34. Managing the introduction of the changes agreed
by the House in 2002-03 - in particular revisions to sitting hours
on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, so that the House sits
earlier in the day and, usually, concludes its business earlier
than before - has continued to be a major challenge for House
staff. A September sitting was introduced for the first time in
2003, as were new procedures for the carryover of Government bills
from one session to the next. Planning for major maintenance and
construction projects, some of which can only be undertaken during
lengthy adjournments, has been particularly affected by the introduction
of September sittings. The publication of a second 12-month calendar
of sitting days, for the 2003-04 session, was welcomed by House
staff, but its provisional nature was underlined by changes to
the length of the Easter recess and there remains uncertainty
until late in the year about the dates of prorogation and the
State Opening of Parliament.
A second calendar of sitting days was published for
the 2003/04 session.
Vote
Office, which supplies the House and Members with documents.
An enquiry point was opened in the e-Library in Portcullis
House in February 2003.
36. The Library provides an information and research
service to the House and its committees both in support of this
core task, and in relation to the support of individual Members
and their staff in their multifarious roles. Since the work of
the Library in relation to these two core tasks cannot easily
be differentiated, the main Library services are all covered in
this section. The Library combines a reference and lending library
in the main building and outposts in the Derby Gate building and
Portcullis House, with an extensive research service. The Library
also includes the Information Office and Parliamentary Education
Unit, which are covered later in this report (see paragraphs 124-27
and 151-54).
37. The Department of the Official Report produces
edited verbatim reports of the proceedings of the House (including
sittings in Westminster Hall) and its standing committees. It
also processes and prints written answers to parliamentary questions,
and written ministerial statements. Select committee proceedings
are provided not by the department but by a private firm, WB Gurney
and Sons LLP, under contract to both Houses of Parliament.
Sittings of the House
LEVELS OF ACTIVITY
38. The chart below gives information about the number
of sitting days, and the average duration of sitting days, in
each of the last five years.[8]
Further information about the
business of the House and its committees can be found in the annual
Sessional Return, the most recent of which covers the 2002-03
session.[9]
In 2003/04 over 25,000 pages of reports on debates
were published in daily parts, more than ever before.
Reporting proceedings of the House
39. The edited verbatim reports of proceedings in
the House and Westminster Hall — the Official Report, or
Hansard — are printed overnight and published on paper and
on the internet the day after the debates to which they relate.
In 2003/04 over 25,000 pages of reports on debates in the House
and Westminster Hall were published in daily parts.
40. The Department of the Official Report aims to
make not more than one significant error per 13 columns of the
final version of text of proceedings in the House. The chart shows
how the department has performed against this target in recent
years and gives an indication of recent activity levels.
41. The introduction of digital audio for recording
proceedings was phased in slowly over the year to reduce the risk
caused by unexpected integration difficulties. Towards the end
of the year, it was used in standing committees and Westminster
Hall. Full implementation is planned for summer 2004.
The number of questions and Early Day Motions continued
to rise in 2003/04. Despite this the Table Office accurately processed
around 99.95%.
Questions, answers and motions
42. Notices of questions and motions are received
and processed by the Table Office and printed under the supervision
of the Editorial Supervisor of the Vote. Answers to questions
are published in the Official Report and questions and Early Day
Motions (EDMs) are indexed by staff of the Library. New technology
is transforming aspects of each of these processes, notably the
Vote Bundle project which is concerned with printing the daily
papers of the House (see paragraphs 93-4) and the Parliamentary
Information Management Services (PIMS) project, which will replace
the POLIS search engine at the end of 2004 (see paragraphs 83-4).
43. The number of questions continued to rise in
2003/04, as did the number of EDMs. Despite these increases, the
Table Office performed well against its measures for accurately
processing questions and EDMs. Errors in both categories have
remained very low, at around 0.05 per cent of questions and motions.
44. The Editorial Supervisor's office has moved again,
from cramped quarters at one end of the parliamentary estate to
a refitted suite in 7 Millbank. The new questions system, part
of the Vote Bundle project, has been live since September 2003
and is producing a high quality set of papers, all processes apart
from the actual printing being done in-house (see paragraph 93).
Work is now advanced on the next phases of the project, which
should see all the papers in the Vote Bundle being produced in-house,
possibly as soon as 2005.
