House of Commons - House of Commons Commission - Twenty-Fifth Annual Report 2002-2003 Report

House of Commons Commission Twenty-Fifth Annual Report 2002-2003 Report

How the House of Commons is governed

The House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978

1. The framework for the governance of the House of Commons was established by the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978 which set up the House of Commons Commission. The Commission employs the staff of the House, ensures that their terms and conditions remain broadly in line with those of civil servants, appoints an accounting officer, lays the Estimate (budget) for House of Commons services and determines the structure and functions of the departments of the House. It is also required by the Act to publish this annual report.

Commission membership and secretariat
2. The membership of the House of Commons Commission is composed according to section 1(2) of the House of Commons (Administration) Act. At the start of the financial year 2002/03 the membership was as follows:

The Speaker (The Rt Hon Michael J Martin MP, by virtue of his office) (Chairman)
The Leader of the House of Commons (The Rt Hon Robin Cook MP, by virtue of his office)
The Rt Hon Eric Forth MP (Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition)
Mr Stuart Bell MP (also Chairman of the Finance and Services Committee)
Sir Archy Kirkwood MP
Sir Patrick Cormack MP FSA

3. The Rt Hon John Reid MP became Leader of the House on 4 April 2003 and replaced the Rt Hon Robin Cook MP on the Commission.[1]

4. The Secretary to the Commission is Robert Rogers and the Assistant Secretary is Shona McGlashan. The Commission is also attended by the Clerk of the House. Following the retirement of Sir William McKay KCB at the end of 2002, the Commission appointed his successor as Clerk of the House, Roger Sands, to be Accounting Officer, and also Chief Executive.

5. The Commission met on twelve occasions during the year. Minutes of Commission meetings are available through the Commission's pages on the Parliament website.

Questions to the Commission
6. Parliamentary questions addressed to the Commission are answered by Sir Archy Kirkwood on behalf of the Commission. During the year the Commission replied to thirteen oral questions and 52 written questions. In addition, chairmen of domestic committees responded to fourteen written questions.

The House of Commons Commission. (From left: Roger Sands, Clerk of the House; Stuart Bell MP;

Sir Patrick Cormack MP FSA; Sir Archy Kirkwood MP; Rt Hon Peter Hain MP (Leader of the House);

Rt Hon Michael J Martin MP, The Speaker (Chairman). In attendance: Robert Rogers, Secretary to the

Commission, and Shona McGlashan, Assistant Secretary to the Commission. Absent: Rt Hon Eric Forth MP)

Finance and Services Committee and domestic committees

7. The Finance and Services Committee of the House of Commons is set up under Standing Order No. 144. It has responsibility for detailed scrutiny of the draft budgets for the House administration and advises the Commission on the financial and administrative implications of recommendations put to it. The Committee is chaired by a member of the Commission and has ten other members, including the chairmen of the domestic committees.

8. The domestic committees (Accommodation and Works, Administration, Broadcasting, Catering, and Information) provide advice to the Commission and serve as a channel for the views of Members of Parliament at large about the services provided by the House administration.

9. More specific responsibilities have been delegated to the domestic committees from time to time by the Commission or The Speaker. During 2002/03 the Commission agreed with the committees' new delegations to integrate them more closely into the work of the House administration.

Board of Management
10. While the House of Commons Commission is the supervisory body of the House administration with responsibility for setting the strategy and taking major decisions, it is advised and assisted by the heads of the six House departments, together with the Clerk of Committees. The duties of the Board are set out by the Commission in an instrument of delegation.

11. The following were members of the Board of Management at the beginning of the financial year:

Sir William McKay, KCB, Clerk of the House, Chief Executive, Chairman of the Board of Management
Priscilla Baines, Librarian
Ian Church, Editor of the Official Report
George Cubie, Clerk of Committees
Michael Cummins, Serjeant at Arms
Sue Harrison, Director of Catering Services
Andrew Walker, Director of Finance and Administration

12. Ian Church retired on 18 October 2002 and was replaced as Editor of the Official Report by Bill Garland. Sir William McKay retired on 31 December 2002 and was replaced by Roger Sands.

13. The Board of Management secretariat is provided by the Office of the Clerk. The staff of the Office include the Secretary of the Audit Committee and a small team responsible for information, communications and coordination between departments. The Board also has continuous access to legal advice from the Legal Services Office, headed by Speaker's Counsel.

