“Furious MPs have lashed out at the ‘rubbish’ watchdog that handed them a 10 per cent pay rise in a serious of extraordinary private rants.
Staff at the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) were told to ‘grow some’, and condemned for publishing information that embarrassed politicians.
One MP lambasted the body for failing to increase their pay to more than £200,000 a year to replace expenses, and said they were preparing champagne to toast the departure of chairman Sir Ian Kennedy.
The messages have been released following a freedom of information request by MailOnline.
Ipsa handed MPs a bumper salary increase from £67,000 to £74,000 last year, despite the rest of the public sector being limited to 1 per cent.
They busted the cap again last month with a 1.3 per cent rise.
However, many MPs were angry about the timing of the increases and way they were handled, while the watchdog has also come under fire for publishing details of expenses debts.
Ipsa agreed to disclose the ‘free text’ responses from a recent survey of satisfaction levels among members and their staff, which was carried out anonymously.
One MP who was re-elected at the general election accused the watchdog of locking them in a ‘Kafkaesque nightmare’.
‘You are rubbish at acting on behalf of the Members of Parliament – you serve yourselves and are so far from ‘helping us do our job’ the complete opposite. Everyone feels the same – new and older MPs,’ they wrote.
The same politician insisted the expenses system should be ‘replaced completely by an allowance system rolled up with our salary’. That could see them handed around £140,000 a year on top of their current salary of just under £75,000. There would be no obligation to file receipts but they would have to fund their own offices.
‘No forms just £10-12k per month to go and do the job we want to do, freed up from your Kafkaesque nightmare of a system,’ the MP wrote. ‘Office/staff costs run as now but freeing us up from the bureaucratic bullying of Ipsa and allowing us to get on with doing the job we were elected to do – not form filling, looking over our shoulder and dealing with the media storm that Ipsa wonderfully conjures up for us…
‘And you wonder why you aren’t popular… ‘
Adding £12,000 per month to MPs’ salaries would leave them earning nearly £220,000 a year.
Answering a question about how communications from the watchdog could be improved, the politician replied: ‘Grow some and put your full name on there.’
WHAT MPS SAID TO THE WATCHDOG
‘You are rubbish at acting on behalf of the Members of Parliament – you serve yourselves and are so far from “helping us do our job”, the complete opposite…
‘Can’t wait till the discredited bully Ian Kennedy receives his marching orders – 650 glasses of self-funded champagne will be raised on that great day that can’t come soon enough.’
‘To be reduced to tears due to attitude and being ignored, left me very upset and vulnerable…
‘Just sort out basic incompetence and bad attitude. I have never used a more customer unfriendly service EVER.’
‘The decision to name and shame MPs with written off claims with an Ipsa press release was disgusting, unprofessional and as it turned out erroneous in too many cases.’
‘The justification for the large pay increase was appalling.
‘In essence Ipsa took the view that at the time when some (perhaps many) MPs were submitting claims that were permitted but publicly indefensible, the total amount claimed was acceptable.
‘They therefore took the combined value of all the indefensible claims, averaged them out, and added them to everybody’s salary – thereby implicitly condoning what had happened before.’
The MP added: ‘Can’t wait till the discredited bully Ian Kennedy receives his marching orders – 650 glasses of self-funded champagne will be raised on that great day that can’t come soon enough.’
They went on: ‘Trust you have enjoyed reading the responses as much as I enjoyed writing them!… I wonder when they will be published…’
Other re-elected MPs were similarly scathing.
One wrote: ‘The decision to name and shame MPs with written off claims with an Ipsa press release was disgusting, unprofessional and as it turned out erroneous in too many cases.’
Another complained that Ipsa was not covering all the costs it should.
‘Your ‘cost neutral’ payrise will for all MPs do further damage to our reputation as no one in the media seems to mention that it is not a raise in the package at all,’ they added.
Newly-elected politicians did not hold back in their criticism either.
One commented: ‘Too complicated. Too bureaucratic. Sloppy administration of paperwork in support. Guidance unclear. Online system cumbersome and complicated.’
Another respondent said they had been reduced to tears by ‘abysmal’ treatment from Ipsa.
‘I have submitted five official complaints due to the attitude I have received,’ they said.
‘I find the Ipsa service extremely unhelpful, arrogant, and choose not to listen. The behaviour meted out towards me has left me very upset on occasion and highly stressed.
‘To be reduced to tears due to attitude and being ignored, left me very upset and vulnerable. Dealing with Ipsa has been a completely frustrating and upsetting experience. I just don’t trust them.
‘Just sort out basic incompetence and bad attitude. I have never used a more customer unfriendly service EVER.’
Among the new-intake MPs taking aim at the pay hike was one who said: ‘The justification for the large pay increase was appalling.
‘In essence Ipsa took the view that at the time when some (perhaps many) MPs were submitting claims that were permitted but publicly indefensible, the total amount claimed was acceptable.
‘They therefore took the combined value of all the indefensible claims, averaged them out, and added them to everybody’s salary – thereby implicitly condoning what had happened before.’
Another more experienced politician complained that Ipsa’s approach meant they were under ‘constant pressure’ to refuse the increase.
‘Ipsa announced MPs one off pay rise very frequently, against the wishes of the public we serve, and failed to highlight the offsetting savings being made elsewhere,’ they said.
‘As a result, colleagues were under constant media pressure to refuse their pay rises, as the public were unaware of the offsetting reductions. It did nothing to help the reputation of politicians.
A spokesman for Ipsa said today: ‘We recognise that there is room for improvement and we are committed to working with MPs and their staff to continue to improve our services and systems, to make them more efficient, whilst still regulating MPs’ business costs and expenses effectively.
‘From the survey feedback, we are developing a new website that will be launched later this year.’
East Devon Watch 
The people who need a reality check are not IPSA – it is those MPs who think that:
a. As public servants, they are entitled to claim expenses without them being available for scrutiny by the public;
b. IPSA is there to help them rather than to scrutinise them on behalf of the public – IPSA is not providing a service to MPs, it is providing a service to the public.
c. An above inflation, above public-sector-cap pay rise is not enough and they are entitled to salaries of £200,000+ paid for by you and me;
d. Unlike EVERY other type of job, they can have a gravy-train allowance of £140,000 (which they could avoid spending and keep for themselves) rather than claiming actual expenses incurred to do their job;
e. That the media storm about expenses is created their own abuse of the expenses system rather than IPSA, abuse which in any other job would have resulted in many MPs being investigated by the police for embezzlement (rather than a somewhat gentler IPSA) and which would result in criminal convictions rather than a polite request for repayment.
f. The reason IPSA is unpopular is because they are too harsh on MPs – well that might be true about why IPSA is unpopular with MPs, but the reason IPSA is unpopular with the electorate is because they are TOO SOFT on MPs. The electorate expect MPs to have to live up to the same laws as the rest of us – which means having expense claims scrutinised – and to set a public example of probity (which means being scrutinised in public).
The only MP who seems to understand the role of IPSA and its shortcomings is the one who said:
‘The justification for the large pay increase was appalling.
‘In essence Ipsa took the view that at the time when some (perhaps many) MPs were submitting claims that were permitted but publicly indefensible, the total amount claimed was acceptable.
‘They therefore took the combined value of all the indefensible claims, averaged them out, and added them to everybody’s salary – thereby implicitly condoning what had happened before.’
MPs only have themselves to blame for the poor press they receive (because of attitudes they demonstrate in e.g. these sorts of comments) and for the expense rules they now need to live under (because of the flagrant liberties and abuses that they undertook with the previous system).
In short, they should suck-it-up and get on with the job that WE pay them to do, or resign here and now.
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