Oral evidence: Response to the IPSA Consultation: Procedures and Guidance for the Compliance Officer HC 773Tuesday 14 October 2014
Oral evidence, 14 October 2014.
Witnesses
Peter Davis, Compliance Officer IPSA, and John Sills, Director for Policy and Communications, IPSA, gave evidence in private.
Chair
Good morning. Could I welcome you to the Committee? I am sorry that we have kept you waiting. We have not sat for a few weeks because of recesses and so on, which always tends to build up a bit of an agenda for us. Given, John, that you can see this is being recorded and taken down verbatim, could I ask you to give us your names and the positions that you hold?
John Sills
I am John Sills. I am the director of policy and communications at IPSA.
Peter Davis
My name is Peter Davis, and I am the compliance officer for IPSA.
Chair
Once again, welcome. Things have moved on a little bit. We are very happy and very pleased that you have come along. Obviously, we will be responding to the consultation paper that was put out a few weeks ago. Looking at it, what is the situation at the moment, Peter? We understand that there are currently no open investigations taking place, and the statistics of your office or on your website show that most are closed at the assessment stage, as it were. Of the 16 cases handled so far this year, 11 were closed at the assessment stage. Why is it that there are so few investigations?
Peter Davis
The context, Chair, is that IPSA has an extremely well-drafted scheme. There is very little scope within that scheme for any form of impropriety. I would describe the vast majority of the cases that we get referred to us from the public, IPSA or other sources as falling into three categories, potentially. The first is that there has been an honest mistake by an MP, a proxy or IPSA. The second category is probably vexatious, usually with political motivation. The third category we have is a cathartic release by a member of the public where it contains no evidence whatsoever. So, if we disregard those three categories, we have an extremely well-drafted scheme; there are very few that reach the threshold necessary for an assessment. There have in fact been 14 assessments during the current fiscal year, none of which currently have reached anywhere near the threshold for an investigation.
Chair
What is the purpose of the assessment?
Peter Davis
The assessment allows the compliance officer to weed out those categories of complaint that I have just described, and that is its sole purpose, in effect.
Chair
The Commissioner over on this side of this would not go with any vexatious complaint, unless, of course, there was evidence there. We are told on occasions that there was no evidence. We are never told who the individual is, but sometimes lots of numbers of MPs are being complained against, with no evidence submitted, and therefore it goes no further than that. Is the assessment to assess whether there is any evidence that would make it stand up or not—
Peter Davis
Absolutely.
Chair
Or is it deeper than that?
Peter Davis
No, no; it is no deeper than that. Some of them are more difficult than others to assess. I would suggest that the vast majority of complaints that we do get are relatively easy to assess. There is no evidence; we pursue either the individual or the source of the complaint to ensure that there isn’t anything that they haven’t told us, but, thereafter, if there is no evidence—not even a basic level of evidence—then there is nothing for me to investigate and it is ended at the assessment stage.
Chair
If you could manage to deal with most cases at the assessment stage, why bother to change the procedures, given that the changed procedures protect MPs from adverse publicity? You grabbed a really good headline in The Mail, I think it was, a few weeks ago.
Peter Davis
It was The Mail and The Mirror, wasn’t it?
Chair
I did not see The Mirror.
Peter Davis
The purpose, as far as this change is concerned, is to remove that phase. I still have discretion, Chair. There will always be the discretion that is given to me by the legislation. The assessment phase, I think, ties us up unnecessarily. I can see that the vast majority of cases can be dealt with quite effectively without the need for any publicity, utilising that discretion provided to me by the legislation and by the drafting of the new procedures. I do not see that a substantial chunk of my procedures should be tied down in an assessment phase. It is not necessary; the discretion exists already within the legislation and the procedures.
Chair
The next process then goes on to hearings. MPs can request public hearings, we are led to believe. Has that ever happened?
Peter Davis
MPs can request hearings. The procedure, and not the legislation, says that they should be in public. No; as I have already said, Chair, the context is that there was one substantive investigation during the fiscal year 2012-13, one during 2013-14, and none thus far within the current fiscal year.[1] So these are the numbers we are talking about. Therefore, my experience of any form of hearing with an MP would be necessarily limited, and with those investigations thus far no one has requested a public hearing. That isn’t to say that I cannot speak as part of my assessment and investigative processes with an MP. There is nothing that precludes me from doing that. It is just a form of hearing that we are talking about.
Mr Grieve
If I can get to the nub of this, effectively you want to get rid of the assessment stage, merge it with the investigation stage and make the investigations private and not public. That is it, in a nutshell.
Peter Davis
Nothing is going to be private. The same amount of information will be published as is currently published.
Mr Grieve
Oh yes.
Peter Davis
It is just a question of the timing of that publication. Balancing what the public should get in terms of information, and balancing the fairness to MPs, I think it is more correctly published at the end of the investigation.
