Stormont orders an expenses overhaul

The Assembly has launched a major review of MLA expenses — raising expectations that tighter rules will be introduced.

The review move follows the expenses scandal at Westminster and rumbling controversies about the current regulations at Stormont.

It was announced by the cross-party Assembly Commission which oversees administrative and financial decisions at Parliament Buildings.

The Commission has been deliberating on an assessment of MLA pay and expenses published last December by the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB), a UK-wide advisory body.

Its recommendations included halving the £72,000-a-year MLA office expenses available to members who are double-jobbing as MPs.

Other issues expected to be covered in the review will include annual audit checks on payments and independent assessment of rental sums claimed for MLA constituency offices.

The Commission’s work will focus on the official allowances rule book — the Members' Financial Services Handbook — which has not been updated since late 2006.

It said it intends to enhance the document’s guidance to MLAs, taking into account “best practice in other legislatures”.

Assembly Speaker William Hay, who chairs the Assembly Commission, said: “We want to ensure that the Assembly is open, transparent and demonstrates value for public money. Our goal is to have in place a model of best practice which is effective in supporting MLAs in their important work on behalf of the community and which commands public confidence.”

The Assembly expenses system is based on the much-criticised House of Commons model.

It does not include a Stormont equivalent of the now discredited second home allowance for MPs.

However, some aspects of the MLA rules have attracted criticism for being more lax than Westminster's regulations.

MLAs are still allowed to receive rental expenses for constituency offices owned by family members. MPs were barred from making such claims some six years ago.

The Commons rulebook also requires independent rental assessments when MPs are leasing premises owned by their political parties. There is currently no such requirement for Assembly members.

In the financial year 2007/08, the bill for MLA expenses came to £7,558,771.

Some £6.8m of this total went on the Office Cost Allowance (OCA), which includes staff salaries and office rent. A significant number of MLAs employ relatives through the OCA. The allowance was increased from £48,000 to £72,000 a year per member when devolution returned in May 2007.

The Assembly Commission also said today that it has decided to “publish more detail” about MLAs' individual expenses, starting in the current financial year.

It would now seem to have little option but to move towards full receipt-level breakdowns for all items claimed.

This approach has been in operation at the Scottish Parliament for some time.

The House of Commons last year lost a lengthy battle with Freedom of Information campaigners on expenses.

It was ordered to release the receipts submitted by MPs over a number of years.

It was in the process of collating material when it was leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Daily coverage of Westminster expenses claims has followed, provoking a fully-fledged political crisis.

The Daily Telegraph has only published limited information on Northern Ireland politicians to date, including the £30,000 in food expenses paid to DUP couple Peter and Iris Robinson in the period 2004 to 2008.

Belfast Telegraph