Summary
This report should be seen as the third in a series.
The first in 1990 was by Sir Robin Ibbs whose report led the previously
divided responsibilities for the management and services of the
House of Commons to be brought together in a co-ordinated management
and decision-making structure under the control of the House and
its Members. The second was the report by Mr Michael Braithwaite
in 1999 who produced recommendations designed to improve strategic
direction, corporate governance and the use of modern management
techniques. Both Ibbs and Braithwaite recommended periodic follow-up
reviews on the progress of reforms; hence this one. Our report
goes with the grain of these previous reports - and with the thrust
of the House Service's own efforts.
We need, at the outset, to clarify the nature of
this review. It is not intended primarily as a contribution to
the current debate about the reform of Parliamentary process and
procedure, either at Westminster or in its relationship to the
general public. Rather the report is concerned with the more prosaic
issue of how the services to support the institution of the House
of Commons and Members of Parliament are governed, managed and
delivered — vital in itself, given the importance of a well-functioning
Parliament in the affairs of the nation, but not about constitutional
policy prescriptions.
Nor is this report an exercise in management consultancy.
The reviewer's credentials are based on experience of medium and
large organisations in the public sector and of the challenges
Government Departments have faced over the past dozen years. This
limitation does at least bring one advantage: of being familiar
with the assertion — made sometimes about the Commons —
that this is a unique institution, where the application of modern
management and planning would be inappropriate, given the difficulty
of quantifying 'outputs' and performance, and that trying to do
so would, in any case, be frustrated by the all-pervasive influence
of politics. In reality, several organisations in the public sector
are also unique and face similar complexities, if not to the same
degree. Our objective has been to respect the status and character
of the House and preserve the special qualities of the House Service,
while seeking to build organisational and executive capacity and
promote effectiveness, accountability and value for money.
Governance
Ibbs and Braithwaite emphasised that a self-governing
House of Commons, independent from the Executive, was a defining
condition of a parliamentary democracy. A main theme of their
reports was the need to ensure strong and effective oversight
and engagement by the relevant bodies, composed exclusively of
Members of Parliament — the Commission, the Finance and
Services Committee and the Domestic Committees (now the Administration
Committee). We consider the operation of these bodies in the light
of these previous recommendations in Chapter 2 of our own review;
and make a number of further recommendations. These are designed
to enable the Commission to exercise greater control over strategy,
without being drawn into micro-management; to strengthen the position
of the Finance and Services Committee (in the interests both of
scrutinising spending proposals and of underpinning the Commission
in its governing role); and to focus the Administration Committee
more constructively on policy advice on the services required
for the support of Members. Some changes in the composition of
the Committees and reductions in the size of membership are proposed.
Under a self-governing institution, which also votes
its own budget, the role of independent audit is particularly
important to provide assurance that public funds are used appropriately.
Another of our recommendations reinforces the independence of
the audit function, by placing chairmanship of the Audit Committee
in the hands of one of the external Audit Committee members rather
than a member of the Commission as at present.
Management
A self-governing House of Commons does not mean that
Members should try to run it themselves. They should expect a
professional organisation to do it for them. We believe it is
right that the management and delivery of services are delegated
to the Clerk of the House and the House Service. Much of our review
is devoted to this aspect, in Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 6. We have
looked at performance from three angles: implementation of Braithwaite's
recommendations and their consequences; the extent to which the
task of the House Service has become more complex and challenging
since then; and the results of a recent survey of Members and
their staff about their satisfaction with present arrangements.
Our findings are generally encouraging and reassuring.
The present system is certainly not broken. Indeed the Service's
performance is well regarded overall, and its reputation with
other parliamentary services is high. In only one area - management
of Estates and Works - did we feel that there was a need for early
remedial action. That is because a central recommendation of the
Braithwaite report - the separation of the organisation into a
client function and a provider function - has not been working
as envisaged; and major investments are at stake. Our recommendations
provide for the reintegration of Estates and Works into one Directorate,
with a new Director and a Programme Office that would 'own' a
25-year strategy for the Parliamentary Estate, raise the quality
of project management and be subject to stringent financial scrutiny
to ensure that business cases and other controls meet the necessary
standards. Supervision of implementation would be by an Estate
Board with external expert representation. This is discussed in
more detail in Chapter 4.
In the management and delivery of services more generally,
we found the present arrangements to be effective across the range
of the House's work, and highly effective in some areas such as
supporting the Chamber in core scrutiny and legislative functions.
However, the way in which Members work has itself been changing,
notably in the extent of their involvement in constituency issues
and in other forms of interaction with the public. These put new
demands on the House Service.
To the extent that we have criticisms, they arise
largely as a result of the federal nature of the House Service
— seven semi-autonomous Departments. It would be beneficial,
in our view, for the capacity which exists to be brought together
and directed more corporately to achieve higher levels of performance
and efficiency. A range of issues are discussed in this context:
helping the Commission to establish strategic priorities and objectives;
ensuring that progress towards them can be measured; putting in
place more professional organisational machinery, processes and
systems; actively managing resources — both financial and
personnel — across Departmental boundaries for this purpose;
and planning for future service requirements.
