Twenty-second Annual Report for 1999-2000 Annex A



Annex A
Reports by the Board of Management
And Individual Departments

Financial Year 1999-2000


Report by the Board of Management

 

1. Membership and objectives of the Board
The Board of Management comprises:
W R McKay CB Clerk of the House
M J A Cummins Serjeant at Arms
Miss P J Baines Librarian
A J Walker Director of Finance and Administration
I D Church Editor, Hansard
Mrs S J Harrison Director of Catering
Brian Wilson CBE is the Board's Secretary.
During the year, two Board members retired: Sir Peter Jennings CVO (Serjeant at Arms) and Miss Jennifer Tanfield (Librarian). Much credit goes to Sir Peter and Miss Tanfield for their indefatigable service to the House and to their respective departments.

Over the year, the Board of Management has concentrated on five key areas:

  • High quality services for the chambers and committees, for Members, and for the public. The Serjeant at Arms Department's adoption of a "best possible service" ethic is an example of this.
  • Modernising management. This includes much better and co-ordinated business planning, and the implementation of the report by Mr Michael Braithwaite and his team (see below).
  • Exploiting technology, where good progress has been made on development of the Parliamentary website, convergence of all IT systems across Parliament and on the new electronic point of sale system in the Refreshment Department. Technological developments will open up further opportunities which are currently being explored.
  • Managing resources. This area is developing rapidly, with devolution of decision-taking on staff resources under the new manpower planning system, and the introduction of resource accounting which will give managers at all levels a truer picture of the cost of providing services and the use of capital resources.
  • Providing good value. The Board has worked hard through improved planning, co-ordination and control to offer increasing value for money in the services provided.
 

The milestones for 1999-2000 give further examples of developments in these broad areas.

2. Milestones for 1999-2000
2.1

General

The year was busy and eventful. The business of the House has been running at historically high levels throughout the year, and the House administration has had to anticipate and meet a wide range of needs and challenges. The Board of Management has responded successfully to these requirements, within the resources provided by Parliament.

 
2.2

Westminster Hall sittings

An important new development during the year has been the parallel chamber sitting in Westminster Hall. The House agreed to this experiment in May 1999, and sittings began in November. The Parliamentary Works Directorate carried out the necessary refurbishment and reorganisation work in the Grand Committee Room during the Summer recess. The work was carried out successfully under a "develop and construct" arrangement (a novel approach for the House) to a very high standard and in a short space of time. Once sittings began, there was increased work for various departments of the House, covering procedural advice and support, Hansard reporting, security and broadcasting. As a short-term measure, most of the additional costs of this experiment have been absorbed by departments through re-prioritisation of work and significant extra effort by many staff. The administration of the Westminster Hall sittings has been a significant challenge, which has been met by the dedication and flexibility of staff from across the House.

 
2.3

Braithwaite Report

In June 1999, a team led by Mr Michael Braithwaite, a former partner in Deloitte Touche, produced a report1 for the House of Commons Commission on the management and services of the House. The House of Commons Commission has accepted a number of recommendations in the report, and has appointed Mr Robert Rogers, Principal Clerk of Select Committees, to act as implementation manager. He will take forward its decisions as they are taken in consultation with the Board of Management. The Commission will progressively over the coming months address the balance of the recommendations in the report. A key theme is to reinforce the Board of Management's policy of moving step by step towards a more corporate (and consequently less federal) approach to management issues, particularly those which have an impact on more than one department. The Board will continue to provide a focus for this more corporate style, and welcomes the overall thrust of the report. Progress has already been made on implementing a number of recommendations, including setting up a small office to support the Clerk of the House in his corporate management responsibilities, setting up a new audit committee, and launching a review of the Serjeant at Arms Department.

 
2.4

Building and refurbishment

The year has been a busy one for the Parliamentary Works Directorate (PWD). Apart from the work on the Grand Committee Room mentioned above, two projects stand out.

First, Portcullis House on Bridge Street opposite the Palace of Westminster is expected to be completed ahead of time and under budget. This innovative and technically challenging construction has been designed by Sir Michael Hopkins. The building itself will be highly energy-efficient, drawing cold water from a deep bore hole for cooling the building and even flushing the lavatories. The project is on course for completion during 2000-2001, with occupation of offices beginning in September.

Secondly, as mentioned in the main report, PWD completed phase F of the kitchens modernisation programme. This final phase was the biggest single element in the whole programme, and involved the complete redesign, restructuring and rebuilding of the main kitchens area in the Palace of Westminster.

