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1716927

	registered interest
	date	09/05/2024
	answering body	House of Commons Commission
	answering dept id	18
	answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
	answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
	hansard heading	Parliamentary Estate: Telephone Systems
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, for what reason the Polycom phone system malfunctioned on 9 May 2024.
	tabling member constituency	Warley
	tabling member printed	John Spellar
	uin	25405
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/05/2024 answer text <p>I am sorry that the right hon. Member and all colleagues continue to experience inconvenience in telephony services which are currently below standard. The latest issue with handsets underlines the need for the solution which the Parliamentary Digital Service is implementing later this year.</p><p>Polycom devices need to communicate with an external supplier to register the device and make/receive calls. Each device communicates with one of two external servers. One of the servers experienced issues on Thursday 9 May and any device that attempted to connect to this server was impacted by the outage. Polycom phones communicating with the working server did not experience an outage.</p><p>The first report the Digital Service received of handsets not working was at 12.13pm on Thursday 9 May. The team declared a major incident shortly afterwards and service was restored at 9.46am on 10 May.</p><p>The Voice Programme is upgrading and replacing the existing telephony infrastructure and when implemented, handsets will have 99.999% reliability of connecting.</p> answering member constituency Broxbourne answering member printed Sir Charles Walker question first answered 15/05/2024 14:11:41 answering member 1493 label Biography information for Sir Charles Walker
	tabling member	318 label Biography information for John Spellar

1701365

	registered interest
	date	16/04/2024
	answering body	House of Commons Commission
	answering dept id	18
	answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
	answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
	hansard heading	House of Commons: Telephone Systems
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, what assessment the Commission has made of the level of performance of the Polycom phone system.
	tabling member constituency	Warley
	tabling member printed	John Spellar
	uin	21872
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 26/04/2024 answer text <p>The performance of the current telephony system is not good enough and is falling short of reasonable expectation. The Parliamentary Digital Service is working hard with our suppliers and technology partners to bring the level of service up to an acceptable standard. A new solution has been procured and will be implemented later this year. I apologise to the right hon. Member and all colleagues for the inconvenience they are experiencing.</p> answering member constituency Broxbourne answering member printed Sir Charles Walker question first answered 26/04/2024 15:18:15 answering member 1493 label Biography information for Sir Charles Walker
	tabling member	318 label Biography information for John Spellar

1697795

	registered interest
	date	21/03/2024
	answering body	Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
	answering dept id	90
	answering dept short name	Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
	answering dept sort name	Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
	hansard heading	Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, what assessment the Committee has made of the effectiveness of the handling of MPs expenses claims by IPSA.
	tabling member constituency	Warley
	tabling member printed	John Spellar
	uin	19774
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 26/03/2024 answer text <p>The Speaker’s Committee meets IPSA throughout the year to assess its performance, running costs and effectiveness in handling MPs’ expenses. The Committee last met IPSA on 5 March 2024 and a transcript of that session is available on the Committee’s website: <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/14403/pdf/" target="_blank">https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/14403/pdf/</a></p><p>In 2023, 65.3 per cent of MPs and their staff rated IPSA’s service as either good or very good, which was up on this measure in 2019 when 25.1 per cent rated the service in that way. The time taken for IPSA to reimburse MPs’ claims has reduced from an average of 8 days in 2020-21 to 2.6 days in 2023-24. Compliance with IPSA’s scheme is currently at 99.9%.</p><p>Through its scrutiny of IPSA, the Committee is looking at the steps being taken by IPSA to help improve its effectiveness in enabling MPs and their staff to claim for expenses and business costs. IPSA’s ongoing work includes:</p><ul><li>the development of an IPSA online portal to enhance the customer experience by improving the functionality of the system in areas such as claim and form submission;</li><li>the greater provision of centralised services, reducing the financial and administrative burden on MPs and their staff through the centralised provision of goods and services such as constituency office leases, utilities, and equipment;</li><li>the piloting of an online marketplace, allowing MPs and their staff to purchase goods such as office equipment centrally; and</li><li>exploration of alternative models of reimbursement, enabling MPs and their staff to pay for business costs without the need to claim retrospectively.</li></ul><p>The Committee plans to consider IPSA’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2023-24 later in the summer at which point it will assess IPSA’s latest results against its performance indicators.</p> answering member constituency Broxbourne answering member printed Sir Charles Walker question first answered 26/03/2024 10:33:05 answering member 1493 label Biography information for Sir Charles Walker
	tabling member	318 label Biography information for John Spellar