45. The new tabling arrangements for oral questions
introduced in January 2003 have worked well and have, as envisaged,
made tabling more convenient for Members. Since January 2003,
Members have also been able to table oral or written questions
electronically, from computers linked to the Parliamentary Network.
The number of Members registered to use the e-tabling facility
has increased steadily (standing at 196 in March 2004). The proportion
of questions tabled electronically has similarly increased, representing
16.8 per cent of questions tabled in March 2004.
46. Five further sessions of cross-cutting questions
took place in Westminster Hall during the financial year. On each
occasion ministers from several departments (and their shadow
equivalents) attended. To date relatively few Members have taken
part in these sessions.
47. The introduction of an optical character recognition/scanning
system for written answers has enabled the Official Report to
achieve its production target — an average of 75 per cent
of answers received processed overnight. The number of answers
published is still dependent on the overall workload of the print
contractor. The production of recess editions of the Official
Report, containing written answers, is now well established.
48. The Library's targets for adding skeleton records
for answered questions to the POLIS database were met on all but
one occasion during the year. The increased target for subject
indexing of written answers was met for much of the year, though
it continued to be vulnerable to the increase in the number of
written answers printed at certain times.
49. The Library calculates that there were 1,486
"I will write" letters promised by Ministers in written
answers in 2003/04. The Library also received 173 letters
in response to written questions tabled towards the end of the
2002-03 session for which no answer was printed in Hansard. Discussions
have begun with Government departments about the best way to make
the texts of "will write" letters available more widely.
50. The PIMS project, which will replace the POLIS
search engine in 2004, is described in more detail in paragraphs
83-4. As part of the PIMS project, new systems are being developed
to replace current methods of entering EDMs and to carry out the
shuffle of oral questions. The former builds on the database developed
for the Vote Bundle printing project; the latter on the software
developed in 2002/03 for electronic tabling. It is hoped that
the new EDM applications in PIMS will make the process of adding
names, in particular, less time-consuming for Table Office staff.
51. Good progress continues to be made in the electronic
transfer of data. Hansard now receives the text of EDMs electronically
direct from the Editorial Supervisor's office. Discussions between
House officials and civil servants responsible for the Government's
Knowledge Network have resulted in the transfer of questions electronically
to the Knowledge Network each night. Arrangements are now being
made to test the delivery of written ministerial statements by
electronic means, with a pilot to test the secure electronic delivery
of written answers to follow.
The introduction of revised sitting hours and the
continuing volume and complexity of Government legislation meant
a heavy workload for the Public and Private Bill Office in 2003/04.
Legislation
Bills
52. The period under review was the first full year
since the introduction of the revised sitting hours. This, together
with the continuing volume and complexity of Government legislation
and the fact that the vast majority of Government bills was programmed,
meant that the Public and Private Bill Office had a heavy workload
for most of the year. Numbers of meetings and numbers of amendments
tabled have actually declined somewhat in comparison with 2002/03;
however, since standing committees on bills now tend to start
in the morning at least an hour earlier than before and sit in
the afternoon until 5 or 5.30 pm, the normal working day of the
Office has been extended. In recognition of this, a new post of
Bill Support Officer has been created within the Office at Senior
Executive Officer level.
53. The average number of amendments, new clauses
and new schedules tabled per sitting day during 2003/04 was 54.9,
slightly fewer than in the previous year but still 35 per cent
more than in 2001/02.
54. The number of private bills presented continues
to decline, with only four such bills introduced in November 2003:
two in the Commons and two in the Lords. Two opposed bill committees
met during the year. In recognition of the fact that the clerk
in charge of private bills now spends eighty per cent of her time
on public bill work, the Private Bill Office has been relocated
to the third floor above the Chamber and, in effect, merged with
the Public Bill Office.
55. Partly for reasons of the reduced availability
of storage as a result of the relocation of the Private Bill Office
and also in pursuance of the House's objective of the preservation
of historical records, it was decided to digitise the Private
and Local Acts - some 775 volumes in all - by scanning them and
storing the data on CD. By the end of March 2004 the project was
nearing completion, on time and well within budget.
56. The following chart provides an indication of
the workload of the Public and Private Bill Office over the last
five years.[10]
57. The committees which scrutinise draft bills are
usually supported by staff from the Committee Office, but the
Public and Private Bill Office supplied the clerk to the Joint
Committee set up to scrutinise the draft Mental Incapacity Bill
(see paragraph 67).
