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working for two mps
Working for two MPs
Added: 10 May 2004
Why?
Members of Parliament are given a pot of
money to pay staff to assist them in their duties.
This sum (£84,081for 2005-6) is currently roughly enough to cover three full-time
equivalent members of staff. In
order to get the most of their money, MPs sometimes choose to employ one
person jointly. For example,
if two MPs employed most of their staff in their constituencies, but still
needed some assistance in Westminster, they could choose to pay half the
Westminster assistant’s salary each.
It might also happen in larger towns or
cities where MPs have a joint office in the town centre, and combine some
of their budget to employ staff.
There are benefits for the member of staff
as well – each MP has different needs, priorities, and constituents, and
it is a good way to get a lot of experience in a shorter space of time.
It will also force you to be extra organised and build up a wider
range of skills.
However, it does create some particular
practical problems for the staff member who takes on that role, and whilst
the job will vary greatly depending on the employing MPs, this general
guide is intended to assist with some of the problems that frequently crop
up. If you are about to be employed by two (or more!) MPs there are a few
issues worth considering.
Finance
There are normally two ways that people
start working for two MPs. Either
the MPs decide before hand that they want to jointly employ someone, or a
part-time staff member will be offered further part-time employment by
another MP.
In both cases, you are separately employed
by each Member, as if you had two part-time jobs.
So, you need two contracts of employment and will receive two
payslips each month. This can
cause some confusion, and it is worthwhile calling the Fees Office
(Finance and Administration Department) when you first start and asking
them to talk it all through with you.
Tax and National Insurance Contributions: You
should be taxed overall the same amount as if you were paid by one person,
depending on any other income you might have.
However, different deductions will be shown on each slip, because
of the way tax is calculated, so the first time you get paid, call the
Fees Office and check that it is correct.
Pension, Student Loan, Union fees: These
deductions will also feature on your payslips if you are paying them.
They should only be on one payslip, and again, if you are unsure
that it is the correct amount, call the Fees Office.
Holiday and Time Off in Lieu: Just
as if you had two part-time jobs, each MP should allocate you a certain
number of days holiday per year pro-rata, then together this will be the
same amount as a full time job. Unfortunately,
you don’t get two sets of Bank Holidays!
Almost all MP’s staff end up working
overtime and you are all the more likely to if you are trying to assist
two of them. In the standard
contract, members of staff are allowed to take ‘time off in lieu’ of
overtime accrued. In theory, you should take time off during the working
hours of the MP who you worked overtime for, but in practice this can get
complicated. As a general
rule, the best way to deal with it is to keep both MPs and their other
staff informed of your holiday and time off in lieu, so that they know in
advance when you will be away from work.
It is also important to keep a record of
this, just in case of any dispute. If
you are the only member of staff in Westminster, you may well be expected
to be your own line manager. A
simple table of holiday, overtime, and time off in your diary will
suffice.
Office
arrangements
After the financial practicalities of your
employment the next thing on your list should be your office arrangements.
If you have a predecessor, they may be able to help you with this
and it’s a good idea to ask for a hand over period.
If this is not possible then here are a
few things to bear in mind:
Timetable:
How will you organise your time? Some people have one office that
they work from, so need to ensure that they spend the right amount of time
working for each MP. Some
people move between the office of each MP, so the Members need to know
where they can expect to find their staff member when.
When you first start working it’s a good idea to draw up a
timetable and give it out to colleagues so they know when to expect you to
be available.
There will undoubtedly be emergencies when
you are working for Employer 1 and Employer 2 calls you with a crisis and
needs your help. The only
answer to this is negotiation. If
it really is an emergency that you are needed for then, no doubt Employer
1 will understand, but they should expect Employer 2 to ‘pay back’ the
time at a later date.
There are times when both MPs will want
you to work for them at the same time.
In one case, an employee was at a parliamentary reception assisting
one MP, and the other MP stormed in and demanded she come back to his
office and help him with a speech. She
was then in the position of negotiating between them in front of all the
guests. This is a worst case scenario, but you need to make it clear to
your bosses early on that they should be reasonable and you cannot be in
two places at once! If a major national issue happens this can create
extra pressure, but you are not obliged to work more than your contracted
hours because you are working for two people.
Email: You will not
have two email accounts, or profiles on the parliamentary intranet. It can
be helpful to design an email signature that explains who you work for, so
that people emailing you know that they may not be able to expect an
immediate response if you are working for the other MP when you receive
their email.
Shared Drive: PCD
create a shared drive ‘S:/’ for each constituency so that Members and
their staff can easily share their work.
Unfortunately, it is only possible to be allocated to one S:/ at
once, so if you need access to more than one, you have to switch between
them. PCD will arrange this, but it does take some time.
Answer Phone: It is
worthwhile considering a suitable message on you answer phone that
explains your role as working for two MPs, bearing in mind this needs to
be clear enough not to confuse constituents who are redirected to you by
the House of Commons switchboard, who will be expecting their MP!
Working
relationships
It will be much easier to do your job
successfully if your MPs are happy about the working arrangements you’ve
set up. There are a few
things that you can do to help this.
Colleagues: Your co-workers
can be a great help to you in getting things right.
If you are having problems with work over-load or the MP is being
difficult, your co-workers should normally be the first people you turn
to. It’s good to keep them
informed of your work load, and simple things like copying them in to
notes send to your bosses about holiday can really assist them to manage
the MP’s expectations about work deadlines.
MPs: Each Member of
Parliament has a different working style and you will be expected to do
things their way. For
example, you’ll need to remember that most MPs have a ‘house style’
for their correspondence, and you can create lots of extra work for
yourself by confusing them. Using
templates for letters can help sort this out.
It would be extremely unusual for someone
to work for Members from different parties, but political parties are
broad churches, and within a party there might be differences of opinion
on policies. In the worst case, you might find yourself in the middle of a
political row. The best way
to deal with this is to be professional and get on with the job for both
of them. Sometimes, working
for two MPs is like having two children – it’s wise not to choose
between them!
If
one of them loses their seat
Sadly, as you are employed separately by
each MP, if one of them is not re-elected, your employment for that MP
terminates in the usual way. MPs
are allocated a ‘winding up’ allowance to close their office.
They should pay at least
statutory redundancy pay out of this – though this only applies if you
have worked for them for more than two years.
A general rule is that you cannot receive
redundancy pay at the same time as receiving a salary from the Fees
Office. In the case of some one working for two MPs, you need to be able
to show that your employment is entirely separate, and that your work
involves two part-time jobs, rather than one full-time job.
Every case will vary depending on the
working arrangements, but it is a good idea to consider things before
election time, and ensure that you have copies of your contracts that will
allow you to claim the appropriate redundancy pay.
AM April 2005
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