Memorandum from the Head of Visitor and
Outreach Services at the Scottish Parliament (in response to a
letter from the Clerk of the Administration Sub-Committee)
When was your visitor centre established or due
to be established?
The new Parliament building opened to the public
on 7 September 2004. Before this, we had a visitor centre in our
temporary accommodation (which opened in May 1999).
Was the visitor centre a new or separate building
or was existing accommodation used?
The centre is an integral part of the new Parliament
building. It is immediately after the Public Entrance.
You can access a plan showing the layout of
this level of the building on our web site at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/images/holyrood/thumbs_des/images/aba-Floor%20plan%201_jpg.jpg
The centre is located in the area shaded in
mid-blue, marked as the Public Foyer on the plan—it is known
now as the Main Hall.
More information about the Main Hall is on the
web site at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/holyrood/building/MainHall.htm
What is the scale of your Centre in m2?
The total area of the Main Hall is 665m2
What are its main target audiences?
The main target audience is the people of Scotland,
especially people who wish to engage with the business of the
Parliament.
People visiting through their Members and young
people and teachers are key audiences.
Our primary purpose is as a Parliament, although
the building itself is an attraction for visitors, including from
the UK and from overseas.
Our prioritised visitor types have just been
looked at as part of our Review of Visitor Services. You can see
the report on this that we made to the Scottish Parliamentary
Corporate Body (SPCB) on our website at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/nmCentre/news/news-06/pa06-056.htm—there
is a link to the SPCB paper in the news release
What are the main aims of your visitor centre
and how do you measure how well you meet these aims?
The centre exists to support the business of
the Parliament. Its main aim is to facilitate access to business,
to Members and to learning about the Scottish Parliament.
We measure how well we are doing through
— monitoring of our Corporate Management
Plan, Directorate Plan and Office Plans; and
— specific pieces of work such as the
Review of Visitor Services mentioned above.
Developing KPIs is one of our corporate goals
for 2006-07 and beyond.
What facilities does it contain?
— The lobby area inside the main entrance
doors contains the security scanning machines, Ladies, Gents and
adapted toilets plus a first aid room and a search room.
— On entering the Main Hall, the Visitor
Information Desk is to the left. The Visitor Services team are
based here and it is equipped for them to sign in visitors for
Members and staff, administer bookings, take payments for tour
tickets, answer enquiries etc. It has five workstations for Visitor
Services staff and one for Security (equipped with CCTV monitor
and public address system).
— There are two plasma screens, used
to show the forthcoming agenda of Parliamentary business, live
coverage of committees and the Debating Chamber, a highlights
package of recent business and events (on days when there is no
business) and a "ticker tape" display of current news
and visitor information.
— The Design Brief allocated an area
of 60m2 in the Main Hall for an exhibition. The form of exhibition
chosen is laid out across the Hall, rather than in one contained
area. This is a permanent exhibition with text, artefacts, audio
visual and computer-based displays which explain the workings
of the Scottish Parliament. The exhibition is based on the founding
principles of the Parliament. It explains the ways in which you
can engage with Parliament and looks at the history of the Scottish
Parliament. Information is also provided about the building and
its construction history. I have attached the Brief for the exhibition
and the text for the displays to illustrate the main themes in
more detail.
— School packed lunch area.
— The cre"che is available for
the public, either attending business or on a visit/tour. There
is a nursing parent/baby changing facility adjacent to the cre"che.
— There are a number of meeting rooms
of various sizes (known as the Garden Meeting Rooms) off the Main
Hall. There is one large room (20 people), two medium sized rooms
(10 people) and five small rooms (four to six people).
— The six committee rooms are in the
Committee Towers which are accessible from the Main Hall; these
are used for meetings and events when not required for Parliamentary
business.
— There are further public toilets
at the Committee Towers.
— There is a public lift (to the Committee
Rooms and the Chamber public gallery) and a public staircase to
the Chamber public gallery.
The Design Brief can be accessed from our web
site at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/holyrood/projHistory/docs/index.htmBrief
This contains more information on the facilities
and services specified for each area.
Is there a link to the main Parliamentary building?
The centre is integral to the building as described
above. There are access routes (security pass controlled) to the
private areas from various parts of the Main Hall and adjacent
public areas.
Does the public have to go through the Centre
to reach the Parliament?
Yes.
How many staff does the Centre have?
The Visitor Services team has 16 posts;
The Retail team has 4.5 posts;
The Education Service has two posts.
Here is a staff chart for this part of the Visitor
and Outreach Services team:
We have contracted out the guided tours service—there
are currently around 80 guides who are trained to work at the
Parliament.
Technical staff and facilities management staff
are shared resources across the Parliament, rather than dedicated
to Visitor Services. The catering and cre"che services are
contracted out and managed through our Facilities Management Team.
How many of the staff are exclusive to the Centre,
or do some have duties elsewhere?
The posts specified above are exclusive to the
centre.
How much did the Centre cost to establish?
