5 Looking outwards
5.1 The Commissioner and Registrar continued
to respond to requests to address individuals and groups visiting
Westminster. The Commissioner and the Registrar, either separately
or together, met representatives from St Helena, Bermuda, the
Republic of Korea, West Australia, West Bengal, Oromia (Ethiopia),
the Turks and Caicos Islands, Bosnia, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Guyana
and Nigeria, and spoke at wider meetings organised by the Commonwealth
Parliamentary Association and Inter-Parliamentary Union.
5.2 The Commissioner and Registrar also co-operated
with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy in its efforts to
rationalise the UK's contribution to parliamentary strengthening
worldwide, attending two meetings of the numerous organisations
involved. They participated in the seminar on ethics and standards
run by the Public Administration Select Committee and one run
by the Guardian Newspaper. The Assistant Registrar attended the
annual conference of local government standards officers.
5.3 There is regular contact with other, non-parliamentary,
standards authorities in the UK—the Committee on Standards
in Public Life, the Electoral Commission, the Standards Board
for England, the Propriety and Ethics Team in the Cabinet Office
and the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments - both on
matters of common interest and in the course of casework, since
complainants are understandably not always aware of the most appropriate
authority to contact. Good links are therefore maintained with
each of those authorities.
5.4 The standards systems of the UK parliaments
and legislative assemblies differ among themselves. For example,
all but the Westminster one are statute-based so that infringement
of the Code of Conduct is ipso facto also a breach of
the law. But there is sufficient common ground to make regular
contact valuable to all parties. It has been the practice for
the various standards commissioners of the UK and Ireland, together
with the relevant parliamentary staff, to hold occasional seminars,
meeting at a different venue each time. In April 2007 the National
Assembly for Wales hosted a seminar in Cardiff. The agenda covered
such issues as how to engage Members, and the inter-relationship
between politics and standards. There is also regular informal
contact. This is particularly important in the case of Northern
Ireland, where the dual mandate of a number of Members means that
it is possible for a Member to be subject to inquiries in both
jurisdictions in respect of different aspects of the same set
of events.
5.5 While the upper House has its own arrangements,
there is frequent discussion between the two Registrars. The year
saw close liaison between the two offices following the decision
of the House of Lords to set up a register of the interests of
peers' staff.
5.6 The Registrar, working jointly with a member
of the House of Commons Library's Parliament and Constitution
Centre, took part in an initiative, driven from the Lebanon and
assisted by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, to prepare
a handbook to assist with the setting up of parliamentary standards
systems. It was intended that this should be primarily for the
use of Arab parliaments but that it should be capable of wider
application. In the course of this involvement, the Registrar
visited the Yemen and Bahrain to attend conferences of Arab Parliamentarians
Against Corruption. Drafts of the handbook were in course of preparation
when it became apparent not only that the project was becoming
more extensive than had originally been envisaged but also that
the London-based organisation Global Partners had been commissioned
by the United Nations Development Programme on Governance for
the Arab Region to write a Code of Conduct for the Parliaments
of the Arab Region which could be used as a model elsewhere. It
was therefore agreed with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy
that Global Partners should take over primary responsibility for
the project, the Westminster staff remaining as consultants. The
Registrar will continue to offer her services in that role.
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