Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to request the following information under the Freedom
of Information Act:

1. the total number of MPs who have claimed all or part of their
Communications Allowance;

2. a breakdown of the ways that the allowance has been spent by
those MPs (e.g., on mailings, websites, etc).

Yours faithfully,

Laura Miller

Dear Ms Miller,

Thank you for your email dated 30 September 2008 which was received on
the same day.

We shall deal with your request promptly and let you have a response by
28 October 2008.

If you have any queries about your request, please contact me.

Mandy Kelly
Freedom of Information Assistant

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Dear Ms Miller

Thank you for your request in which you ask for 1) the number of MPs who
have made claims from the Communications Allowance and 2) for a
breakdown of Communications Allowance claims into categories of
expenditure into mailings, websites, etc

1) The Communication s Allowance (CA) was introduced in April 2007. The
House is currently preparing for publication a summary of the totals
claimed by all MPs from each of the allowances including the CA. From
this summary you will be able to determine the number of MPs who made
use of the allowance in between April 2007 and March 2008 and between
April and June 2008. It is anticipated that this information will be
published early in 2009.

Therefore as the information is held by the House with the intention
that it will be published at a later date, it is exempt from the
requirement to provide a copy at this stage by virtue of the exemption
described in section 22 of the FOI Act (the exemption for information
that will be published at a later date). The intention to publish this
information demonstrates that the House accepts the public interest in
providing information about the way in which public money is spent.
However the House considers that the greater interest in providing a
full picture of how that money is spent, rather than providing an
extract at this stage, supports the application of the exemption.

2) The House does not collate this information and while a summary could
be produced by interrogating each of the paper claims forms and
recording expenditure against categories of claims, the FOI Act applies
to information held in a reasonably accessible format and does not
require this level of analysis and considerative activity. Even if this
level of work was required by the Act, the work involved in locating and
retrieving the information and producing the necessary summary would
exceed the appropriate limit set by section 12 of the Act and associated
fees regulations (which sets a limit of 24 hours work beyond which the
House is not obliged to provide information).

While the information is not held for the purpose of the Act, the House
will be publishing at the same time as the summary referred to above,
scans of claims documents and receipts (edited to protect legitimate
security and privacy interests) from which you will be able to compile
your own summary of classes of expenditure.

You may, if dissatisfied with the treatment of your request, ask the
House of Commons to conduct an internal review of this decision.
Requests for internal review should be addressed to: Freedom of
Information Officer, Department of Finance and Administration, House of
Commons London SW1 OAA or [House of Commons request email]. Please ensure that
you specify the nature of your complaint and any arguments or points
that you wish to make. If you remain dissatisfied, you may appeal to the
Information Commissioner at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely

Bob Castle

_________________________________________________
Bob Castle
House of Commons Data Protection and Freedom of Information Officer

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