Letter to MPs ‘We need to do better than polishing dung’

I enclose some provocative ideas on the genesis of IPSA and the need for a more fundamental reform than polishing dung.

IPSA was misconceived in panic and fear. All parties sought a lifeline to escape the nightmare of the expenses scandal. IPSA was the wrong solution. This is the opportunity to reshape its future. The previous lax rules of the Fees Office invited abuse and were rightly abolished. The best value alternative would have been to replace expenses at reduced total cost with an automatic allowance.

IPSA is a bureaucratic ornament. It was designed to:

Be a bulwark against fraud.

Restore public confidence in MPs.

Create a body remote from MPs’ control, absolving Parliament from accusations of manipulation of finances.

It has failed in all three. Financial scandals have continued in both Houses with toe-curling regularity. The public are still convinced MPs use the system for our own ends. There is a better solution. The previous simple five-part expenses system was atomised into a hundred headings and sub-headings. A monthly 30minute chore was complicated by IPSA into hours of tedious trawling through a bureaucratic morass of rules. IPSA robs MPs and our staff of much of their most precious possession – time. There is resentment against unnecessary chores that diminish MPs’ ability to do their numberless essential tasks.

MPs would embrace a new system without claims or the expensive IPSA. It could be based on an allowance calculated on average expenses based on distance from Westminster and paid automatically. It would be acceptable even if it meant reduction in the amounts that MPs receive because of the liberation from the tentacles of bureaucracy. MPs would gain time, Parliament’s reputation would be protected and IPSA’s annual running costs in excess of £6 million would disappear.