Members' Expenses 2010-2011 (Period April 2010 - March 2011)

View Members' Salaries 2010-2011

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Office Cost Expenditure (OCE)

The expenditure detailed above is for April 2010 to March 2011.

The Northern Ireland Assembly (Members’ Expenditure) Determination 2010, which was introduced in March 2011, changed the name of this element of financial support from “Office Cost Allowance” (OCA) to OCE.

The maximum OCE available for 2010/11 was £75,857.04. Any Members who left the Assembly during 2010/11 received OCE on a pro-rata basis up to the month of leaving. The Northern Ireland Assembly dissolved on 24 March 2011 and for those Members who retired from the Assembly at that time, OCE was payable up to and including the 24 March 2011.

OCE is paid to meet the expenses incurred by a Member in connection with carrying out his or her Assembly duties. OCE is not an automatic entitlement that is paid to a Member by virtue of membership of the Assembly. It can only be paid to a Member who has actually incurred allowable expenditure.

As its name suggests, it is generally used to allow a Member to provide a service to constituents through a constituency office. Items that can be claimed from OCE include office rent and rates, offices utilities (including heating and lighting and telephones), office equipment, office furniture and office consumables. OCE may also be used to cover the cost of engaging the services of administrative support staff and to buy in research or secretarial services. OCE cannot be claimed without valid proof of the actual expenditure that has been incurred.

The amount of OCE available each year is a maximum amount which must not be exceeded. However if during the year a Member submits an invoice, and there are insufficient funds available to process the full invoice the Member may choose to submit the necessary funds to the Assembly to facilitate payment to the supplier. If a Member makes such a contribution this will be recorded as a negative amount on the published report, along with the description: “Contribution to ……”. Other contributions may be made by Members from time to time towards invoices which may not relate solely to Assembly business – e.g telephone bills.

Members may choose to engage the services of volunteers to assist with then with their Assembly business. The reimbursement of expenses incurred by such volunteers, in assisting the Members, may be claimed from OCE. However the information held by the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission in relation to the expenditure paid to these individuals is regarded as sensitive personal data on political opinion. The Data Protection Act 1998 requires the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission to process this information in accordance with the Data Protection Principles which are set out in Schedule 1 Part 1 of the Act. The first Data Protection Principle requires the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission to process this sensitive personal data fairly and lawfully and requires that at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 and Schedule 3 of the Act is met before publication can be undertaken. It is not considered that any of the conditions in Schedule 3, which are necessary for publication, have been met and therefore this information has not been published.

OCE claims may be paid directly to a supplier or as a reimbursement to a Member. Should a reimbursement be made to a Member for allowable expenditure, the Member’s name will appear as the “supplier” on the published report. Members may use the Assembly Stationery Office to purchase stationery for Assembly business. This will be charged to OCE and the supplier is recorded as the “NI Assembly”.

A Member may choose to rent a serviced office, the cost of which will generally include rent, rates, utilities and staffing. These have been recorded as “serviced office costs” unless the rent has been charged separately.

Winding Up Expenditure

Winding Up Expenditure is the financial support available to all former Members of the Assembly to allow them to bring their Assembly business to an orderly close. Winding Up Expenditure (like OCE) is not an automatic entitlement, it may only be claimed for actual receipted expenditure. On the implementation of the new Determination the maximum amount of Winding Up Expenditure that may be claimed is one third of the OCE amount payable in any year.

Other Expenditure

Other Expenditure includes childcare, temporary secretarial expenditure, support staff mileage, disability expenditure and support staff statutory redundancy payments. The most prevalent of these is temporary secretarial expenditure. This is payable to a Member in respect of additional costs that he or she has to incur in order to employ additional staff to cover employees who are absent from work due to illness or injury.

Resettlement Payment / Ill-Health Retirement Payment

Paid to former Members who do not stand for re-election, are not returned at an election or retire on the grounds of ill-health.

Travel Expenditure (Motor Mileage)

Members receive a standard rate of Motor Mileage payment for business travel by car. The rate is 40p per mile for the first 20,000 miles and 25p per mile thereafter. For mileage between 10,000 and 20,000 miles, Members incur a tax liability on the difference between these two rates (i.e. 40p – 25p = 15p). The amounts shown for Travel Expenditure (Motor Mileage) are the gross amounts claimed by Members and do not reflect any tax deducted. Members’ motor mileage payments are likely to be affected by the distance they live from Parliament Buildings and by the size of their constituencies.

Other Travel

Other Travel includes airfares, taxis and public transport expenses.

Subsistence

Subsistence expenditure is recoverable in respect of expenses incurred when a Member’s is away from his or her normal place of residence on Assembly business.

View Members' Salaries and Allowances 2009-2010