How your claim data is published

Our Publication Policy sets out how information on MPs' spending of public money will be published, in accordance with the Scheme of MPs’ Staffing and Business Costs.

It supersedes all previous policy statements on the publication of MPs’ staffing and business costs.

We will publish information about claims made by MPs, under the Scheme, in regular cycles.

Claims will not be published when parliament is dissolved, or on a day when local, devolved assembly or parliamentary elections are being held.

We will also not publish information that police advise poses a risk to MPs’ security or to their staff or family.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires every public authority to have a publication policy, approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office, and to publish information covered by that policy.

Read our current Publication Policy.

Previous versions

• Publication Policy, July 2018

• Publication Policy, April 2017

You can find out more by watching our bitesize publication webinars:

• Publication – why we publish

• Publication – what we publish

• Publication – what we don’t publish

• Publication – how we publish

• Publication – Freedom of Information

• Publication – checking budgets for overspends

• Publication – communications

Detailed claims data is published every two months, on the second Thursday of the month.

Information is published four to five months in arrears.

Total spend against each budget for the last financial year is published annually alongside additional information about MPs’ salaries, any connected parties employed, staff job titles and salary ranges, deposit loans, and applications for contingency funding.

Our publication schedule

You can find out more about our publication timetable by watching our bitesize webinar Publication – when we publish.

It is important to keep the objectives of transparency and public scrutiny in mind when entering descriptions of claims.

You can add descriptions when making claims in IPSA Online.

Learn more about Making reimbursement claims, Getting reimbursed for travel, and Getting reimbursed for accommodation.

Using the Description field

All the information you enter in the Description field will be published, except for mileage claims, taxi claims, and venue hire, meetings & surgeries claims.

You should use a description that will help your constituents and the public understand how the staffing and business costs you incurred relate to your parliamentary functions.

Always describe the items or services purchased, along with further details or information that are necessary for providing context.

Remember IPSA will not be able to modify the content of this field once it has been submitted.

Using the Add information field

The content included in the Add information field is not published.

This is where you should add any details that are relevant for validators when they review your claim.

Make sure you specify the line number that your comment relates to.

Examples of how to use the Description field

The following description does not clarify the purpose of the cost for a member of the public:

This description helps constituents and the public understand the reasons why the cost was incurred:

We redact information in the interest of security and data protection, as outlined in section C of our Publication Policy.

It is also recommended that you don't include this information in the Description field in IPSA Online.

Information that will be redacted includes:

• sensitive personal information about you or your staff

• any part of your home address

• invoice numbers, account numbers, policy numbers or references used for payment

• full names or surnames of MPs’ staff, volunteers, and family members

• personal telephone numbers

• names of hotels where the MP stayed at

• the name or details of a security company

• the name of your cleaner or cleaning company

If you do enter this type of information in the Description field in IPSA Online, it will be redacted.

When information is redacted it is replaced with [***] on the public website.

We publish information about claims on www.theipsa.org.uk.

Detailed claims data and other annual financial information for every MP are available in MPs’ staffing and business costs.

You can navigate to individual data either using the Interactive map, or you can Search by MP.

You can also download data about the total spend against budget per financial year for all MPs.

IPSA will send you your redacted publication data every two months, three weeks ahead of the publication date.

We recommend that you check your data before it is released to the public.

If you think we have missed anything, please contact us.

If you experience any problems accessing your data, please contact us.

Your data may include claims from before the current publication period.

As part of our previous publication cycles, we may have decided not to publish particular claims for various reasons, but with the intention to publish them later.

We also make amendments to the data already on our website when necessary.

Visit the Publication Data service.

You can find out more by watching our bitesize publication webinars:

• Publication – how to check your bi-monthly data

• Publication – how to avoid issues

• Publication – adding commentary

IPSA cannot modify the descriptions of reimbursement claims.

We can only redact the data for reasons of security or privacy protection.

We cannot modify either the standard descriptions that are used for payments made with the IPSA credit card and payments to direct suppliers.