Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-88)
MR PETER
GRANT PETERKIN,
MR PAUL
MONAGHAN AND
MR GREG
UNWIN
25 APRIL 2006
Q80 Mr Ainsworth: Can I ask the Serjeant
I do not believe your solution is in any way practicable. How
many people, in your view, and you are a relatively new Serjeant
and you must have been horrified when you first came in the door—how
many people if we had the accommodation—can we decant away
from the Estate without affecting the efficiency of operations,
non-members of staff? Is it significant? Is it insignificant?
Are there people who work in the Palace at the moment who if we
had the place to put them we can decant them away in order to
provide sufficient accommodation for Members and their staff?
Mr Grant Peterkin: I think that
it would be very difficult to achieve all Members accommodation.
Q81 Mr Ainsworth: That is not the
question I am asking, Serjeant. I am asking are there significant
numbers of people who work on the Estate who do not have to be
and we could run the Estate efficiently if we could accommodate
them elsewhere, if we had sufficient accommodation to put them?
Mr Grant Peterkin: I think the
Board of Management view is that that is probably limited in the
opportunities that it is going to provide us.
Q82 Mr Ainsworth: You are seriously
suggesting that the overwhelming majority of people who work here
have got to be here?
Mr Grant Peterkin: The formal
data of course is in the occupancy report and yet we all see in
other businesses—and I have rusticated a government agency
from all over England to Glasgow—that there is huge opposition
to doing it initially but when people do rusticate that it does
work, but it is hardly going to be for me to deliver this. It
is going to be much more, Mr Ainsworth, for people like you to
deliver this.
Q83 Mr Ainsworth: I understand that.
The other question is do you believe that it is appropriate that
a middle-ranking officer of the House—I have not got the
right terminology there—should have significantly better
accommodation than a Member of Parliament?
Mr Grant Peterkin: I am not sure
which example you are using. I do not think that there are many.
I do not recognise from my tours of the Estate all these officials
who are housed in grandiose offices, the Clerk and myself perhaps
being an exception to that. I have an office of 19 square metres.
Q84 Derek Conway: Could I help, Chairman,
because I think it is difficult for the Serjeant because in many
ways he is the whipping boy for the system. I am not sure where
the buck stops in all of this. Obviously it stops at the Commission,
but, for example, and concerns two Labour members, if you look
at the North Curtain Corridor, you have the Chairman of the Parliamentary
Labour Party who is a Privy Councillor sharing an office with
four people that is probably about fifth of the size of this room
or less and you have got Denis MacShane, Privy Councillor, former
minister at the Foreign Office in what is effectively an enlarged
toilet with three members of staff in a railway carriage. On either
side of those offices there are librarians working in offices
the size of this, in one case with five work stations and five
on the other side. Part of the frustration that you get from elected
Members is that they see their staff crammed in because the system
regards Members' staff as almost foreigners or outsiders, they
are not part of the system to be cared for and accommodated but
somehow the system is always accommodated. That is why we had
the exchange about the Post Office because it is a bit like the
Army, if the sergeants' mess wants it to happen it is going to
happen. That is just the way life is in this place. When it comes
to people like the Clerk's Department and people like the Librarian's
Department when they want to shuffle round the place does that
come through you or is it the Clerk as chief executive of the
board who is deciding these things? Where does the buck stop for
Members who are not going through the whips' offices?
Mr Grant Peterkin: The allocation
of who goes where falls between myself and the Director of Estates.
I am normally aware of it. When changes happen internally within
departments sometimes we find out about it, you know better than
I, quite late. There is not a very clear reporting system of those
changes, but you very rightfully put your finger on those parts
of the Palace that are not optimised at the moment and the North
Curtain is one area. Some of the offices that my Serjeants' staff
use in the colonnade offices are again areas that could probably
be optimised by being used by Members rather than officers of
the House, but that is exactly what we must take forward together
and get a new set of priorities within this dynamic environment
which we are involved in. The whole Post Office issue that keeps
on coming up is an attempt to free up accommodation in the longer
term for Members and yet it has been misunderstood and seen as
a land grab by the Serjeant. It is actually very different from
that. It may well be that is very good accommodation for Members
once it has been decided.
Q85 Derek Conway: It is thought to
be the finance department.
Mr Grant Peterkin: You have actually
got to give us some time to achieve the decant in order to free
up the accommodation for officials to move out and create this
head room. I think it is all eminently possible once we have got
some clear direction.
Q86 Derek Conway: You see why there
is suspicion?
Mr Grant Peterkin: Sure, I accept
that.
Q87 Derek Conway: Why Members get
suspicious because of changes that happen whilst our backs our
turned?
Mr Grant Peterkin: Absolutely.
What is mine is my own and what is yours is mine too.
Q88 John Thurso: Picking up on the
point that Bob made there are many PLCs and big institutions in
the private sector who had traditionally gloriously large offices
who have become far more strict about who needs to be in London
and certainly the company that I am Deputy Chairman of all of
the finance function and all of the HR function all of the accounting
function has been moved out to Crawley. I am trying to get them
to move it to Wick but not with any great success yet! The point
is would it be possible, looking at this as a positive challenge
rather than a negative requiring a meaty answer, would it be possible
to say to you can you start by listing who has to be here and
everybody else by definition could be moved and if we then moved
those with what we have left could we deliver what we are asking
for? Could that be a positive exercise that could be done?
Mr Grant Peterkin: I think that
is exactly the sort of evidence that the Clerk of the House wants
to bring back to this Committee on the 9th once we have got some
early indicators of what are those issues from today's investigation
and subsequent talks amongst Committee members are your early
themes in this work, so that Roger Sands can respond to you. We
can do some of that work once the Clerk to your Committee indicates
what are the themes that you want us to respond to prior to that
dialogue on 9 May. That would be very easy to do.
Chairman: Thank you very much gentlemen.
Just for the record can I say that since I came in in 1987 there
has been a huge improvement in the quality of accommodation provided
by Members but it is quite clear from discussions we have had
today that there is some way to go. I have found this an extremely
useful and helpful discussion that we have had today. Thank you
very much for your evidence and I am sure you we will see us again.
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