An Expenses Problem
Jun2
Everybody within Britain who isnt living under a rock knows all about the MPs expenses cock-up, but for those of you not graced with coverage Ill summarise:
MPs in the UK have been claiming a variety of things on their expenses which common sense would suggest you shouldnt really claim for. Things like dry-rot treatment for second homes, large-screen TVs, duck houses and in one case a donation to a collection at church service. Amazingly, nobody seemed to notice this – not MPs, not the accountants they employed (and sometimes claimed for) and certainly not the fees office – until a request under the Freedom of Information Act sought to release details of what MPs were claiming for. Shockingly enough MPs and even the Speaker of the House made moves to block this request, eventually culminating in a release where numbers would be included but not details of what was being claimed for.
Fortunately for the country somebody leaked the entire list to the press, who promptly set upon it, published it, and upturned the entire MPs expenses system.
One key thing which has been seen again and again is MPs saying that they accidentally claimed for something and would of course repay the money. Another common theme has been that claims were errors of judgement, and that again MPs would of course repay the money as an apology. The thing that I dont understand is that nobody has spotted that several expenses claims were obviously bollocks. If a claim was a mistake then by definition it shouldnt have been claimed for, and if it shouldnt have been claimed for then the fees office should not have allowed it.
MPs have been banging on about we need a change of culture and there should be new regulations, but it seems strangely coincidental that this need for a change of culture and new regulations happens at the same time that the public take their first look at some of the crap which has been claimed for and decide almost unanimously (sorry Mr. Fry, I agree that everybody fudges their expenses at some point but not everybody fudges their expenses to buy a flatscreen TV with public funds, tries to stop details of that claim being made public, then apologises and says it was a mistake when trapped in a corner about it) that its just not on.
Heres an idea which I saw elsewhere and cant remember where (somebody remind me and Ill attribute it) – make all expenses claims automatically public and submit them to a publicly-visible clearing house as open data and let the public watch for unacceptable things. Were obviously better at it than the fees office.