58. Work has continued on developing the FrameMaker
software for the production of bills in consultation with the
Parliamentary Counsel Office and the Public Bill Office in the
House of Lords; and a new version, with additional functionality,
was introduced in November 2003. None of the 52 bills published
in session 2003-04 so far has had to be reprinted as a result
of error attributable to the Office.
Reporting of standing committees
59. The total number of pages of Standing
Committee debates published in recent years is shown in the chart
below:
60. Although the volume of Government
legislation was lower than last year, there were still occasions
when the work load was so heavy that not all proceedings of Standing
Committees were produced overnight, and when staff primarily responsible
for reporting on the House had to help in the reporting of Westminster
Hall. However, all production targets were met, and often exceeded.
European scrutiny
61. Details of the work of the European Scrutiny
Committee, including its main task of scrutinising EU legislative
proposals and deciding which require further consideration, can
be found in its annual report for 2003.[11]
Convention on the future of Europe and the Inter-Governmental
Conference
62. The work of the Convention on the future of Europe
ended in July 2003. Staff of the National Parliament Office (NPO)
attended Convention meetings, reporting back to the European Scrutiny
Committee in particular; support continued to be given to the
UK's national parliament representatives (by the Legal Services
Office and Overseas Office as well as the NPO); two further reports
on the Convention's work were produced by the European Scrutiny
Committee; and two further meetings were held of the Standing
Committee on the Convention. The Standing Committee on the Inter-Governmental
Conference (IGC), which was modelled on the Standing Committee
on the Convention, met on three occasions to question Ministers
and debate the IGC's work towards agreeing an EU Constitutional
Treaty.
Select committees
63. The high level of activity by select
committees has continued, and has been increased by additional
ad-hoc committees on draft bills. The table below shows the numbers
of formal select committee meetings, and reports issued by departmental
select committees, over each of the last five financial years.
64. Core tasks for committees were approved by the
Liaison Committee in June 2002,[12]
and have now been operating for a full year to assist individual
committees in planning their work to ensure that all areas of
Government activity are subject to proper scrutiny. Further details
on the work of select committees can be found in the Liaison Committee's
annual report for 2003.[13]
65. Concern that committees were under-resourced
for the level of activity which they were now expected to undertake
was highlighted in last year's Report. A review of select committee
resources, undertaken by the House's Internal Review Service with
assistance from the National Audit Office, recommended additional
staff for committee secretariats and increased collaboration between
the Committee Office and the Library. Other improvements include
the introduction of Select Committee Media Officers who will provide
professional advice to select committees and promote their work
to a wider audience (see paragraph 123). These recommendations
are now in the course of being implemented with the approval of
the Commission. It is planned that similar reviews will occur
at five year intervals.
Scrutiny Unit
66. Pre-legislative and financial scrutiny by committees
has continued to receive help from the Committee Office Scrutiny
Unit, which began work in November 2002. The Unit has already
established itself as a highly effective source of support to
Committees in these and other areas. It has now reached the full
complement of seventeen approved by the Commission. The Unit has
undertaken some 112 tasks of varying size for twenty select committees,
including providing briefing material on the 2002/03 and 2003/04
Estimates, advising individual committees on the format and content
of departmental annual reports, and assisting with the formulation
of questions on public expenditure. An increasingly significant
call on the Unit's resources has been pre-legislative scrutiny,
as more bills are published in draft. So far, since its inception,
the Unit has provided support for five Joint Committees on draft
bills, as well as for four select committees in the Commons.
The easy-to-read version of the report published
by the Joint Committee on the draft Mental Incapacity Bill was
the first of its kind.
Printing and Publication
67. The new layout for select committee reports was
successfully introduced from 1 May 2003, and has been generally
welcomed. As foreshadowed in our last Report, the additional printing
costs have largely been offset by the substantial savings arising
from universal introduction of the practice of sending memoranda
of written evidence to the printers in electronic form, rather
than having them set by the printers. The Joint Committee on the
draft Mental Incapacity Bill broke new ground in publishing an
easy-to-read version of its report, designed and written by a
specialist consultancy, and intended to reach those with learning
difficulties, alongside its conventional report to the two Houses.
