IPSA sees sense? Maybe
No fan of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), I do, however, believe that Parliament needs an external regulator.
That external regulator is called the voter.
In order to ensure that the voter can do their job properly, there needs to be transparency so that folk can see what it is that MPs actually do. This is especially important when it comes to MPs using public money.
The Sunlight Centre for Open Politics first proposed a new system of MPs expenses based on this sort of transparency (to which I wrote the forward). It seems that IPSA might actually be inching their way towards such a system.
In a letter from their head honcho this afternoon, IPSA seem to suggest that MPs travel cards will in effect become cards that can be used to pay certain legitimate costs incurred directly – with total disclosure to guard against mis-use. Some suppliers could even be paid direct by IPSA, in some instances.
As the Sunlight Centre grasped, it is not big bureaucracy, with micro regulation of every possible eventuality that best guarantees good behaviour. Rather it is openness.
Think how much money and angst could have been spared if those who set up IPSA had read the Sunlight Centre report to start with?