Mr Grieve
I agree.
Chair
You go through the assessment stage and agree there is no evidence there to pursue that. However, if there is evidence there, is it then made public that the individual concerned is being investigated currently?
Peter Davis
If there is any evidence—if there is evidence at all that would warrant the opening of an investigation—then, yes, it is. I am obliged by the procedures as they are currently drafted to publish the name of the MP and the content of the investigation very briefly.
Chair
Does that replicate what happens over this side in terms of the Independent Commissioner?
Peter Davis
Yes.
Sir Nick Harvey
But that was only one last year and one the year before.
Peter Davis
That is the context, yes.
Chair
We have had no examination of witnesses or anything else.
Peter Davis
Absolutely not, no.
Chair
You have a clause in the annual report of IPSA saying that there are so low levels of anybody being investigated since IPSA arrived on the scene.
Peter Davis
A clause, chair?
Chair
No; it is just a comment in the annual report.
John Sills
The annual report has a bit in the back which is the compliance officer’s report, has it not? We do an annual report, which always says how many cases there have been and that sort of thing.
Peter Davis
I am obliged by the legislation to produce an annual report which is incorporated into IPSA’s annual report, yes.
Chair
Was there a great deal of adverse publicity from IPSA’s investigations at all?
Peter Davis
Not adverse publicity. There was an awful lot of publicity, and it is not of IPSA’s investigation. I am a statutory office-holder independent of IPSA. The investigation which we conducted last year was of Nadine Dorries; it was in the public domain. Yes, there was a lot of media intrusion, and it did affect the conduct of the investigation in my view.
Chair
Do any other members of the Committee have any questions?
Mr Grieve
Do you think that could have been just as readily done privately, with a publication of findings at the end?
Peter Davis
Unequivocally.
Chair
Just to clarify the agreement that we have, if a Member was found to have, as it were, breached your rules and you don’t have the power that this Committee has in terms of exercising issues around suspending somebody from Parliament, then that would come over here to the Commissioner in the initial stages. Is that correct?
Peter Davis
We have a joint working agreement with the Commissioner which allows me to pass cases which fall beyond my remit to the Commissioner, yes.
Chair
Has that ever happened in the life of IPSA?
Peter Davis
Not during my tenure, no.
John Sills
No, not at all.
Sharon Darcy
Are you surprised that that has not happened?
John Sills
That there have been no references?
Sharon Darcy
Yes.
John Sills
I think what Peter said at the beginning is absolutely right. We have a pretty robust set of rules, and the fact is that MPs are adhering to those rules. That is a good thing. That is what is happening. So there has not been a need to do that.
Peter Davis
I would also say that, inadvertently, a lot of people write both to me and Kathryn as opposed to the correct individual, and, if we receive something which is clearly a matter for the Parliamentary Commissioner, then it is forwarded to Kathryn.
Sharon Darcy
Could I ask a slightly different point? One of the issues with which we have struggled as a Committee is data retention over time. The Commissioner can go back some years in her investigations, but obviously the House has rules around data retention; it keeps data for three years, if I am right. What are IPSA’s policies in this area to ensure that you do not get caught up in similar data retention issues?
John Sills
I am struggling to remember what our limit is. It may be seven years. I could confirm that to the Committee; I cannot actually quite remember it. But, certainly, we have been around for four and a bit years now so we have data for all the period that we have been operating. Peter would have access to that if necessary.
Sharon Darcy
I think it would be helpful for us to know if you were ever going to get into the position that we seem to be in.
John Sills
I will check that; I just can’t quite remember.
Peter Davis
The existing procedures state that, as far as investigation is concerned, unless there are exceptional circumstances, I should not open one that is over 12 months’ old. So, as far as that is concerned, unless there are exceptional circumstances, it would be irrelevant how old the data were.
Chair
Do any other members have any questions?
Walter Rader
I accept that a very limited number of investigations have taken place, but where you have found it necessary to communicate with elected Members, have you found that Members have been co‑operative with you?
Peter Davis
Unequivocally, wholeheartedly. I have not had thus far in my tenure approaching three years anything but the unequivocal co‑operation of Members.
Walter Rader
Thank you.
Chair
Are there any other questions? Could I once again apologise for the delay in bringing you in here, John and Peter, but thank you very much indeed for this evidence session. Clearly we will be responding to the consultation paper in November, I think it is.
John Sills
That is right.
Chair
We will do that at some stage in the next few weeks, but thanks once again, and thanks for explaining to us what is happening over IPSA in terms of this. It is a great pity that not many people will read these minutes when they are published at some stage, but thank you very much for your attendance. Oral evidence: Response to the IPSA Consultation: Procedures and Guidance for the Compliance Officer HC 773 2 [1] This was correct at the time of giving evidence. Subsequently, on 17 October 2014, an investigation was opened into an MP’s claims for travel and subsistence.