 
2.5

Information systems (IS) and information technology(IT)

While House departments are responsible for their own IS arrangements, reflecting the very different services provided by each, the IT network is provided corporately by the Parliamentary Communications Directorate (PCD). IS and IT projects with House-wide implications are planned and co-ordinated through the Information Systems Steering Group (ISSG) which is chaired by the Director of Finance and Administration. Its membership consists of representatives from those departments of the House with responsibilities for providing information systems, both those which enable Departments to carry out their duties and which deliver information to Members and others concerned with the work of Parliament.

During 1999 the Group concentrated on achieving the target it had set for providing by Autumn 1999 a convergent network based on the IT Strategy agreed by both Houses of Parliament. It also formed part of the programme for avoiding any difficulties associated with the millennium and other significant date changes. Both of these major programmes were completed successfully. By the end of the Summer recess the physical network had been upgraded; a new e-mail system (Microsoft Exchange) introduced for Members, their staff and departments; and departmental conversion to Microsoft NT4 operating system completed on both desktop and network servers. As a result of these precautions and other measures which were taken, no difficulties were experienced either over the millennium period or at the leap year date change.

In July 1999 Professor Richard Ormerod of Warwick University was selected to carry out an IS Strategy review on behalf of both Houses of Parliament. He reported at the end of 1999 and the two Houses are now working together to agree the way ahead in the light of his proposals. Further work is being planned on an information audit and on strategy development.

More generally proposals have been put forward for the redesign of the Parliamentary website. Work on developing an IT security policy and central purchasing of software has continued and the Group has been co-operating with the Planning and Management Committee (Finance) in the development and scrutiny of departmental IT plans as part of the annual planning cycle.

 
2.6

Printing and publishing

The Annual Report for 1998-99 described in some detail the history and responsibilities of the Printing and Publishing Management Group (PPMG), which currently comprises the Clerk of the Journals, the Editor of the Official Report, the Director of Finance and Administration, the Director of Library Resources, the Deliverer of the Vote and the Clerk of Legislation, who chairs the group.

The main weight of the PPMG's work fell in the first half of the year when it was overseeing the concluding stages of the open tender process for the contracts for the provision of printing and electronic publication services for the House after 1 April 2000. The tenders were assessed in the first instance by a professionally qualified panel drawn from the Vote Office, the Department of Finance and Administration and The Buying Agency. The findings of the panel were approved by PPMG on 27 July 1999 and, following some post-tender clarificatory discussions during the summer recess, were reported to and approved by the House of Commons Commission on 1 November. The result was the award of contracts for all the advertised categories of printing and electronic publishing work to The Stationery Office Ltd. (TSO), the House's existing contractor. It is estimated that, on the basis of the current document specifications and the current workload, the new contracts will yield reductions of about £2m a year compared with expenditure under the previous contracts. The new contracts will last for five years.

Two further contracts were concluded with TSO and signed on 2 February 2000: one for the distribution and sale of the House's publications and one covering certain tasks of publishing administration, such as the control of the release of documents published under embargo and the deposit of copies in the recognised copyright libraries.

The Board and the PPMG are grateful to the staff of the Vote Office for their dedicated and professional work in carrying through this complex and demanding tender process so successfully.

Since the award of the new contracts, the PPMG's primary concern has shifted to the origination of the Vote Bundle. Currently the Bundle is largely typeset at TSO from manuscript and other paper copy faxed or conveyed from the House by messenger. The tender process revealed that very few production printers still retain a typesetting capability of the necessary scale, and that modernisation of the origination methods will therefore be essential before the Vote Bundle is next re-tendered in 2004-2005. A Project Team has therefore been established within the Vote Office, including a new Deputy Deliverer (Systems Development), who was appointed specifically with this purpose in mind. The supervising Project Board, which reports to PPMG, includes the PPMG chairman and the Principal Clerk, Table Office. A Business Case for the project will be submitted early in 2000-2001.

 
2.7

Personnel Matters

House-wide personnel issues are co-ordinated by the Planning and Management Committee (PMC). It is chaired by the Director of Finance and Administration and is attended by Departmental Establishments Officers from House departments. The Committee carried out planning and co-ordination of a range of management issues on behalf of the Board of Management, in particular in the human resources areas. The PMC forms the official management side of the General Purposes Sub-Committee that met the Trade Union Side three times during the year.

It oversaw development and implementation of pay and personnel policies and practices that are appropriate to the needs of the Hou

se, while maintaining terms and conditions of service which are broadly in line with the Home Civil Service.

