Parliamentary

15
Evidence will continue to be required to
support claims but will increasingly be
provided through suppliers of goods and
services rather than MPs, where this is
efficient and cost-effective.
17 In 2011-12, we have continued to deliver
an improving level of performance in all
areas, reduced average payment times,
an improved experience for those using
our systems and a reduction in the
proportion of payments which need to be
made from MPs’ own bank accounts.
Payroll
IPSA Facts
Stretching operational performance
targets were set and exceeded in 2011-
12:
• 95.2% of claims were processed
within 10 working days [Target:
95%];
• reviews of rejected claims as
part of our assurance and review
programme identified 0.09% of
processed claims as errors [Target:
1%];
• over 91.6% of correspondence
items were resolved within 5
working days [Target: 90%];
• an accuracy level in published
information on MPs’ claims of
99.98% was achieved [Target:
99.75%];
• payroll accuracy levels were
99.99% [Target: 99.75%].
18 IPSA managed an average monthly
payroll of 3,400 (compared to 3,150 in the
previous year), and paid the salaries of
MPs and their staff on time each month
throughout the reporting period. During
the year, 1,161 new staff joined the payroll
and 984 left it. We achieved a payment
accuracy level of 99.99%, exceeding our
target of 99.75%.
Claims processing
19 IPSA processed over 184,000 claims for
business costs and expenses during the
year (compared to 125,000 during the
11 months we were operational in 2010-
11). Our MP Support Team dealt with
25,798 calls (an average of 500 monthly)
and 18,077 emails, which was broadly
equivalent to volumes in the previous
year. We continued to make regular
visits to MPs and their staff to answer
questions and offer them support in
how to use the systems, and we held a
number of other meetings and ‘drop in’
events. We have met each of our three
targets in this area:
• 95.2% of claims were processed within
10 working days, against a target of
95% (and compared to 96% within the
then target of 12 working days for the
period October 2010 to March 2011);
• our quality control activities found
that errors were made in 0.09% of
payments, against a target of 1% – a
significant drop on the equivalent
figure for 2010-11 of 1.64%;
• over 91.6% of correspondence items
were resolved within 5 working days,
against a target of 90% – a small
increase on the figure for 2010-11 of
91%.
Administration improvements
20 In line with the plans set out in our
Corporate Plan, we delivered a
programme of improvements to meet the
strategic goals set out in para.16. During
the year we:
• made a number of improvements
to the online expenses system for
making claims (eg the creation of a
‘favourites’ function allowing MPs to
save and retrieve regular claims). We
IPSA Annual Report and Accounts 2011-2012