Letter from Parliament – Jim Dobbin MP

Jim Dobbin MP

I’m pleased to be able to give more detail about the way in which the Parliamentary Allowance for Heywood and Middleton is used.

In representing the constituents of Heywood and Middleton in parliament we have a busy office with weekly surgeries and a small team of people who respond to individual casework, research of local and national political concern and contacting ministers when constituents want to say something about the way the Government manages its policy for the country.

There are 101,545 people who live in the constituency of Heywood and Middleton and this means that we are one of the bigger constituencies in the UK. Geographically we support people who live in Castleton, Middleton, Hopwood, Norden, Heywood, Marland, Sudden and Oakenrod. The constituency is a mixture of rural and urban and in order to provide a service to all areas we run five regular surgeries each month in different parts of the constituency.

We also are involved in a number of campaigns that have been brought to our attention by constituents of Heywood and Middleton and we have staff dedicated to working on these issues.

The projects that we are currently working on include: raising awareness of the dangers of involuntary addiction to prescribed medication and influencing health policy in this area, working with international development on vaccination programmes for children within developing countries, the One in Five Campaign with the Council of Europe to tackle child sexual exploitation, support for individuals and families who have experienced the trauma of asbestosis and mesothilomania, Macmillan Cancer support, tackling the horrors of the bedroom tax and developing work around issues of unemployment and training for the under 25s. We are also involved in working groups and parliamentary committees.

All the while we are trying to influence policy making in a way that supports people of Heywood and Middleton. There are many areas of work that come into the office through email and telephone contact each day. We respond to these by contacting the government ministers, forwarding constituents concerns, pushing for responses and raising awareness through written questions to the Government.

The people who live in Heywood and Middleton take a keen interest in their community and are actively involved in the political agenda. We have much contact each week with people letting us know about their views where government policy is concerned. It’s lovely to see this in action and it keeps us busy.

The allowance for each MP is divided into staffing budget, office budget and an amount for bills and incurred when on parliamentary duty, including travel. Exact claims are rightly published by IPSA who regulate standards for MPs. All claims are validated by IPSA who follow strict criteria in their evaluation process. The data published gives a final amount and I thought it would be useful to show the breakdown with information about how the offices operate.

Locally we have two caseworkers, one full-time and one part-time. They work on individual casework and help in the running of services. They are the local link and are available for constituents when I have to be in parliament for votes.

In parliament we have three members of staff who are all part time. Our office manager works on issues related to voting, bill development, work with the Council of Europe and the organising of meetings and committees.

Our two parliamentary assistants deal with constituents requests for contact with ministers in the Government, development of projects to support people of Heywood and Middleton and communication through email, phone calls and website so that constituents are kept up-to-date with the work of parliament.

Please write to us if you have concerns about the way the Government is operating and we will raise these issues via the parliamentary process.

We also have a part-time researcher who is dedicated to our project based work. For instance, he has recently been organising a conference and information booklet on health related issues and the political agenda.

If you become an MP you are allocated a budget for your office and staff. The staffing budget for each MP outside of London is £137,200. My current staffing claim amounts to £127,934.73, which goes to pay the staff in both offices and includes a contribution to National Insurance and staff pension. In total, their staffing hours are equivalent to four full time staff.

The rest of the budget makes up the payments for the rent of the office in Heywood and Middleton, office equipment and for my travel arrangements to and from parliament to the constituency. Obviously those MPs who work in the North of England will have a costlier journey to and from parliament each week.

The myriad of other things that we all pay for, like home heating bills, home improvements, food whilst at work, travel within the constituency, entertaining guests etc, I obviously pay for myself.

When you see a figure for MPs expenses you will know that it relates to each of these areas, it is not a personal payment to the MP.

I hope that this break down helps people to understand more about how the constituency is supported and would love to hear from people from Heywood and Middleton about issues to take to parliament.