During the year it has considered:

  • HR issues relating to the new staff handbook, childcare arrangements, recruitment and promotion procedures, House-wide leave arrangements, payroll giving to charity, Investors in People, lay membership of Industrial Appeal Tribunals, management of attendance policy, manpower planning, hospitality and gifts, IT security, millennium issues (in particular staffing issues), the impact of employment legislation such as the Data Protection Act, the Disability Discrimination Act and the Working Time Directive
  • Health and safety matters including smoking policy, health and safety training, insurance for first aiders, alcohol Code of Practice, defibrillator provision in the House, medical referrals to the Westminster Gym, and fire prevention training
  • Other more general issues such as the arrangements for the occupation of Portcullis House, the management response to the House-wide customer survey, and management of Parliamentary records.
The Committee made recommendations on key issues to the Board of Management (and, where appropriate, the House of Commons Commission) for decision, and took responsibility for implementation.
 
3.

The financial picture

After a number of years of growth in expenditure, the House of Commons Commission has asked the Board of Management to improve efficiency and bear down on costs wherever possible. Although the House's administrative expenditure is not cash-limited and not subject to government direction, the House has adopted a "self-denying ordinance" whereby it seeks to apply good financial and management disciplines.

The outturn for 1999-2000 on the House's administrative expenditure (at £165 million) was encouragingly close to target, excluding the House's Central Reserve (which was not called upon) and excluding expenditure on Portcullis House. The Reserve, which was set up for the first time in 1999-2000, was created to encourage departments not to over-bid for contingencies or uncertain projects, and has proved an effective tool for bearing down on expenditure. As for expenditure on Portcullis House, the outturn was £45 million compared with a budget for the year of £60 million. This is partly because the overall cost of the building has been reduced from earlier forecasts (a welcome development) and partly because of the timing of some of the bills. Although the construction programme is on target, some of the 1999-2000 costs will therefore be carried forward for payment in 2000-2001.

An associated initiative aimed at modernising and controlling staff provision more effectively has been the introduction of manpower planning. Much work was carried out during the year, and the new system was introduced in time to fix manpower budgets for 2000-2001. While the new system provides greater control of resources, it also gives individual departments more freedom to change their staff mix and the balance between staff and other current costs than was possible under the previous, more rigid, staff complementing system.

Two related financial developments have been the introduction of resource accounting and the merger of the two administrative Votes (the Administration Vote and the Works Services Vote) into a single Administrative Services Vote. The changes took effect from 1 April 2000, and this development is reflected in the financial tables accompanying this annual report.

Many of these developments have been co-ordinated by a new committee, the Planning and Management Committee (Finance). This was set up by the Board in 1999, and is chaired by the Director of Finance Policy. In particular, the committee has taken on responsibility for co-ordinating and reviewing departmental business plans, which now form the basis of the financial planning process.

 
4.

Outlook for 2000-2001

Key developments in 2000-2001 will be the completion and occupation of Portcullis House, and the continuing implementation of the recommendations in the Braithwaite report. Both of these developments will bring significant benefits to the operation of the House of Commons, but both have cost implications.

While Portcullis House has relatively low maintenance costs, and there will be some countervailing savings from giving up accommodation in 3 Dean's Yard in 2001 and 10 Great George Street, Portcullis House will provide a number of new facilities which will require additional staffing (primarily for catering, conferences and security). These costs will begin to be added in 2000-2001.

As for the implementation of the Braithwaite proposals, much will depend on decisions yet to be taken on matters of detail, but the growth of corporate governance spelled out in the report is likely to require additional central investment in information and management systems. These should yield long-term benefits through better co-ordination of effort and better corporate management.

The Board has established an inter-departmental Group on Information for the Public (GIP) to develop and co-ordinate a strategic approach to public information issues and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the information the House provides to those outside Parliament. The aim is to improve public understanding and knowledge of the work of the House. The Group has embarked on an extensive programme of work to improve the flow of information made available, the first fruits of which will be seen in 2000-2001. Following the Group's recommendations, a new Communications Adviser is expected to be appointed by the Summer of 2000.

The Board of Management has set up a cross-departmental working group to propose improvements to the induction programme for new Members. This work has been progressing well, and departments will be able to put induction arrangements in hand whenever a General Election is called.

 
5.

Reports for individual departments

As in previous years, each of the six House departments has prepared a report of its own activities. In line with the new approach to business planning, these reports follow a slightly different format than previously. The main headings are now:

  • Preface
  • Main goals and priorities
  • Achievements against the plan
  • Performance measurement
The financial and manpower accounts and reports are annexed.
 
W R McKay
Clerk of the House of Commons and
Chairman of the Board of Management

1HC (1998-1999) 745

  
 
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Prepared 26 July 2000