14. The Board exercises the functions of employer of House staff on behalf of the Commission[2] and is responsible for ensuring that conditions of service conform to the requirements of the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978. Negotiations on pay and conditions of service, and consultations on personnel issues, were conducted during the year through the recognised unions, the Whitley Committee and its sub-committees.

15. During 2002/03 the average number of staff employed in the House service was 1,477 full-time equivalents. Further details of how this figure was made up, by department and pay band, may be found on page 46. The number of individuals on the payroll is typically some 200 higher, which illustrates that the House employs part-timers in many posts as a way of supporting its commitment to diversity, fairness and best practice.

16. The Board also has a responsibility to coordinate the services provided for the House of Commons by House departments and to advise both the House of Commons Commission and the Finance and Services Committee on these matters. It considers draft Estimates for expenditure on House administration before these are submitted to the Finance and Services Committee and the Commission. Decisions by the Board on expenditure are subject to the control of the Clerk of the House as Accounting Officer.

17. The Board of Management continues to work within the framework recommended by the Braithwaite report. The great majority of those specific recommendations that were agreed by the Commission in 2000 have been implemented and are now fully embedded.[3] These include the more strategic approach to planning which is reflected in the structure of this report.

The Board of Management (clockwise around table from left: Roger Sands, Andrew Walker, Michael
Cummins, George Cubie, Priscilla Baines, Sue Harrison, Bill Garland. To the right: Mark Egan (Private
Secretary to the Clerk of the House), Richard Ware (Secretary to the Board of Management)).

18. The Board is also keenly aware of other pressures affecting services and the way in which they are delivered:

changes in the way the House works, including those instigated since 1997 by the Modernisation of the House of Commons Committee, and the hours it sits;
changes to employment practices and aspirations in the wider public sector;
the need to comply with recent legislation which applies, or will apply, to the House of Commons as an organisation;
changes in the technology of information and communications as set out by the Information Committee in its report Digital Technology: Working for Parliament and the Public[4] and by the Government in its consultation paper In the service of democracy; and
concerns over security.

House of Commons Expenditure
19. The Commission is responsible for the House of Commons Administration Estimate (but not for Members' salaries and allowances, which are paid from a Government Estimate, nor for Members' pensions).[5]

20. The House administration has implemented resource accounting and budgeting in accordance with specific provisions relating to the House in the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000. The first set of resource accounts to be audited by the National Audit Office covered the year ending 31 March 2002 and were published on 24 February 2003.[6] The Commission had previously decided that it would be unacceptable to delay the publication of this annual report until the retrospective audited accounts are ready. Provisional outturn figures for 2002/03 are provided in the annex to this report.

21. The Estimate for 2003/04 was presented to the House by The Speaker on 6 May 2003.[7]

Rt Hon Eric Forth MP, Chairman of the Audit Committee

The Audit Committee

22. The Commission appoints the members of the Audit Committee and approves its terms of reference. The Committee's report appears on pages 70 to 72.

Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
23. During the year, the Committee on Standards in Public Life considered the regulation of standards of conduct in the House, and reported in November 2002. In its formal observations on the report,[8] the Commission responded positively to those recommendations which fell within its area of responsibility. The Commission remains committed to providing whatever resources are judged to be required to support the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

House of Lords
24. In many areas of activity the House of Commons administration works very closely with that of the House of Lords. Three of the four directorates managed by the Serjeant at Arms (Estates, Works Services and Communications) provide services to both Houses. There are a number of smaller units which are based in one House or the other, but provide services to both by agreement: the House of Lords Record Office (The Parliamentary Archives), the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, the Parliamentary Education Unit, the Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare Unit and the new Central Tours Office (CTO). Arrangements for the CTO are agreed through a joint steering group, chaired alternately by the Serjeant and Black Rod.

25. There is also long-standing formal and informal collaboration between the Serjeant and Black Rod over ceremonial (especially in respect of Westminster Hall), security and contingency planning.

26. There has been considerable progress in joint working in information systems in the last two years. In the autumn of 2002 the two Houses launched a shared Information Systems Programme with a Programme Board drawn from the senior officers of both Houses with a non-executive external adviser. One of the key projects is a collaboration between the Libraries of both Houses (Parliamentary Information Management Services - PIMS - see page 64). There has also been close collaboration in the development of the shared Parliament website (www.parliament.uk) and the parliamentary intranet.

