MPs to get £10000 extra for WFH?

[crosstalk]

Am I being unreasonable to think if true this is ridiculous? When everyone else WFH is sucking it up? Prizes who can think of why - unless like minister Janrick you have two homes and have just travelled 300 miles to bring food to self isolating parents.

And it will all be published. So, in a few months, check on the IPSA website and see how much your MP has claimed.
Every single item.
Every penny.

@MiniMum97 if you do not have everything you need to be able to work effectively from home, you apply to your employer.

Just like MPs can now apply to theirs, on behalf of themselves and their staff.

@picklemewalnuts MPs are an easy target.
That’s why people phone up their offices & scream obscenities (day and night as it turns out)
All calls to our London office now come to our house. (We had to buy an answermachine specially out of expenses )

Maybe do a teeny bit of research about whether it's 'true' before posting.

Please don’t start threads like this before actually looking at the real story

You can actually claim a "wfm expense" on hmrc website. its like 18quid a month to cover your extra gas and elec etc which you use while working from homw

Please don’t start threads like this before actually looking at the real story

Too right, OP forgot to mention the thousands of allowance the MPs already can claim for office expenses.

@Genetic I don't envy MPs and their families. I have worked with a couple in the past (community work type stuff), and they get flack from all sides.

That said, I don't entirely appreciate the spinning of all things from them either.

It's an extra allowance of £10,000 that they can claim against if they have qualifying expenses (extra laptops, new pyjamas, kettle, assistant in or near their home I suppose)

They already have an allowance of £26,000 for office expenses.

Somebody must have anticipated that working from your sofa on your laptop costs thousands more than travelling to work and eating in the subsidised works canteen.

Obviously, since AFAIK nobody else has been given an extra £10,000 expense allowance for working from home, this has caused a great deal of annoyance at the crass insensitivity of MPs.

Many other people have lost their work, some are on 80% furlough, many are struggling.

Are MPs a bunch of complete idiots? Out of touch with reality? Entitled aresholes?

They used to consider themselves entitled to have expenses-paid duck houses and moat cleaning, so the answer is probably Yes.

Some of them are bitching that's it's not a cash bonus. They seem to think that will mollify the citizens.

Austerity?

Magic Money Tree?

All in this together?

Fuck 'em.

An interesting point, useful for anybody who's never been employed, is that for those of us who are not MPs, if the employer pays for a desk, a swivel chair, a iPhone, a laptop, a filing cabinet, a sofa, a John Lewis office coffeemaker, those things belong to the employer.

If an MP claims for them on his office expenses, they magically become his property. Thank you, taxpayers.

Many companies have spent money on office equipment to help people work from home. The two people in my house who used to be office based have both had equipment bought to make them more efficient at home.

This is the same.

The point is that the main beneficiary is the MP's staff - to facilitate working from home as most MPs already probably have a fairly decent set up.

Frankly, any company that expects its people to work from home like this should be trying to support them in a similar way. Obviously, loads of people are not getting this help from their companies - either because the company are crap or because the company simply doesn't have the money - but quite a few are in various forms. I know a person whose company initiated WFM before lock down and asked people to spend the week or so ahead of the expected lock down coming into the office if necessary to take any equipment from there they needed such as chairs, printers, stationery etc.

One of my clients had a similar process but also invested in various fancy tech gadgets because they have severe tech and security issues and these were all issued to staff ahead of time to facilitate working from home.

Frankly, I'd be more annoyed if government staff, civil servants and MP staff are not being treated fairly. There's no way the government is going to help the rest of us if they don't even care about the people who work directly for them.

It does appear to be a leetle bit different when the people who are having their expenses increased (as well as a 2.7% pay rise) aren't getting actually running the country very well.

Healthcare staff with no PPE, and nurses using bin bags for the purpose.

Where is this large scale testing that the UK was promised just a few weeks ago?

There's something about priorities that just isn't sitting right.

No different than any other company providing wfh equipment to employees. It’s not a cash payment or a bonus.

I can get cross with a lot of tax funds being wasted on things I disagree with but can’t get het up about this. Safer for them to wfh for themselves, others and their families.

BlingLover and do you think the govt is honestly treating key workers 'fairly'?

IceCream interestingly, this has made me very het up.

I think because the very people who can't work safely from home eg health care staff, bus drivers, postal workers etc haven't been provided with the correct equipment and many are losing their lives.

Our local hospital circulated a fundraiser for PPE for staff a few days ago. It had been set up by the PTA of a local primary school.

This was after 2 doctors and several nurses died from CV19. One of them was the doctor who wrote to Johnson asking that health workers be provided with the correct safety equipment.

@PigletJohn the MPs did not ask for this.
They were not told in advance it would be offered.
They was no mechanism for them to vote against it.
The independent authority (IPSA) decided it, announced it 2 weeks ago, and emailed the MPs to tell them.
Most MPs are furious about this- they fully understand how this looks.

MPs and their staff are helping hundeeds of constituents daily, and now have many people emailing them (and calling- shouting abuse down the phone- to their staff) about this extra budget. Which they didn’t ask for, didn’t chose, and mostly will not use.

The ones that will, are mostly purchasing a laptop FOR THEIR STAFF to work from home- MPs already mostly have a laptop- staff don’t.
Centrally procured, secured by parliamentary digital people to ensure that government/constituent info is kept secure.

Or should parliamentary staff have to pay for fully secure stuff themselves? For hundreds of phone calls to mobiles abroad (hundreds of constituents round the world needing help) many parli staff are not well paid (some on NMW cos their MP employers are crap- from all parties)
I’d guess 99% of MPs won’t use any of this extra budget.
But yeah- they all fuckers to you.

Let’s hope you never need help getting home from abroad, or need help organising shopping for elderly parents, or advise about your business, or help with your benefits, or your visa, or your housing, or school admissions, or crap SENCOs, or CMS or the DWP, ir the home office, or with a shitty utility provider, or a shitty landlord, or an overzealous bailiff, or a dodgy parking ticket, ir help with planning, or advice on EVERY SINGLE SUBJECT UNDER THE SUN.

Maybe you’re one of the people who calls your MPs office just to scream abuse?
Tbh I dread picking up the phone at the moment.
I work for an MP. It’s good Friday. I worked 3 hours today. I’ll work a few hours tomorrow, and Sunday and Monday. Becuase people need help.

And I’m fully aware I’m jolly lucky.
I have a job.
I’m not in danger.

My workplace bought us all laptops without needing extra funding.

LOL! You mean your employer paid for equipment for work. Just like this then.

So 78% of posters didn't get past the sensationalist headlines then

"No different than any other company providing wfh equipment to employees. It’s not a cash payment or a bonus."

just to check, when your employer spent ten thousand pounds on laptops and filing cabinets, did that equipment magically become your property?

I've reported my post above and asked for it to be withdrawn as it's not as kind as it could be. I'm an arse at the best of times.

I also read that they will be exempt from providing receipts for this sum... so, almost every one of them will no doubt be claiming the full £10K no doubt.