We believe that both the Commission and the House
Service (the present Heads of Department and Board of Management)
are working towards these ends. They were also signposted in the
Braithwaite report. But the strength of the existing compartmentalised
organisation, with different cultures within it, renders the necessary
co-operation more difficult, the bureaucratic structures more
complicated and progress more slow than either the Service itself,
or Members, would wish.
In order to address this, recommendations in Chapters
2, 3 and 6 include provision for the following—
- the Clerk of the House to be
freed up from more of his responsibilities for the Clerk's Department
in order to perform the role of Chief Executive of the House Service;
- an enlarged and renamed Office
of the Clerk headed at senior level to act in support of the Chief
Executive in implementing corporate decisions, performance management,
planning and communications functions and to help remove existing
duplications and competitive activity across the House Service;
- more explicit delegations from the Speaker of
the House and the Chief Executive to the Heads of individual Departments,
clarifying their responsibilities;
- adoption of measurable targets agreed between
the Commission and Board, on what constitutes 'success' for the
House Service in three years' time;
- use of a House-wide performance management system
to co-ordinate individual Departmental efforts and to provide
a vehicle for monitoring by the governing bodies, based on a Balanced
Scorecard;
- a smaller more strategic Management Board, with
the inclusion of two external advisers;
- increased authority from the Management Board
to the leaders of cross-cutting groups to deliver objectives and
processes (to overcome the need for voluntary consensus from all
Departments);
- a strengthening of the role of the Director of
Finance and Administration with 'ownership' of finance staff House-wide:
to entrench common financial processes, to generate aggregated
management information to underpin improved performance and to
promote more active budgetary management;
- a centralised and professional HR team to develop
the House staff as a collective resource and to overcome the inefficiencies
of the present personnel structure.
Connecting Parliament with the Public
Our starting point in Chapter 5 is the Modernisation
Committee's landmark report of 2004 which has been substantially
implemented, with the backing of a Resolution of the House. The
Commission's Strategic Plan defines the third primary objective
of the House of Commons Service as being "to promote public
knowledge and understanding of the work and role of Parliament
through the provision of information and access".
The Group on Information for the Public (GIP) successfully
brings together officials from Commons Departments and the House
of Lords to develop strategy, to draw up and compare business
plans and to co-ordinate a wide range of activities, from the
website to school visits to the guide for new voters. The opening
of the Visitor Reception Building in the summer of 2007 will give
further scope to develop the role of the new Visitor Assistants,
who complement the work of the Central Tours Office, the Education
Service and the police and doorkeepers in providing an efficient
welcome for visitors to the estate.
The importance of keeping Members involved in the
strategy for connecting Parliament with the public has been underlined
by the Administration Committee's change of tack on the planned
Parliamentary Visitor and Information Centre; as a result of its
recent report, GIP's work will now focus on developing better
facilities for educational visits.
Rather than create a new organisational structure,
we recommend that GIP be given a stronger executive role, under
the leadership of a Director of Information and Communications
(the appointment broadened in scope from that of Librarian). We
also recommend that a more interactive and highly navigable Parliamentary
website should be given high priority as the most cost-effective
means of securing increased public engagement in the parliamentary
process and fostering close connections with the younger generation,
in particular, whose falling turnout at recent elections is a
matter of concern.
Service Delivery
A theme throughout the report has been responsiveness
to Members' needs, improved communication and the case for a more
proactive and 'customer-facing' approach by the House Service.
This thread runs through Chapter 6 of the report, and is reflected
in recommendations covering the Clerks, Library, accommodation
services, administration, refreshment and information technology.
We had considered recommending the creation of one-stop
shops around the Parliamentary Estate staffed with generalists
able to take enquiries from Members and track them through the
system on their behalf. We have stopped short of this on grounds
of resources, the risk of adding another layer to an already complicated
administrative system and the need to avoid confusing the substance
of service delivery with presentational gimmicks. Instead the
report recommends, or commends, changes in functional areas in
order to become more responsive and, where necessary, 'joined-up'
in serving Members and their staff - for example, the creation
of a client relations group for the whole Serjeant at Arms area;
benchmarking with external providers in respect of catering; and
general use of information technology to provide more effective
help and support.
House of Lords
Although not part of our remit, the House of Lords
is affected unavoidably by some of our recommendations. Good co-operation
already exists between the two Houses. We recommend that, as and
when the climate seems right, and once the first 'bi-cameral'
joint Department (PICT) has proved itself in the future, further
joint Departments should be created, in the interests of reducing
overhead costs and of general efficiency.
Grants to Inter-parliamentary Associations
There is one small aspect of the House's activities
that is not yet within its full control. It concerns the grants-in-aid
for Members' work with four inter-parliamentary associations.
We have made recommendations in respect of these votes, designed
to complete the process of bringing under the House's authority
all resources necessary to achieve its purposes, including international
co-operation.
Implementation
We recommend that implementation of these recommendations
be undertaken by an in-House ad hoc team, reporting in the first
instance to the Management Board, which might subsequently be
folded into the enlarged Office of the Clerk, re-named Office
of the Chief Executive.
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