Local authority oversight and scrutiny
68. In view of the growing number of requests from
local authorities for advice on scrutiny practices and procedures,
following the full implementation of the change in local authority
structures required under the Local Government Act 2000, a number
of day-long seminars were organised at Westminster in conjunction
with the Centre for Public Scrutiny, primarily intended for local
authority oversight and scrutiny chairs and scrutiny staff. Committee
chairmen and staff spoke to participants, who also attended committee
hearings. Committee chairmen and staff have also addressed several
seminars in the regions.
Delegations to Overseas Assemblies
69. The Houses of Parliament send delegations
to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE),
the Assembly of the Western European Union (AWEU), the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE PA) and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA).
The European Section of the Overseas Office in the House of Commons
assisted the 66 delegation members who attended 10 plenary sessions
and nearly 250 committee meetings during the year.
70. The UK delegation continues its high levels of
activity at PACE and the AWEU, and includes the leaders of two
of PACE's political groups. The Rt Hon Bruce George MP was re-elected
for a second term as President of the OSCE PA at its Annual Session
in Rotterdam in July 2003. Members of the UK delegation to the
NATO PA chair two of its five committees.
71. The European Section makes the arrangements for
visits to the UK by committees of the Assemblies. In July 2003
the NATO PA's sub-committee on transatlantic defence and security
co-operation met in London for discussions with Government departments
and think tanks. The AWEU Defence Committee met in Westminster
in September. In November the PACE Committee on culture, science
and education visited Liverpool for a two-day programme of deliberative
meetings and site visits. That Assembly's committee on economic
affairs and development had its annual meeting with the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London in January 2004.
The European Section continues with its preparations for the Annual
Session of the OSCE PA to be held in Edinburgh in July 2004.
Providing information for the House and its committees
House of Commons Library
The Reference Room in the Members' Library.
72. The Library's operations have traditionally supported
both the work of the House and its committees and that of individual
Members and their staff, without necessarily making any clear
distinction between the two tasks. Thus the Library's rich resource
of Research Papers and Standard Notes supports Members' work in
their constituencies as well as informing the legislative process
and other types of debate. The increasing emphasis on making pre-prepared
information available on-line has blurred the distinction still
further, but responses to enquiries from individual Members, and
their staff working on Members' behalf, remain a significant element
of the Library's services.
Research and Information Services
73. The department answers many specific enquiries
from Members and their staff arising from the wide range of Members'
parliamentary duties. The total number of requests in 2003/04
for written and oral briefings and reference information was in
excess of 75,000; these ranged from requests for specific documentation
or basic facts to substantial briefings on policy matters. Recent
trends in research and reference enquiries are shown in the table
below.[14]
74. The Library aims to respond to all these enquiries
within the stated deadline or, for those requests without a deadline,
within two weeks. In 2003/04, 98 per cent of enquiries for which
a deadline was specified were answered within that deadline; and
94 per cent of other enquiries were answered within two weeks.
75. The Library's policy in recent years has been
to manage demand and provide a more flexible service to its users
by providing more ready-made briefing information, both in paper
form and electronically. During the year, 91 research papers were
published, providing background and commentary on bills and other
topical issues along with regular statistical bulletins. These
included papers produced before the Commons second reading on
all major bills. Research papers are available on the Parliament
website as well as internally; during the year such papers were
downloaded on some 730,000 occasions. The chart below shows how
the number of Library publications accessed from both the Parliament
website and intranet have increased considerably in recent years.
76. Standard notes are more informal briefings, held
primarily in electronic form and made available on the parliamentary
intranet. They have proved popular with Members and their staff
as they can be easily updated and generally address issues of
current interest. By the end of the year 1,816 standard notes
were available on the intranet, and they had been accessed from
there on 100,000 occasions during the year. Standard notes on
parliamentary topics were made generally available to the public
via the Parliament website for the first time during the year.
A major Library development in 2003/ 04 was the introduction
of Debate Packs, which are available in hard copy and on the intranet.
77. A major development in 2003/04 was the introduction
of Debate Packs. These are collections of readily available
material (such as newspaper articles, parliamentary questions,
and standard notes) relevant to non-legislative debates taking
place in either the Chamber or Westminster Hall. They have proved
to be very popular with users.