Implementation and roll forward of the strategic plan
27. The Commission reported last year that it had adopted an outline strategic plan for the House of Commons administration, setting values, core tasks and developmental objectives for the years to come. The outline plan is reproduced below. More detailed proposals for implementation were approved by the Finance and Services Committee and the Commission during the spring and summer of 2002 and integrated with financial plans for coming years.

28. The strategic plan sets out four enduring core tasks for the House of Commons administration. This year, for the first time, we have arranged this review to reflect the four core tasks. The plan also includes eight developmental objectives, to enhance the performance of the four core tasks. In the Plans for the future section of this report we explain how we are progressing with these objectives and the challenges that face us in the next two to three years.

Performance management and risk management
29. In the sections which follow we present selected key indicators of performance against each of the four tasks. For the most part we are not able to follow other public sector organisations in measuring their effectiveness in terms of the impact of their work on the world at large. The House of Commons, as a political institution, determines or influences laws, policies and expenditure and holds the government of the day to account for enforcement and implementation. Procedures and structures within the House are also determined by decisions of the House itself. The House of Commons service contributes to these processes in significant ways by facilitating and advising. But its contribution is so closely meshed with political processes, for which officials are not responsible, that it cannot be readily measured separately - nor would it be appropriate for the activities of the House to be judged in that way.

30. The Commission and the Board of Management recognise this political dimension and the constraints that it places on conventional performance measurement. Nonetheless, performance against objectives is monitored continuously wherever practical. In addition, Members of Parliament are consulted periodically by survey questionnaire about their degree of satisfaction with the services provided. Such a survey is taking place as this report is being written and the Board of Management will report to the Commission on the outcome. Members have a variety of other channels to offer feedback and suggestions about services - for example, through the domestic committees and the Liaison Committee or through day to day contact with senior staff. The performance of individual staff is monitored and managed through an appraisal process.

31. During 2002/03 the Board of Management adopted a more coherent approach to risk management in order to raise awareness of the need for strong risk and contingency planning throughout the administration and to assist the Clerk of the House in his role as Accounting Officer. Factors that could affect the ability of the administration to carry out its core tasks were identified and steps taken to ensure that risks are effectively managed or mitigated.

An outline strategic plan for the House of Commons administration 2001-2006
(As adopted by the House of Commons Commission on 29 October 2001)

Purpose
The House of Commons Service supports, informs and records the work of the House of Commons as an elected parliamentary chamber in accordance with the decisions of the House and its Commission. Whenever feasible It makes its work and information about that work accessible to the general public, while maintaining the heritage of parliamentary buildings and documents in trust for the public and future generations. It also contributes to parliamentary democracy by sharing its knowledge with parliaments and assemblies worldwide.

Values
The House of Commons Service seeks to achieve high ethical standards, value for money and professional excellence in all that it does. As an employer, the House of Commons Commission recognises and values the diversity of its staff and is committed to fairness and best practice.

Core tasks and objectives
The House of Commons Service has four permanent core tasks:

Supporting the House and its committees
Supporting individual Members (and their staff)
Providing information and access to the public
Maintaining the heritage of buildings, objects and documents.

While these tasks are permanent, the specific needs of the House and its Members are constantly evolving. The technological, environmental, social and constitutional contexts in which the House works are also changing. In the light of the Braithwaite review the House of Commons Commission has recognised that a more strategic approach to resource planning and priorities is needed.

It has therefore adopted a strategic plan with objectives for the period 2001-2006 that recognise the need to develop, adapt and improve. In particular it seeks:

to provide services that meet the changing needs of the House and its Members as efficiently and effectively as possible; and to develop mechanisms to ensure that this happens

to manage the parliamentary estate in such a way as to provide Members, their staff and staff of the House with a safe, secure, modern and efficient working environment, within the constraints imposed by the availability of resources and the nature of the estate

to ensure that House of Commons processes of corporate management comply with the highest standards of public sector governance

to achieve demonstrable value for money in every aspect of the House service

to be demonstrably committed to employment best practice and diversity, providing the House with a motivated and committed workforce which has the specialist skills to meet its current and changing needs

to improve public understanding and knowledge of the work of the House and to increase its accessibility, subject to the requirements of security

to support the business processes of the House at all levels by developing and maintaining an information infrastructure that is unified, consistent, seamless, and easily accessed by, and appropriate to the needs of, the various user communities

to identify areas where service levels might be improved by the option of electronic delivery and, where appropriate, produce costed proposals.