Senior official resigns from MPs’ expenses watchdog

Luke March resigns as Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority’s compliance officer after apparent clash over transparency guidelines Parliament’s troubled expenses watchdog suffered a fresh blow on Wednesday when a senior official resigned after an apparent clash over transparency guidelines. Luke March resigned as the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority’s (Ipsa) compliance officer a week after he declined to name MPs facing investigations over their expenses. His resignation followed an interview with the Press Association last week in which he said it would be “unfair” to identify MPs before any allegations are proved. He indicated that there should be no publicity if they are cleared, though wrongdoers would be identified. March’s resignation appears to follow a debate within Ipsa over the guidelines to the 2009 Parliamentary Standards Act, which set up the body . These said that there would be an assumption that details of a full investigation would be published, though this would be at the discretion the compliance officer. In a letter to Sir Ian Kennedy, the Ipsa chair, March wrote: “Thank you for your time earlier today. As I explained during our conversation, after much thought and with a good deal of regret, I have come to the conclusion that the role of compliance officer for Ipsa is not the right role for me. On that basis, I have decided that the sensible thing for me to do is to resign the post. “So please accept this letter as formal notification of my resignation from the post effective from today. May I wish you and the other board members the very best in taking Ipsa forward.” Kennedy replied: “Thank you for your letter of 27 July and for notice of your resignation from the post of compliance officer. I accept, with regret, and understand your conclusion that the role is not the right one for you. I know you did not reach this conclusion lightly or hastily. I should like to take this opportunity to thank you for your efforts over recent months and to wish you well for the future.” Martyn Taylor is to serve as interim compliance officer for an initial period of six months. Kennedy told MPs earlier this year that preliminary investigations had been launched into the expenses of 40 MPs since the general election. It had been assumed that their details would be published. But March, who succeeded the interim compliance officer Alan Lockwood in June, told the Press Association he would be publishing details until wrongdoing was proven. “The reason why I am not [publishing] now is that we are doing this all for the first time,” he said. “One of the things that makes me nervous is the lack of proportionality. Compared to the previous world some of the things we are looking at are relatively small. “But the system does not make any distinction between major problems and trivial mistakes. Quite a lot of these cases I am referring to have resulted in immediate resolution.” March said that some of the allegations were related to mistakes by Ipsa. “I wanted to be fair to all sides,” he said. ‘”With an MP their reputation is important. I am meeting MPs every week and it is like walking on thin ice. “They are terrified that I might have the wrong idea about a particular fact, even if it is just about a small claim. I do not feel confident with the information that I have got at the moment. I would be very concerned about publishing allegations against MPs which may not be true. I want to be absolutely certain before I publish anything that I have got the facts.” MPs’ expenses House of Commons Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 3, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.