Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-188)
MS GILL
CHEESEMAN AND
MR KEVIN
FLACK
9 MAY 2006
Q180 Mr Robathan: I see, and how
many members have you got?
Ms Cheeseman: I do not know because
I am the President and not membership secretary so, I am sorry,
I cannot help you there.
Q181 Mr Robathan: I know you have
parties. I have seen parties advertised.
Ms Cheeseman: We have parties
and we do lot a lot of campaigning and represent the interests
of Members' staff. One of the things I do is that if a member
of staff has a problem with their Member, of whichever party,
because I have been here 24 years they come to me because there
is no human resource or personnel department. That is a big role
that we have and the union has. We are happy to represent anybody,
whether it is on accommodation or anything else.
Q182 Mr Robathan: What about yourself,
Mr Flack?
Mr Flack: I am Secretary of the
Transport and General Workers' Union branch that covers just MPs'
staff.
Q183 Mr Robathan: Are you full time?
Mr Flack: No, voluntary. I work
for an MP, as do all of our members.
Q184 Mr Robathan: So you do not occupy
any more accommodation than the trade union side does already?
Mr Flack: We do not have a trade
union office but if it is on offer—
Q185 Mr Ainsworth: With regard to
the purpose of the audit that you are proposing, and you can see
the difficulties in terms of auditing Members' offices, throwing
Members out if they do not really need all the space and giving
their offices to newer Members who have stuffed their offices
full of staff, you were talking about the allocation of staff
desks. Are you saying that that is never audited?
Mr Flack: I do not think it is.
Ms Cheeseman: I do not think it
is. I think each Member is allocated a desk for their staff, or
two desks, and if they do not use it that desk will be empty.
Q186 Mr Ainsworth: Are you saying
that there are staff desks allocated to Members that are empty
year on year?
Ms Cheeseman: Yes.
Q187 Mr Ainsworth: Members have been
allocated a staff desk somewhere over in Norman Shaw North and
despite that being empty for years and years they still do not
use it? That happens?
Ms Cheeseman: Yes.
Q188 Mr Ainsworth: And Members can
hang on to those staff desks and refuse to release them?
Mr Flack: We are not even sure
that they are asked to release them.
Helen Jones: I have been through that
myself, Chairman. The problem seems to me to be to get accommodation
for staff who come up here occasionally. If you do not hang on
to your desk when you bring anyone up here you have not got anywhere
to put them; that is the real problem. If we could solve the first
one we could then solve the second.
Chairman: That is a more obvious candidate
for hot-desking.
Helen Jones: Absolutely, but if you try
to negotiate it through the Serjeant at Arms when you want to
bring somebody in it is a nightmare.
Chairman: That has been extremely helpful.
Again, apologies for keeping you waiting so long. Thank you very
much.
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