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Speaker of the House and the Chief Whip;
and responded to a number of individual
requests from MPs for one-to-one
meetings.
8 In his dialogue with MPs, the Compliance
Officer has focused on four key issues:
(a) emphasising that his background
(as a former police officer) enables
him to bring a depth of experience,
knowledge, proportionality and
common sense to the role;
(b) noting that the majority of the issues
brought to his attention are the result
of genuine and understandable
errors by IPSA, MPs or MPs’ proxies
which can be dealt with simply and
effectively;
(c) conveying his understanding that
publicity, even in cases without
foundation, carries an inherent risk
of reputational damage to the MP;
and that he will only publish material
when required to do so by legislation
and confine that to a brief and clear
statement of findings;
(d) enhancing understanding of his role
and how it differs from that of the
Parliamentary Commissioner for
Standards.
D Review of the Procedures for
Investigations of the Compliance
Officer
9 In accordance with Section 9A of the
Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, IPSA
is required to determine the procedures
which the Compliance Officer must follow
when investigating allegations that MPs
may have been paid sums to which they
were not entitled under the MPs’ Scheme
of Business Costs and Expenses.
10 In July 2010, following a public
consultation, IPSA published the
First Edition of the Procedures for
Investigations of the Compliance
Officer. Creating a completely new
set of procedures inevitably required
assumptions to be made about how they
would operate in practice. After having
been in place for over a year, a further
review was undertaken, allowing the
experience of operating the procedures to
be taken into account.
11 A consultation process was launched
on 11 October 2011 and closed on 25
November 2011. All MPs and the public
were able to contribute but in order
to comply with section 9A(6) of the
Constitutional Reform and Governance
Act 2010 (the Act), specific consultation
was undertaken with:
(a) The Speaker of the House of
Commons;
(b) The Leader of the House of
Commons;
(c) The House of Commons Committee
on Standards and Privileges;
(d) The Compliance Officer.
12 The consultation focussed on two areas
of the Procedures: assessing complaints
and publishing details of an investigation.
It also proposed a number of minor
changes to clarify and streamline the
Procedures. IPSA received five responses,
broadly endorsing the proposed changes.
Following this consultation, in accordance
with the Act, the IPSA Board approved the
revised version and the Second Edition
of the Procedures for Investigations took
effect on 1 February 2012.
13 The new procedures can be viewed at
www.parliamentarycompliance.org.uk
IPSA Annual Report 2011–2012