Expenses body to cost six times more than MPs' payback

[muriel_volestrangler]

The Parliamentary body set up to police expenses will cost about six times the amount MPs have been ordered to repay, the BBC has learned.

Figures show the annual cost of running the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority will be £6.5m.

Last week, MPs were told to pay back £1.12m of their second home expenses after an audit of their claims dating back to 2004 by Sir Thomas Legg.
...
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has replaced the Commons Fees Office, and most of its £6.5m budget is expected to go on recruiting about 80 staff. Its chairman Sir Ian Kennedy will be paid a salary of £100,000.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8509815.stm

Is it really going to take about 80 new staff to monitor the expenses of 650 MPs plus the Lords?

[dipsydoodle]

1. Unless my maths is wrong

£6,500,000 minus £100,000 / 80 staff = £80,000 pa each !

Some is having a serious laugh here given they could probably operate out of a caravan in an NCP carpark.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. If you take into account the full costs of employing someone in central London

(eg office space - even if they are in the Houses of Parliament, they're displacing someone who will have to find an office elsewhere; London salaries; employers' NI and so on) £80,000 each for some fairly skilled people, who have to be good enough to stand up to MPs and tell them when they're wrong, may not be unreasonable. But I suppose my point of view is that someone skilled could keep more than the expenses of about 10 MPs under control.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Agreed

To be perfectly honest it doesn't bother how much it costs to stop MPs fiddling.

I've got Claire Ward here in Watford and she lives in Barnet. Cheeky moo was claiming for a second home in central London when she was only a 30 minute taxi ride away from home for late nigh5 sittings. Anyway - with a majority of just over 1000 I think its pretty safe to say that in May whatever it will be time to say bye bye.