Data products and data validation services

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For the conduct of your parliamentary business, and subject to the limit of your annual budget for office expenses, you may use your budget for data products and data validation services for the purposes of communicating with constituents.

Please note that constituent is a defined term under the PBR Act, as follows:

1.    for a senator of a State or Territory—a person enrolled to vote or resident in that State or Territory; or
2.    for a member of the House of Representatives—a person enrolled to vote or resident in the member’s electorate.

Data products and data validation services that do not relate directly to communicating with constituents are not claimable as an office expense.

Data products

Data products may include datasets that would assist you to contact constituents (for example, phone numbers, email addresses, preferred social media platform/s etc.) or data for tailoring communication appropriately to those constituents (for example, demographic information).

Data products that do not include your constituents are not claimable. The scope of data included in a product should be appropriate to your constituents and the nature of your communication (for example, nation-wide data products are unlikely to represent value for money).

Data validation services

Data validation services assist you to build your constituent database and/or maintain the accuracy and currency of its data.

Payment arrangements

Claims for payment for items from your annual budget for office expenses should be sent to MaPS electronically via the Parliamentary Expenses Management System (PEMS). PEMS provides efficient, digital claims processing at any time of the day or night. However, if PEMS is unable to be used, complete a ‘Certification and request for payment - printing, communications and software’ form.

Claiming office expenses

PEMS log on

Form 141, Certification and request for payment - printing, communications and software

Expenditure is reported in your monthly management reports and quarterly expenditure reports