Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Second Report

SECOND REPORT

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has agreed to the following Report:

WORK OF THE COMMITTEE 2002

  

INTRODUCTION

1. This is the annual Report of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on its activity over the past year. It is the first such report against the objectives and tasks for select committees produced by the Liaison Committee at the behest of the House.

2. This Report supplements two other records of activity; Minutes of Proceedings and the Sessional Return. The Minutes of Proceedings are a procedural and chronological record of the decisions of the Committee.[1] The Minutes are analogous to the Votes and Proceedings of the House. The Committee's entry in the Sessional Return contains non­procedural information in aggregate form about attendance, staff, witnesses, visits, votes, publications and other matters.[2] A summary of this latter material for calendar year 2002 is included in the Annex to this Report.

3. In recent years select committees have also reported to the Liaison Committee annually regarding their activities and the Liaison Committee has used this material to examine the scrutiny system as a whole.[3]

4. The Liaison Committee and the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons ('the Modernisation Committee') have been looking at the operation of select committees and various changes have been recommended and endorsed by the House. Perhaps the most significant of these is the decision of 14 May 2002 directing the Liaison Committee to develop more detailed objectives for select committees along the lines set out in the Modernisation Committee's First Report of 2001­02 (see Appendix).

Format

5. The Liaison Committee's resulting recipe is effectively an exhortatory illumination of the existing remit for departmentally­related committees (to apply mutatis mutandi to others). The remit set out in Standing Orders of the House has been expanded in the form of four over­arching objectives and ten specific tasks.

Remit (Standing Orders)

• To examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the relevant government department and its associated public bodies

Objectives (Liaison Committee)

• Objective A: to examine and comment on the policy of the Department

Task 1: to examine proposals from the UK Government and European Commission in green papers, white papers, draft guidance etc.

Task 2: to examine areas of emerging policy, or where existing policy is deficient

Task 3: to conduct scrutiny of any relevant published draft Bill

Task 4: to examine specific output from the Department expressed in documents or other decisions

• Objective B: to examine the expenditure of the Department

Task 5: to examine the expenditure plans and out­turn of the Department, its agencies and principal non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs)

• Objective C : to examine the administration of the Department

Task 6: to examine the Department's Public Service Agreements, the associated targets and the statistical measurements employed

Task 7: to monitor the work of the Department's executive agencies, non­departmental public bodies (NDPBs), regulators and other associated public bodies

Task 8: to scrutinise major appointments made by the department

Task 9: to examine the implementation of legislation and major policy initiatives

• Objective D: to assist the House in debate and decision

Task 10: to produce reports which are suitable for debate in the House, including Westminster Hall, or debating committees.

6. This Report presents our work in 2002 under these headings with the obvious caveat that this presentation is largely retrospective as the formula was produced mid­way through the year. The objectives will inform the Committee's plans for future work.

Relations between committee and department

7. As has been suggested, the implications of these objectives and tasks are as significant for Government as they are for select committees. To some extent the desired modus operandi of the departmental committees has shifted from 'spotlight' to 'floodlight'. If this is to work, within available resources, Government departments will have to take on their share of the burden and be much more systematic and proactive about the information supplied to their respective committees as a matter of course. We believe that this might be a suitable topic for discussion between the Liaison Committee and the Prime Minister at a future meeting. We are discussing a new approach to monitoring the Department's activity with the DCMS and we welcome the cooperation we have received so far.

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1   Culture, Media and Sport, Minutes of Proceedings, 2001-02, HC 1313 Back

2   Sessional Returns, 2001-02, HC 1 Back

3   First Report, 2001-02, Work of the Select Committees 2001, HC 590  Back

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Prepared 31 January 2003