Network Services
78. Research papers and standard notes form the backbone
of a much wider range of briefing material available to Members
and their staff via the intranet, which includes subject-specific
links to parliamentary and other material and useful external
websites; an increasing number of constituency and other local-area
statistics; 'bill information pages'; and other databases. The
Library's intranet site was redesigned in April 2003 and, among
other things, it is now easier for Members and their staff to
find briefings directly related to the business of the House.
Further significant developments, including enhanced search and
retrieval facilities, will be introduced in 2004/05 as part of
the PIMS project (see paragraphs 83-4).
79. The POLIS database continues to be the key source
for references to parliamentary information and in 2003/04 142,821
items were added to the database, very slightly more than in 2002/03.
As elsewhere in the House, the high number of written questions
has continued to put a considerable strain on the resources of
the POLIS Section (see paragraph 48). POLIS will be replaced at
the end of 2004 as part of the PIMS project (see paragraphs 83-4).
Reading Rooms
80. The reading rooms in the Members' Library (primarily
for Members' use) and in Derby Gate (primarily for Members' staff)
continue to be valued by those wishing to use the Library's services
in person rather than online or by telephone. The increasing availability
of material online means, however, that fewer people now need
to come to the Library in person (see paragraphs 75-6). In response
to this trend, and as part of the Library's on-going Change Project,
changes to reading room facilities were introduced in February
2004. An enquiry point for information requests was established
in the Portcullis House e-Library, which also had its opening
hours extended. At the same time, enquiry services in the 1 Derby
Gate building were consolidated into a single reading room.
Book loans
81. The number of book loans in 2003/04 increased
by 0.8 per cent to 3,514, although the proportion of loans from
Library stock fell by 1.9 per cent. There has been a long-term
decline in the number of book loans, reflecting the increasing
availability and use of network resources.
PIMS and Change Projects
82. In Spring 2003 the Library surveyed a cross section
of its customers to establish what they most value about the Library's
services and how their needs might be met more fully in future.
The evidence gathered during this exercise has provided a firm
foundation for the future development of the Library's services.
Plans for changes to the Library's structure and processes are
well advanced, in order to deliver services which best meet the
needs of users, are more flexible and involve less duplication
of effort. Underpinning these developments is the need to take
full advantage of the enhanced technology and functionality provided
by the introduction of PIMS.
83. Although it must encompass services already provided
by POLIS, PIMS is required to support much wider information needs
and to lay a foundation that will permit the organisation to extend
the reach of parliamentary information services to a broader community
of users. Following a procurement exercise, the contract for the
design, development and implementation of PIMS Phase One was let
in November 2003, and work is progressing steadily.
84. PIMS Phase One centres on the information managed
and provided as a service by the Libraries of the two Houses,
but also includes applications used by the Table Office and European
Scrutiny Committee in the House of Commons (see paragraph 50).
The products selected, and the infrastructure on which they will
be built, have been procured and designed with an eye to meeting
potential future requirements elsewhere in Parliament. For this
reason, the applications software is all compliant with recognised
industry standards, to permit future integration with other standards-based
products; and the technical architecture follows a modular, flexible
design so that it can be extended as required. Implementation
is planned from late 2004.
Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
85. The Parliamentary Office of Science
and Technology (POST) operates as an independent unit with its
own Parliamentary Board, composed of Members of the Commons and
Lords. Its purpose is to provide advice to Members of the two
Houses and to select committees on current and anticipated issues
of scientific, technological and medical concern. It is funded
from the House of Commons Administration Estimate, 30 per cent
of the cost being recovered from the House of Lords.
During the year POST published 18 'POSTnotes' on
current and anticipated issues of scientific, technological and
medical concern (right).
86. POST regularly provides a wide range of support
to select committees, on request. Its regular publications' programme
also feeds into committee activity, including stimulating decisions
to hold an inquiry. Both Houses have requested POST to keep them
informed on public dialogue activities in science and technology,
and POST has pioneered the use of on-line discussion to help Parliament
consider a broad spectrum of views on current issues.
87. During the year, POST conducted 13 separate pieces
of work for a total of eight Commons and Lords committees. POST
also published 18 'POSTnotes' (parliamentary briefings) and three
longer reports, on a wide range of subjects. All POST's publications
are available on the Parliament website, and through the Parliamentary
Bookshop. POST also organised parliamentary seminars and conferences.
