Members' Travel
Information Standards Freedom of Information Response
Our Ref: FoI 11-20
04th March 2020
Freedom of Information Act 2000
I can confirm that the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission holds information relevant to your request of 31 January 2020. In your request you asked for the following information:
“1. For each of the last five financial years, could you provide a list of the Travel Authorisation Forms have been submitted to the Director of the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission? For this question, please could you provide the following information:
a) MLA who the flight is for
b) The business area which submitted the Travel Authorisation Form
c) The flight destination
d) The date of flight
e) The purpose of the trip
Please find attached at Appendix A information (PDF, 3 pages, 137KB) in relation to your request.
The Northern Ireland Assembly Commission books flights on an economy basis. For ease of reference, it is noted on the attached table as to whether the flight is single or return. Where it was necessary to take two flights to complete the journey, the cost of these have been combined.
On occasion, the central travel desk may arrange flights on behalf of a third party where Members and a third party travel together. On such occasions, the costs may not be borne by the Commission. In addition, occasionally the host organisations may reimburse the costs of the flights. The table has been annotated to indicate where this has occurred.
2. From the information with question 1, please detail whether each claim in the Travel Authorisation Forms was accepted or denied by the Director of the Northern Ireland Commission. Please also detail why any denied claims were denied.
The Northern Ireland Assembly Commission does not hold information in relation to any denied Travel Authorisation claims. All Travel Authorisation Forms are approved prior to the booking of any travel.
3. From the information within question 2, please provide details of the eventual cost of the flight booking of all the approved trips from the accepted Travel Authorisation Forms.
Please find attached at Appendix A (PDF, 3 pages, 137KB), Information in relation to your request.
If you feel that the information we have provided does not meet your request fully, please contact this office as soon as possible. You have the right to request a formal review by the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission and if you wish to do so, please write to me at the above address.
If after such an internal review you are still unhappy with the response, you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF who will undertake an independent review.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
INFORMATION STANDARDS
