Feasibility study: property management support
Publication webinar - new dates
Homeworking allowance reminder
Payment card reminder
December pay survey
New feedback and complaints policy
At IPSA we aim to get it the right first time, and when we make mistakes we want to learn from them. This week we have launched our new feedback and complaints policy which explains how to give us feedback, how we will handle it and what you can expect from us.
When we receive feedback, we will:
listen, to make sure we fully understand your feedback or complaint
respond to your feedback promptly, investigate what happened, and explain what we find
be open with you, apologise if we’ve made a mistake and put it right
use your feedback to improve and to prevent future problems
As you know, the quickest way to give us feedback or tell us about a problem is to contact your account manager or payroll officer, who are the best people to look into and resolve any problems straight away.
Alternatively, please email us at feedback@theipsa.org.uk to tell us what happened and when, and what you’d like us to do to put it right. You can find out more about our new policy here.
New form trackers on IPSA Online
Following the success of the forms tracker we launched in May, we have created four new form trackers to help you track the status of the following forms in IPSA Online:
Bank Details for Expenses Form
Dependants Form
Direct Payment Correction Form
Overtime Form
These trackers will tell you who the form is with and whether any action needs to be taken to progress the request.
You can find detailed guidance on our website here.
Responding to the McCloud judgment
Earlier this year, we undertook a consultation setting out the detailed policy changes to the MPs’ pension scheme as a result of the McCloud judgment.
This followed our earlier consultation in spring 2021. Our Board has decided to proceed with changes to the MP scheme to remove any potential age-related unfairness in the transitional arrangements since 2015. These will be reflected in the revised scheme rules.
We have now written to statutory consultees outlining the IPSA Board's decisions that will be taken forward. You can read the letter here.
You can find more information about the consultation on our consultation page.
Feasibility study: Property management support for MPs' constituency offices
We are about to begin a feasibility study regarding property management support for MPs’ constituency offices. We would like to hold a workshop with MPs and staff to ask you about the needs and challenges you face around the property management of your constituency offices.
We need eight to 10 participants. Please let us know if you are interested in joining this study and we will confirm full details with you in due course. To note, this workshop is scheduled to take place in the month of August during MPs' summer recess, so please take this into account regarding your availability before submitting your interest to participate in this study.
Publication webinar – new dates
We have added four new dates for the Publication webinar. This webinar will provide insight into the publication process including annual publication.
The session will cover the reason why we publish data, what data is published and how to check your data and the action you may need to take. Register for the Publication webinar.
For all other training sessions, and to access our training videos, visit the training and development page.
Homeworking allowance reminder
As we announced on 9 June, payment of the homeworking allowance (£26 per month) will be ending, to ensure that we stay compliant with HMRC rules on reimbursement of homeworking costs.
The final payment for most staff members will be with the July payroll at the end of this month. Staff members who are on home-based contracts will continue to receive the allowance unless opted out.
More guidance can be found here.
Payment card reminder
Payment card lines for June are now on IPSA Online. Please ensure all lines are reconciled and have been fully processed by 8 August to avoid the suspension of your card.
We will also be rolling out a proxy payment card scheme, where MPs can request their business costs proxy has a payment card of their own. We will have more details about Proxy cards in September.
December pay for MPs and MPs' staff
All MPs and MPs' staff currently get paid on the last working day in December. We could bring this forward so that everyone gets paid the week before.
There are benefits to being paid earlier in December but it also creates a longer gap in January before being paid again.
Please complete the survey below by Friday 29 July to let us know your preference.
If there’s a clear preference to change the date, we will look to implement that this year. Without a clear preference for change, we’ll keep the December pay arrangement as it is now.