Budgets and Expenses April 1st, 2019 to March 31st, 2020
Over the last 12 months my offices have dealt with;
Over 65,000 pieces of communication
Over 3,500 Constituents cases
Held dozens of Surgeries, including market stalls, drop-in surgeries, coffee mornings, and
42 Visits to local Businesses
Hosted 4 x local students for work experience totalling 4 weeks
Visited 9 Calder Valley primary and secondary schools
Held the 3rd annual ‘Older Persons Information Fair’ in Brighouse
Met with many local charities, social enterprises and voluntary/community groups
I will now outline the six areas I have a budget for and show my actual expenditure within these areas.
Staffing
Budget £155,930.00
Actual Spend £147,575.55
£8,354.45 under budget
I employed 4.2 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) on a permanent basis which decreased to 4.0 FTE from December 2019.
The staffing budget is to staff the constituency office. The role of the staff is to help with constituents’ cases, respond to campaigns, organise surgeries, co-ordinate my meetings, arrange publicity, liaise with the media and organise my communication (including social media channels) amongst other things.
To deal with these areas, the constituency office operates from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday each week – with the exceptions of Bank Holidays. We also subscribe to a ‘Pooled’ research service where much of our research is carried out for subjects which our constituents contact us about.
Accommodation Rental & Running Costs
Budget £22,920.00
Actual Spend £18,623.00
£4,297.00 under budget
Hotel Accommodation
No Budget but £150 per night max
Actual Spend £0
MPs & Staff Travel Costs
No Budget but the cost of a standard class day ticket allowed. Staff Travel – Allowance of 96 single Journeys total per year for all members of staff.
Actual Spend £10,358.75
Constituency Office Rent and Running Costs
Allowance £35,430.00 (including £10K uplift to deal with additional workload due to Covid)
Actual Spend £26,575.30
£8,854.70 under budget
The constituency office address is First Floor, Unit 7, Brookfoot Business Park, Elland Road, Brighouse, HD6 2SD. The office consists of a main office and a smaller office where I have meetings and hold surgeries.
I hold my surgeries every month all over the Calder Valley. Also included in the above costs are the room hire costs for surgeries and events (such as Craig’s annual Pensioners Fair)
Included in these costs are the printing and stationery costs for both the Westminster and constituency offices.
Bespoke Administration House of Commons (HOC) Administration
Budget £9,000 (spent £7,732.58 up to the snap General Election 2019. Budget refreshed at £9,000 following re-election).
Actual Spend £ 8,912.16 (+ £7,732.58 under previous budget)
£1,355.26 under both budgets
This budget is purely for postage and HOC envelopes.
Summary 2019/2020
Total Budget
£242,638.75
Total Actual Spend
£219,777.34
Saving on Budgets 2019/2020
= £22,861.41
Craig Whittaker MP