FOI 44-26 A request for information relating to other costs claimed by Andy Allen

Information Standards Freedom of Information Response

Our ref: FOI 44-26

6 August 2026

Freedom of Information Act 2000

 

I am writing to confirm that the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission (Assembly Commission) has processed your request dated 10 July 2026 in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). You requested the following information—

‘1. A full itemised breakdown of the £30,353.41 claimed by Andy Allen under "Other Costs" for the period April 2025 to December 2025, including the nature/category of each expense (e.g. recall expenditure, security measures, disability allowance).

2.   The date(s) on which each expense was incurred or claimed.

3.   Any supporting documentation or receipts submitted in relation to these claims, to the extent these are held and not exempt from disclosure’.

 

Our response

The published figure of £30,353.41 claimed by Andy Allen under ‘Members’ Expenditure – Other Expenses’ includes a number of different categories added together. More information on what each of these categories relate to and what is admissible may be found in the Assembly Members (Office and Staffing Costs and Allowances) Determination (Northern Ireland) 2025 (the 2025 Determination), which can be found here. 

No recall expenses were incurred in this period. The published information in this case relates to both the recovery of disability costs and security measures. The Assembly Commission considers that additional detail on the costs incurred by Mr Allen MLA in these categories is exempt from disclosure under the FOIA for reasons given below. 

 

Disability Costs  

Disability costs include costs incurred by the Member which are wholly and necessarily attributable to a disability the Member has, and costs incurred in making reasonable adjustments to the Member’s constituency office, which are not covered under the terms of the lease for that office, to accommodate a disabled member of staff or facilitate access for disabled members of the public.

Information on the specific costs, dates, and purposes of these expenses is exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) of the FOIA, since it constitutes the personal data of Mr. Allen and the condition set out at section 40(3A) is satisfied (disclosure of the information to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles).

The data protection principles are set out at Article 5 of the UK GDPR.[1]  This requires processing of personal data to be fair, lawful and transparent. Processing is ‘lawful’ under Article 5 only if it satisfies one or more of the conditions at Article 6 of the UK GDPR.

In this case, the Assembly Commission has considered whether the processing would be necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest under Article 6(1)(e) of the UK GDPR. ‘Necessary’ means that the processing must be more than useful or desirable and processing is not ‘necessary’ if the task can reasonably be accomplished by some other less intrusive means. 

The Assembly Commission does not consider that the processing of this data is ‘necessary’ within the meaning of the UK GDPR. The public expenditure has been published on the Assembly Commission website. It is subject to approval by the Assembly Commission Finance Office, and oversight by the Assembly Commission’s auditors. Public interest in the use of Members’ disability expenses is adequately met by these steps without a detailed breakdown of the disability expenses claimed by Mr. Allen.

The Assembly Commission also considers that processing data on disability expenses recovered by Mr. Allen would result in disclosure of special category data relating to his health. This would require one of the additional conditions for processing set out at Article 9 of the UK GDPR to be satisfied. The Assembly Commission does not consider that any such condition is satisfied in this case.  

 

Security costs

Costs recoverable for security measures include those recovered relating to the installation of security measures at constituency offices and a Member’s private dwelling. The maximum cost which may be recovered in respect of security measures is £4,000 per Member in respect of each Assembly mandate, which is typically a five-year period. The costs of Members’ security measures are only recoverable if authorised in advance by the Assembly Commission.

The Assembly Commission considers that further information on the costs which Mr Allen recovered for security measures (as regards either his home or constituency office) is exempt from disclosure under section 38(2) of the FOIA, which provides as follows—

(1) Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to—

(a) endanger the physical or mental health of any individual, or

(b) endanger the safety of any individual

The Assembly Commission considers that disclosure of information on the particularities of security costs would be likely to endanger the safety of Mr Allen, as well as that of other Members who have put comparable measures in place. 

Section 38 is a qualified exemption and the Assembly Commission has considered whether the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

The factors which favour maintaining the exemption are—

  • to disclose the particularities of security measures put in place by Members would, should that information be put to improper use, compromise Members’ safety.
  • the total sum which may be expended by Members on such arrangements is limited by the 2025 Determination.
  • a sample of Members' expenses, including expenditure on security measures, is subject to annual audit by an independent contractor (currently Ernst & Young LLP) each year. This is a proportionate means of satisfying the public interest in appropriate expenditure on security measures without disclosure of individual expenditure on such measures.

The factors which favour disclosure of the information are—

  • the general interest in openness and transparency in Members’ expenses, and
  • assuring the public that the Assembly Commission provides adequate resources to ensure the security of Members.

 

Further Information

You may request an internal review of this decision by the Assembly Commission. If you wish to request such a review, please write to me at the above address.  If, after that review, you are dissatisfied with the way in which the Assembly Commission has handled your request for information, you may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Your request for information and our response may be published in the disclosure log maintained by the Assembly Commission under a publication scheme agreed with the ICO. The request and our response will be anonymised. 

INFORMATION STANDARDS


[1] Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council