Select Committee on Administration Second Report


1  INTRODUCTION

Background to the inquiry

1. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services have become critical to the work of Members of Parliament, and this importance can only increase. Even the decreasing number of Members who do not use computers themselves rely on staff who do.

2. The Parliamentary Information and Communications Technology Department (PICT) was established in January 2006, bringing together for the first time ICT staff and other resources from across both Houses of Parliament into a unified organisation under a single accountable Director. This was a strategic response to the previously fragmented planning and implementation of ICT across Parliament, which involved numerous separately managed teams working on overlapping and often inter-dependent systems, without an overview of resources.

3. PICT provides services to the Members and staff of both Houses of Parliament. Our focus is on those services provided for Members of the House of Commons and their staff. Members of Parliament are not a homogenous body of people. They work in different ways and they have correspondingly divergent demands for ICT services. The feedback we have received from Members since we were appointed in July 2005 has made us aware of a significant undertone of dissatisfaction with the ICT services provided by Parliament. We want to ensure that processes are in place to enable appropriate Members' services to be delivered efficiently and to an agreed standard.

4. We announced terms of reference in July 2006 and issued a notice to all Members and their staff calling for written evidence. We received evidence from 30 Members and 43 Members' staff, as well as from the Parliamentary Resources Unit (PRU), who assist over 150 Conservative and Democratic Unionist Party Members and their staff in their parliamentary duties; their evidence is published with this Report. We are particularly grateful to the three serving Members and the one former Member who chaired the House of Commons Information Committee between 1997 and 2005 (the year in which we—the Administration Committee—replaced it), all of whom have contributed to our inquiry. We have also received submissions from organisations outside Parliament, thanks to the assistance of PITCOM (an Associate Parliamentary Group set up to provide a bridge between Parliament and the IT industry) and EURIM (a not-for-profit membership organisation which sees itself as the independent UK-based Parliament-Industry Group dedicated to improving the quality of ICT policy). PICT has provided us with a considerable amount of written evidence, and we have held two formal discussions with the PICT senior management in the course of our inquiry. As well as this formal activity, we have held informal discussions with the following experts from within the House and outside:

We are publishing the notes of all of these discussions together with this Report. We are grateful to all of those who took the time to talk to us.

5. We reserve particular thanks to our two specialist advisors, Professor Jim Norton and Mr John Milner. Their expert assistance has been invaluable in making sense of technically complex issues, and in providing an objective comparison of the ICT service Members receive with similar services elsewhere.

Current service provision

6. At the end of March 2007, PICT employed (or contracted with third parties for the services of) 242 full time equivalent people.[1] As with other parts of the parliamentary service, PICT does not have a fixed staff complement at any given time and overall staff costs are managed through budget controls. Because of the need for scarce specialist skills and the nature of the employment market in ICT, 53 of these people were engaged on short-term contracts for service or consultancy, many through third parties. All of the staff directly employed by PICT are based at Westminster. Very few staff are dedicated specifically to Members and their staff, but the majority of service desk calls are received from these customer groups.

7. PICT is responsible for providing a service to a variety of client groups, of which Members of the Commons and their staff are only one. PICT also provides a service to Members of the House of Lords and their staff, to Departments of both Houses, and, through the Internet and the structures underpinning it, to the public. The client groups are by no means completely separate: much of the work done by House of Commons staff using ICT is carried out on behalf of Members, and while the direct customers of systems such as the security pass system, division bells and payroll are Departments of the House, Members appreciate and benefit from these systems as well.

8. PICT draws its funding from a number of budgets:

  • the main PICT budget. This was approximately £20.7 million resource in 2006-07,[2] and £1.2 million capital. Approximately 80% (£15 million) was paid from the House of Commons Administration Estimate, the other 20% being funded by the House of Lords;
  • the House of Commons Members' Estimate for spending on Members' IT, including equipment, the Commons share of the running costs of the Virtual Private Network (VPN) and of mobile computing, and the cost of temporary staff dedicated to supporting mobile computing for Members;
  • the House of Lords budget for IT capital and Peers' expenditure; and
  • project budgets for agreed and mainly shared project expenditure, such as the Internet project and an exploratory project looking at Electronic Document and Records Management.

9. Any increase in funding for PICT from the House of Commons Administration Estimate to improve services for Members and their staff would require agreement from the Finance & Services Committee and the House of Commons Commission, and (unless the funding was redistributed from other Departments) from the House itself. Any increase in the provision from the Members' Estimate would normally be subject to a review by the Senior Salaries Review Body and would also have to be agreed by the House.

10. The main PICT budget from the Administration Estimate enables the provision of services including servers and networking (but not local networking at a constituency level), telephony within the Parliamentary Estate, licences and support for common and specialist parliamentary applications, and all time and services provided by PICT staff, such as customer assistance. More than 25% of the budget is for spending related to the specialist applications in use by the two Houses, such as the Parliamentary Information Management System (PIMS).

