Bulletin, 3 November 2022 (Rail strike guidance and payroll accreditation award)

On Friday 4 November, our phone lines will be closed due to staff training. If you have an urgent query, please email us using the word 'urgent' in the subject line.

The phone service will resume as normal on Monday 7 November. 

Payment card lines for September and October are available now in IPSA Online. Please ensure all lines relating to September and earlier are reconciled and have been fully processed by 8 November to avoid the suspension of your card and get ahead for December by reconciling your October lines now.

On Thursday 17 November, we are due to publish all claims, paid, repaid and unpaid, processed in the period from February to July 2022. This is also the date we will publish the annual data for the 2021-22 financial year. This brings us back in line with our normal schedule for data publication.

In a few weeks, we will be launching our annual survey giving you an opportunity to give us feedback on our service over the past year. We hope you will take a few moments to have your say so we can improve our service in the future.

This week's bulletin contains information on:

• Guidance on Rail strikes

• Payroll Accreditation

Guidance on rail strikes

We know there is some concern about the impact of the planned rail strikes, and the difficulty you might face travelling to or from a place of work or event location. We have published guidance on our website to answer any queries you may have.

If you normally travel by train, we would advise you to consider carefully whether travel is necessary during this week and whether planned events can be rescheduled, and that you work and hold meetings remotely if at all possible.

IPSA does not normally reimburse travel costs for commutes – i.e. journeys between your home and normal place of work (Westminster or the constituency office). However, where commuting to an office location is unavoidable, and you incur significant costs as a result (e.g. for a long taxi journey), you may consider applying for contingency funding. Approval will need to be based on the necessity of the journey, the level of cost and the alternatives considered.

Where a staff member is required to travel to their normal place of work but is unable to return home, or it would be unreasonable to return home and then attempt to travel in the following day, we will consider requests for hotel costs, with an explanation of the circumstances and unavoidable nature of the cost.

Likewise, where an MP does not have central London accommodation (e.g. an outer London MP), we will consider requests for hotel accommodation to enable them to work from Westminster if this is required. To note, hotel stays where an MP is working late beyond 10pm are claimable, in line with the normal rules.

Payroll accreditation

We are pleased to announce to both our clients and service users that our payroll team has been awarded the Payroll Assurance Scheme (PAS) accreditation. This award has been issued by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP).

In gaining PAS accreditation, our payroll team has been independently examined by an experienced CIPP assessor. This means you can feel confident that our payroll team is dedicated to compliance and best practice in payroll.