88. The year was also notable for two additional
activities. First, POST has considerably expanded its fellowship
and internship schemes. With these, it is cooperating with various
learned societies, UK research councils and individual universities
to offer three-month positions for postgraduate students, who
work under supervision on a specific publication or on select
committee support. Secondly, POST has been very active in collaboration
with several of its sister organisations serving national and
regional parliaments in other European countries. It has worked
on joint projects where there is a common interest and has taken
a lead in providing advice to parliaments in Spain and Sweden,
considering creating similar offices.
Vote Office
89. The work of the Vote Office centres around the
provision of documents needed by the House in order that it can
conduct its business. In addition to the papers that the House
itself generates, Government papers and memoranda, delegated legislation
documents and European documents are all required to be made available.
The table below shows the average number of pages of the daily
Vote Bundle, which is made up of the key working papers for the
House, published over the last five years.
90. Key events in the parliamentary cycle, such as
the Budget and Autumn Statement; and statements on the release
of reports of major enquiries (this year Laming, Hutton and Penrose,
together with the Shipman inquiry report) are centred around the
timely supply of the relevant documents. The documents themselves
tend to be both bulky and expensive, subject to substantial but
indeterminate demand, and involve the need for a high degree of
security prior to release. The Vote Office plans and executes
major logistic exercises, in conjunction with the relevant Government
departments, to ensure that difficulties of supply do not become
distractions at the moment of publication and the Office's expertise,
built up over many years, ensures that the supply of documents
is efficiently and effectively managed on such occasions.
91. The passage of legislation back and forth between
the two Houses before agreement is reached can place heavy demands
on the Vote Office, particularly towards the end of a session.
The arrangements needed at the end of the 2002-03 session, when
a number of flagship bills were involved in this process at the
same time, were the most demanding ever, but the co operation
between the Legislation Service and Print Services ensured that
the availability of the relevant papers was never the limiting
factor in deciding the overall timetable of events.
92. The Vote Office oversees the contract with the
Stationery Office for the printing and distribution of the House's
own papers. This year has again seen some notable demands compared
with previous ten year highs of production: volumes of EDMs continued
at the exceptional level seen last year, and have risen by a further
9.9 per cent. Legislative papers, containing proposed amendments
to legislation, too have risen by 13.3 per cent over the previous
10 year high. Business papers and Hansard have also exceeded previous
highs by a small amount. As a consequence, while overall expenditure
on printing has exceeded the estimate for 2003/04 by some 2 per
cent, total expenditure has been constrained to just over £9
million, broadly similar to last year, mainly due to savings from
revised production methods coming on line. Whole House costs of
printing and purchasing documents have risen to just under £12
million, reflecting high levels of activity, and the need to purchase
copies of reports of the significant public enquiries that were
published during the year.
Vote Bundle Project
93. The Vote Bundle Project - which aims to improve
the production methods of House papers by bringing origination
and pagination under House control - passed another significant
milestone at the end of 2003, when the House took over complete
responsibility for the keying and preparation of parliamentary
questions (see paragraph 44). As well as providing ready to print
files to the printer electronically, electronic files of questions
for internet display as HTML text are now supplied. For other
users of the data, such as the Commons Library, Hansard and the
Government, electronic feeds are being supplied against XML (eXtensible
Markup Language) standards. Because of the changes of production
methods for both EDMs and questions, savings over previous production
costs of approaching £1 million will be generated annually.
94. Work on phase 3 of the project - electronic capture
of bill amendments - is well advanced and piloting of the new
system is planned to take place in June 2004, after the recruitment
and training of the required new members of staff. Preliminary
work to prepare for phase 4, the electronic capture of remaining
documents, the Order Paper being the most significant, is taking
place with assistance from the Information Architecture Support
Unit (IASU).
8 The data from which this chart, and others in this
report, are derived, as well as more detailed activity and performance
measures, are tabulated in annex 1 Back
9
HC 1, 2003-04 Back
10
The figures for bills in the table show the numbers of bills read
the first time in each financial year. Bills carried over from
one parliamentary session to the next are recorded more than once.
Information about the number of standing committees was not recorded
by financial year prior to 2000/01
Back
11
HC 42-viii, 2003-04 Back
12
HC 558, 2002-03, paragraphs 12-17 Back
13
HC 446, 2003-04 Back
14
The number of reference enquiries was partially estimated in some
years due to problems with the recording system Back