11. Members' ICT equipment both at Westminster and in the constituency is provided from a separate budget, the Members' Estimate, as an allowance. Each Member is entitled to a total of up to five desktop and laptop computers and up to two printers. Members can if they wish purchase additional equipment from the Parliamentary catalogue, using their own money or the Incidental Expenditure Provision (IEP), a separate cash-limited allowance. The equipment is provided and supported via a contract, currently with Dell, and this contract is managed by PICT. Broadband connections in Members' homes and offices are provided via a separate contract, with THUS/Demon, paid for from the Members' Estimate budget. Members must pay themselves for the telephone line needed to access this service, using the IEP if they wish. As of July 2006, pocket mobile computing devices have also been available for Members to buy from the Parliamentary catalogue.

12. Only equipment provided through the Parliamentary catalogue and only the centrally specified broadband provision may be used to connect directly to the Parliamentary Network.

13. During the period of dissolution before a general election, Members' Parliamentary Network accounts and e-mail access have historically been suspended, although a facility to allow Members to redirect their e-mails has been offered. Members have lost access to telephones at Westminster, and voicemail storage has been withdrawn. In 2005, Members remained able to use equipment in their constituency for ongoing casework, and Internet access via broadband remained available. No equipment provided centrally or paid for using the IEP may be used for party political purposes at any time.

14. We are responsible for considering the services provided for and by the House. Allowances, including the provision of ICT equipment to Members, are overseen by an Advisory Panel on Members' Allowances and by the Members' Estimate Committee. However, we (and the Information Committee before us) have generally found that it is impossible sensibly to consider the provision of ICT services without making reference also to the equipment being provided. Our responsibilities are interlinked. We aim to be clear in this Report where we make recommendations with implications for services and equipment provided from the Members' Estimate.

15. PICT does not yet have a clearly defined and communicated strategy for delivering ICT services to Members. There is a risk that without clear strategic direction, services for Members will not be given the priority they deserve. We aim in this Report to help provide that direction.

Previous work

16. Until relatively recently, Members were responsible for choosing and buying their own ICT equipment. It was only with the development of a central Parliamentary Network, the stability of which depends on the consistency and reliability of the systems connected to it, that equipment procurement has been centralised and standardised. Longer-serving Members' desire to maintain the wide choice of ICT equipment they enjoyed in the recent past has been at odds with this development. As Members have come to rely on networked systems, they have had reluctantly to restrict this flexibility.

17. In 1993, the Information Committee did "not recommend the central provision of equipment, but consider[ed] that a list of 'registered' suppliers should be available to Members on request".[3] By 1998, they recommended that "the time [was] not yet right for central provision", but agreed to the introduction of an approved list of equipment which Members could purchase centrally and recommended that the issue be reviewed in the next Parliament.[4] However, the issue reached a crisis point sooner than the Committee had anticipated. In 2000, "in the light of a dramatic increase in the use of IT by Members" and noting "the prospect of an erosion of the value" of the Parliamentary Network and of the support that could be provided, the Information Committee recommended "that central provision of IT hardware and software for Members, together with a maintenance and support service in Westminster and in the constituency, be introduced at the earliest opportunity".[5]

18. This system of central provision was introduced following the general election in 2001 and the agreement of the House in July of that year that "specific financial provisions should be made for the supply and maintenance of a standard package of information technology equipment and services for each Member to be used exclusively in discharging their duties as Members".[6] It is worth noting that the "standard package" to which the House agreed in 2001 included services as well as equipment. While the package of equipment has always been clearly defined, the package of services has not.

19. The Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) recommended the central provision and funding of Members' IT equipment as early as 1992.[7] More recently, in 2004, the SSRB recommended that "the level and range of IT support offered to constituency offices should be improved to a level comparable with that offered on the Parliamentary Estate".[8] This recommendation has already had a significant impact on Members' expectations of the ICT services they should receive. One of the aims of this Report is to suggest how this challenging goal might best be approached. It is indisputably the case that the level and range of IT support in the constituency continues to fall far short of that offered at Westminster.


1   Excluding the telephone operator bureau and telecoms engineers, but including staff working on the project to redevelop the parliamentary website. Information provided by PICT Back

2   Including £2.6 million for non-cash items (depreciation and staff pensions) Back

3   The Provision of Members' Information Technology Equipment, Software and Services, First Report from the Information Committee, Session 1992-93, HC 737, para 34 Back

4   The Supply of Members' Information Technology Equipment, Software and Associated Services, First Report from the Information Committee, Session 1998-99, HC 74, paras 49, 52 and 59 Back

5   Information Technology provision for Members, Second Report from the Information Committee, Session 1999-2000, HC 758, paras 15, 29 and 33 Back

6   Votes and Proceedings 5 July 2001 Back

7   Top Salaries Review Body, Report No. 32, Cm 1943, Chapter 4. Back

8   Review Body on Senior Salaries, Report No. 57, Cm 6354-I, p 30 Back


 
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