Separate costs for the construction of the Main
Hall are not available.
The Visitor Information Desk budget was £88,000.
The exhibition budget was £90,000.
What is its annual running cost?
2006-07 Budgets for staff and running costs
are as follows:
Visitor Services £447,364;
Shop £260,250;
Tours £287,500.
NB for the Shop and Tours these costs are set
against income generated.
Have you undertaken any research or surveys of
visitors to get their views of the visitor centre?
A Visitor Survey was introduced in September
2005. This was one of the recommendations from our Visitor Management
Strategy, prepared by RGA Ltd in 2002 and updated in 2004.
Its main purpose is to monitor satisfaction
and to capture data about visitors. This is a continuous on-site
survey, using a self-completion questionnaire. The form can be
completed by all visitors, whether they are here for parliamentary
business; to meet MSPs or staff; to go on a tour; to attend an
event; for a self-guided visit; use the cafe[acute] or cre"che
or visit the Shop.
It is designed to be complementary to other
processes, especially our Complaints process. It replaced feedback
postcards which were used to capture visitor comments from September
2004 to August 2005.
Copies are available in the Main Hall for visitors
to pick up and they can be completed on site and left in the post
boxes available across the Main Hall and in the Shop.
In November 2005, a separate visitor survey
was used as part of our Visitor Services Review. This was distributed
on site and through a web version (which is still running on the
web site). This has been analysed by RGA Ltd and the results are
included in the Review report.
A revised visitor survey is being drafted by
Visitor Services that combines some of the questions from the
RGA survey with the current survey. This will enable us to continue
to evaluate the "motivational" factors of visitor satisfaction
that were included in the RGA survey, alongside the "product"
factors that our survey focused on. It is intended to introduce
this survey at the start of September 2006.
Do you advertise your visitor centre, for example
on the Internet, through the media or by leaflets or posters?
We have a section on our web site about visiting
the Parliament—http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/index.htm
Our Media Relations Office issues news releases
to promote our work, special events, specific services etc, including
posting "slugs" on the front page of our web site.
We produce a leaflet about visiting the Parliament
which is distributed to over 5,000 community and tourist information
outlets across Scotland. We will be distributing c1,500,000 copies
of this leaflet (or a revised version) over a two year period.
We use an external distribution company for this.
This is the leaflet called "Welcome to
the Scottish Parliament" which you can see of the web site
at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/publicInfo/publications.htm
We have just introduced a marketing leaflet
for the cre"che which you can look at here: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/visitingHolyrood/creche.htm
We place adverts, for example in key information/tourist
publications such as VisitScotland guides. I have attached an
example of this year's core advert style.
We are members of organisations such as the
Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions and publicise on their
websites.
We have information boards outside the building
to illustrate what is available.
What do you think are the key things that make
your visitor centre successful?
Our recent Review has shown we are at the cutting
edge in terms of parliamentary visitor services. This is because
we aim to tie our role to SPCB's strategic objectives so that
we can measure how we contribute to the overall performance of
the Parliament. I think that this gives us a great context for
the work we do through visitor services.
I think that the staff team is the foremost
key to making our services work for visitors and for Members and
colleagues based in the building. It is important to have the
right people "front of house" to ensure visitors feel
welcomed to the building and are able to access our services quickly
and easily.
I believe that visitors appreciate the fact
that they can come into the building and explore (parts of) it
on a self-guided basis or by asking questions of staff. They are
able to do this without pre-booking and without having to contact
a Member, which often takes people by surprise.
I am certain that being open seven days a week
is a key success factor as it enables us to manage visitor demand
across the week and to focus our product offer, depending on whether
it is a business or non-business day.
Of the range of services that we currently have,
I think that the exhibition gives me most satisfaction as a key
tool in successfully getting our interpretive and educational
messages about the Parliament over to the people of Scotland.
It is successful in terms of its content and also its layout,
which enables large numbers of people to access it at one time.
I think that the range of publications available
for visitors to pick up free of charge enhances this educational
role. They are available in a range of community and tourist languages
to ensure that a wide range of visitors feel welcomed and can
access our key messages. This is backed up by the "information
channel" plasma screens, which enable people to see the Parliament
in action and find out what is going on each day.
Overall, the staff and facilities in the Main
Hall create an impression that this is a lively, modern, open
and accessible working Parliament, that is for the people of Scotland
and that they can be proud of.
What could we learn from your experience?
In a nutshell, I think that the main learning
point is that taking an open and accessible approach brings benefits
for the reputation of the Parliament with its key target audience.
Making it easy for people to come in and to gain access to business,
to Members, to information and to services is very important.
Although we are not a tourist attraction, it is important to use
tourist industry standards for what we do in order to top customer
expectations. This helps our customers to feel familiar with what
they find in our building and contributes to the overall levels
of satisfaction with what we provide. Providing all this successfully
whilst never losing sight of the fact that we are a Parliament
first and foremost is the key to our success.
4 August 2006
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