Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 19th, 2013

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Through the committee and the establishment of the committee itself of IPSA, there are some mandatory positions, I believe. You said, for example, there's the High Court judge; I think you mentioned the auditor. Then it is left, is it, for the other three spots to be appointed by a hiring committee of the Speaker, which the Speaker would chair?

[John Sills]

They're all appointed by open competition, but what the legislation requires is that we should have a High Court Judge, an auditor, and an ex-MP. It is not specified what the chairman's background should be, and it's not specified what the background of the other board members should be. But those three are there in statute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Lamoureux.

Mr. MacKenzie, you have four minutes, please.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you. I'd just like to clear the record. I think somebody suggested that our Board of Internal Economy is moving to a voting system. That's not true. The Clerk of the House said that there has been one vote in eight years. It deals by consensus.

Sir, I wonder whether you could explain to us a bit about what discretionary spending is available to the independent backbench MPs.

[John Sills]

What discretionary spending is available? Well, we set budgets in a number of areas—staffing, office budget, accommodation, residential accommodation—and within those budgets' limits, as long as it's for parliamentary purposes, it's up to the MP what they claim. In that sense, they have a good degree of discretion about how they use their budgets.

As far as individual claims are concerned, we obviously determine them.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Okay. Now would those claims that we are talking about be claims for travel within their ridings?

[John Sills]

Yes, travel is another one of the budgets. That's not capped, because obviously an MP from Scotland—the other side of the country—and an MP from near to London are going to have very different travel expenses. They are done on the basis of an uncapped budget.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Then my question would be, if you had an MP who lived in the countryside and were to travel around in his riding—to various smaller communities, maybe—would you report his travel on an individual basis?

[John Sills]

We do, yes. They can claim that, and the claims are published on the website.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Do they show to which community he travelled?

[John Sills]

Yes. Each journey is listed. It's quite detailed.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Okay. And is the purpose of the journey listed?

[John Sills]

I'm trying to remember. I don't think we do that for every individual journey. We just say where it was to.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Do you publish that?

[John Sills]

Yes.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I thought I heard you say that you don't publish receipts.

[John Sills]

We don't publish receipts, but on what we call constituency travel, the MP makes the claim. Basically, they have a mileage rate, and so they just say how many miles they've travelled, where from, and where to.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you.

And would you have a sense of the cost of setting up IPSA, or what it costs per year to run the program?

[John Sills]

IPSA costs every year about £6 million. We're both the regulator and the provider of payroll and expenses. And of course, as an independent organization, you have to have all the normal overheads—HR, IT, and so on.

So the total is £6 million. We dispense around £160 million of funding, so this is a relatively small proportion of the overall total.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You have 30 seconds.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Would you know whether, in what we call a member's office budget, each MP has a capped amount to spend?

[John Sills]

Yes, they do.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Would you know what that is?

[John Sills]

It's around £20,000 to £25,000. It depends whether the office is in London or outside London. It's slightly more for London. London is about £24,000, and others are about £21,000.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Mr. Christopherson, you have four minutes, please.