News

News

Mailbox Full?

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Your mailboxes have a maximum size limit of 80gb. If you go over this, then you will no longer be able to receive incoming messages and the senders will get bounce messages.

To prevent this from happening, PDS is asking MPs and their staff to either delete or archive old messages. If you choose to archive them, then they will still be accessible to you; the archive size is unlimited.

To see how much of your mailbox you have used, right-click on your inbox folder and select ‘properties.

When the properties box appears, click on ‘folder size’ and then wait a few moments to calculate it. Look at the total size including subfolders and divide it by 1,000,000 to get the size in gb.

Even if you are not nearing the 80gb limit, it is good practice to delete unwanted emails or archive older ones that you may wish to refer to in future – it makes searching your inbox quicker, and archived emails take up less space. If you get into the habit of regular housekeeping – deleting or archiving emails as you go along – it makes your inbox much easier to manage, so go on, give it a go!

Falklands Forty Schools Competition

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To mark the 40th Anniversary of the Falklands Conflict, students are invited to submit essays or stories, posters, podcasts, or short films.

Competition entries are welcomed from students of all backgrounds from across the UK. The winners have the opportunity to visit the Falklands in an all-expenses paid trip.

Please see here for full details: https://www.falklands40comp.co.uk/

Professor Chris Williams Helping you – and your constituents Live Life to the Full

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Thursday 26th May – 10am – 11am

Living life to the Full (LLTTF) is one of the UK’s most popular wellbeing resources, and is widely recommended in health, social care and charity settings. A free access site at www.llttf.com provides online wellbeing skills, and courses to help those living with stress and low mood,  long-term physical health problems including long-covid, new parents and others. It helps people to understand their feelings, and learn key life skills based on the popular and evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approach.

Award-winning author Professor Chris Williams, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Glasgow, and twice past-President of BABCP – the lead body for CBT in the UK,  will give an overview of the resources, and how they can be used to support your constituents, your families, friends and ourselves.  Dr Williams is also Director of Five Areas Ltd which has developed a range of widely recommended wellbeing resources. He is an award-winning author and his books, classes and websites are widely used in the UK, Ireland, and North America. The free-access www.llttf.com life skills course is the most recommended CBT product in NHS England IAPT services and mental health trusts (Bennion et al, 2017 BMJ Open). His work has been translated into Somali, French, Chinese, Italian, Urdu, Ukrainian and Romanian, as well as six other languages.  Contact details for Professor Williams are below.

To register for the meeting, please email [email protected]

Important date of 28 April 2022, for non-recent cases of bullying and harassment 

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It has been a year since Alison Stanley wrote her 18 month independent review of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS), and 28 of her 33 recommendations have now been implemented. This is in large part due to the hard work of the ICGS team. We have created the new ICGS Hub, we are recruiting more investigators, and we have made the complaints process more streamlined and accessible.  

An important recommendation implemented in April 2021 was the agreed time limit for non-recent cases of bullying and harassment. Up until 28 April 2022, there will be no time limit on lodging non-recent cases (this has applied since non-recent cases were eligible under the scheme in October 2019). This has ensured that long-standing complaints that had not previously been addressed, such as the case of John Bercow, could be investigated.  

However, as agreed in both Houses, from 28 April 2022, there will be a time limit of one year from when the bullying and harassment incident (or the latest of those incidents) happened. This is to ensure investigations are conducted in a timely manner, and that evidence can be collected efficiently. After the ICGS opened to non-recent complaints, colleagues did come forward to have their non-recent complaints addressed through the ICGS. Almost three years later, this has naturally tapered off. In the past six months, all complaints were about recent experiences. 

It is extremely important that, if you want to make a complaint concerning bullying and harassment that happened more than one year ago, you should phone the helpline before 28 April 2022.  

For anyone experiencing sexual misconduct, it can take a long time to come to process that behaviour, and so there will continue to be no time limit placed on complaints of sexual misconduct.  

These changes do not apply in respect of complaints about the behaviour of members of the House of Lords or their staff. These complaints are dealt with under the Lords Code of Conduct, which states that complaints must usually be made within six years of the conduct complained of. 

You can call the independent ICGS helpline anonymously and as many times as you need, to ask for advice and information. You can also make a formal complaint about behaviour that you have experienced. Your calls will be treated confidentially and empathetically. For more information please visit the ICGS hub. Former members of the parliamentary community can visit the UK Parliament website for further information.  

The helpline is there for all of us. Please use it. 

Jo Willows, 

ICGS Director 

PolicyMogul

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PolicyMogul is rolling out a free political monitoring and research platform to all parliamentarians and staff
PolicyMogul is a political monitoring and research platform that helps MPs and their staff stay on top of political developments and avoid missing important information from constituents and others.

Many MPs and their staff are actively using the free service.

Please see further details here: https://w4mp.org/w4mp/w4mp-guides/researcher-extraordinaire/policymogul-a-free-political-monitoring-and-research-platform/

No need to book IPSA calls in advance

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There’s no longer any need to book calls to IPSA in advance, you can just call them directly on 020 7811 6400. Your call will be answered by a member of the team, not necessarily your Account Manager or Payroll Officer, who will try to resolve your issue or will forward to a member of the team

However, if you do still want to book a call with a specific team member at a particular time, you can still do this too, using call booking system. You can find the link at the bottom of every IPSA Bulletin.

Independent Expert Panel first annual report

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03 March 2022

The Independent Expert Panel (IEP) has published its first annual report. 

The IEP decides appeals and determines sanctions in complaints against MPs of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct under the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS). It decided six cases last year, upholding complaints against two current and three former MPs. Three were for sexual misconduct and two for bullying.

The IEP is independent of MPs and the House Service and is chaired by retired Appeal Court Judge, Sir Stephen Irwin. The eight panel members are drawn from a diverse range of professional and personal backgrounds. You can find out more about the Panel and read their reports on their website.

Introducing the annual report, the IEP’s Chair Sir Stephen Irwin said:

“We were created to ensure that complaints about bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct by MPs are decided completely independently, and in a fair and rigorous manner that rebuilds the confidence of the Parliamentary community and the public.

Through our public reports we have demonstrated that MPs who bully, harass, or commit sexual misconduct against, their staff, House staff, other MPs or anyone else in the Parliamentary community can be held to account. 

We are only the most visible part of the ICGS process. We rely on the work of the ICGS team, the independent investigators, and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. They ensure that investigations are rigorous, fair to all, and that those involved are supported through the process.

It is of cardinal importance that complainants feel able to come forward. We pay tribute to them, and the House owes them a debt.”

The annual report is available on the Parliament website.

If you have any questions about the work of the IEP please email the Secretary to the Panel Ian Bradshaw ([email protected]).   

Who can I talk to for support?

If you have experienced an incident that is not in line with our Behaviour Code we encourage you to reach out to the people and services available to you for advice, support and help. You can find how to access support, and how to make a complaint on the ICGS website.