Just found a possible corker in my MPs expenses

I'm a public sector worker. We have a department kitty to pay for our tea, coffee and milk. It costs us about £15 per year per head - I wouldn't dream of claiming it backk and would be laughed out of the bursar's office if I tried.

me too. Though I fall into the 'excuse me mr accountant, look at my figures and tell me what exactly I can put through and how to minimise my tax liability please' camp

L
xx

I too work in a school and it costs us £9 per term! But that soes include biscuits, of which we eat a tremendous amount.

But that's not true at all for everyone in the public sector- for lots of people it's perfectly normal to claim back such costs.

I have worked for a number of public and third sector organisations and have never had to pay for my own tea. Honestly, I couldn't care less if my MP and his employees want free coffee and Jaffa Cakes. But then I couldn't really care less about the whole story tbh. ?

So where does the money come from? When schools are short of money and are saying 'no cash for books, there's a budget cut' it's hard to justify perks for teachers. To be fair, if I have time to go to the staffroom at breaktime I can get a free cup of tea, but that's not happened at all this academic year and I don't think our MPs only have one cuppa day.?

It's neither here nor there for me, to be honest - I'm not fussed about freebies (rather have books lol) but I can see why people think claiming for the daily pint is weird.

I do understand your point, Lumpy. However, I think that making a fuss about things that many (most?) people would see as entirely reasonable detracts from the real issues. There are all sorts of probelms re MPs expenses, from genuine fraud to immorality to inadequate rules and inadequate scrutiny...making an issue of MPs buying a pint of milk for their staff (which I think is absolutely fine and completely normal BTW) risks making a nonsense of the whole thing and making critics appear vindictive rather than justified.

This probably comes down to one's view of having free milk at work ?- to me it's the most natural thing imaginable (and I've worked in the public sector).

I agree KN- the focus on the small expenses claims does detract from the much more important, wider issues such as "flipping" . When I worked in the City, all our tea and coffee was provided FOC, both for meetings and from crappy drinks machines on each floor. I don't have a problem with MPs claiming similar expenses, because I think it is normal for similar expenses to be paid in the private sector. However, I think the public finds it hard to understand why MPs have claimed for every small expense generated, on top of other generous allowances such as those for second homes, food at £400 per month and unreceipted petty cash at £250 a pop, on top of their salaries. It smacks of being "on the make". Frankly, when I was working the hours I did when in the City I didn;'t have the time nor the inclination to claim all the small, incidental expenses back.

I can understand public sector workers being especially annoyed at the expenses MPs have claimed. If I earned £22k p.a. as a nurse, for example, working 12 hour shifts in a busy A&E, I think I'd be annoyed at that which MPs could claim legitimately on top of their salaries but that I had to buy every cup of tea I drank on shift (when I had time) and every tired sandwich from the canteen. (Incidentally, my husband did a sabbatical at the then DFES when he was in his first year of practice, and the lawyers all had to buy tea, coffee, milk etc. for their personal use- nothing was provided).

Well it's obvious what I do!!

We pay into a kitty for tea/coffee etc and that's the way it is in the police service, has been for the 17yrs I've been in and the 3 forces I've worked for and in every dpt.

Last month I had to travel from Herefordshire to London to do a prison visit/interview. The rules always used to be that if you were away from your base station you could claim for refreshments. This then changed because they were paying for people's meals when they were on courses or just at a neighbouring station, and the argument was that you could still obtain refreshments "in the usual way" however it remained if you went out of the force or were away for more than 8hours.

Not knowing the location of eateries other than service stations, myself and a colleague stopped twice for refreshments during our 10 hour day. At the first I just had a latte, at the second I had a panini, bag of crisps and another latte. A total of £10.17. I claimed for this on expenses and it was rejected. The rules have changed again and they now say that I didn't incur any additional expenses because I would presumably have been purchasing food anyway (or bringing something from home which I could also have done in this case)

So, to me, it's galling that a police officer who gets paid a whole lot less than an MP, works in the same public sector, isn't entitled to a paid meal when they're travelling 200miles (ish). Yet MPs can claim, legitimately, for all kinds of dubious stuff and until the present time have not had to justify it in any way.

(By the way, I wasn't fussed about my claim being honoured and I can actually see where they're coming from but the double standards are annoying)

The thing that has surprised me most about this whole expenses claim "scandal" has been that so many people have been so surprised that the MPs were pushing the rules as far as they could and claiming as much as they could. I always thought that that was what they did anyway.

Zackerley x

PFL, that's absolutely dreadful and I can totally see why it makes the MPs' expenses scandal all the more enraging. It doesn't follow, however, that MPs shouldn't have claimed things like milk and teabags as office expenses- surely the solution is for all public sector employees to be treated fairly, not that everyone should be equally poorly treated?

LOL genius!

Now if they had'nt sold off the dome........