Memorandum submitted by the Principal
Clerk, Table Office (P43, 2010-11)
1. The Procedure Committee requested a note on:
- (a) the likely effects on the number of Questions
tabled and on the operation of the Table Office of:
- introducing
a daily quota of five; and
- an earlier
cut-off time,
- for Questions tabled for written answer
via the e-tabling system:
- (b) the potential for Members to receive
answers to parliamentary Questions for written answer (WPQs) by
email; and
- (c) Members' access to tools to monitor the
receipt of answers.
DAILY QUOTA
AND CUT-OFF
TIMES
2. The Committee is considering the merits of
a daily quota of five PQs tabled for written answer via the e-tabling
system in combination with earlier cut-off times for e-tabling
from Monday to Thursday. At present Members, often with assistance
from their staff, may continue to table WPQs, either in the Table
Office or via the e-tabling system, until half an hour after the
moment of interruption or the rising of the House, whichever is
earlier. These cut-off times are vary from day to day depending
on the House's sitting times. Members may continue to bring WPQs
into the Table Office after the cut-off if the House is still
sitting and to e-table but these Questions are not tabled until
the following day.
3. A daily quota of five e-tabled Questions in
combination with cut-off times for e-tabling at 7.00 pm on Mondays
and Tuesday and 6.00 pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays would significantly
reduce the number of WPQs e-tabled. Taking Monday 29 November
2010 as a snapshot, had a quota of five been applied that day
to ordinary written and named day questions tabled electronically,
219 WPQs would not have been tabled, affecting 25 Members. Any
effect on the overall number of Questions tabled may be mitigated
or offset by WPQs tabled on subsequent days or by other methods
once the quota or cut-off time had been reached.
4. At present Members may use the e-tabling system
to submit WPQs at times when the House is in recess. As Questions
may only be tabled on sitting days, all Questions received during
recesses are treated as being tabled on the next sitting day.
The effects of the quota would be particularly noticeable at these
times as it would limit Members to e-tabling five Questions between
the rise of the House and the next but one sitting day. It would
be possible to apply the quota only during sitting periods. This
would afford Members the convenience of unrestricted e-tabling
at times when they less likely to be Westminster and do not have
the option of tabling in person as the Table Office is not open.
5. These measures in combination may increase
the propensity for WPQs to be tabled earlier in the day. This
would help the Table Office plan and structure its work more effectively,
particularly the organisation of staff on duty during evenings
and nights. In particular, the measures may reduce the frequency
with which WPQs which could otherwise be tabled immediately are
held over pending inquiries, such as those required to establish
whether certain WPQs engage the House's sub judice resolution;
something which Members often, and understandably, find frustrating.
6. The average cost to the House of processing
questions - including the printing of answers - is now estimated
to be £80. These measures are not likely to reduce Table
Office costs in the short term because staff who process WPQs
at night are also engaged in other duties, such as the preparation
and printing of the Order Paper for the following day, tabling
Early Day Motions and processing added names to such Motions.
They would still need to be available to process oral Questions
and WPQs tabled by a member in person or sent in by post.
7. A consistent cut-off time for e-tabled WPQs
from Monday to Thursday, which the Committee also contemplates,
would have the benefit of being easier to understand and communicate.
It would also avoid adding a further degree of complexity to the
web of tabling rules which already frustrates some. As the cut-off
points for WPQs tabled other than via the e-tabling system would
remain unchanged under the Committee's proposals, the latest possible
uniform Monday to Thursday cut-off time would be 6.30 pm; if any
later the cut-off for e-tabled WPQs would fall after that for
other WPQs on Thursdays.
8. Occasionally, on particularly busy days, the
Table Office already holds over some ordinary written questions
to the following day. This has happened twice since the House
returned in October. It is hoped the introduction of an earlier
cut-off for e-tabling would not affect the discretion of the Office
to continue this practice when necessary.
IMPLEMENTATION AND
COSTS
9. Implementing these measures would require
some changes to be made to the e-tabling system itself. The cost
of this work is estimated to be £3,500 including VAT. The
work commissioned would establish variable daily quotas and cut-offs
in the electronic system itself so that the size of the quota
and the precise time of the cut-off could be varied in the future
without the need for further development. These costs assume the
proposed quota working in the same way as the existing quota for
named day Questions, with no facility to stack Questions from
day-to-day on the e-tabling system. There will also be some costs
arising from the revision and publication of guidance on tabling
WPQs. No other implementation costs are anticipated.
10. The Table Office stands ready to assist in
short-term experimentation or more permanent implementation and
in monitoring of the effects of any changes arising from the Committee's
deliberations. The Office does not at present record the times
of day at which WPQs are tabled but is considering how to do so
in order to establish baseline information against which the effects
of any changes in deadlines and quotas can be measured.
ORAL QUESTIONS
AND CUT-OFFS
11. Process changes affecting oral questions
in the same vein as those under consideration in respect of WPQs
would serve the same purposes of reducing the administrative burden
upon Members, their staff and House staff associated with tabling
without impinging on the potential for effective scrutiny of the
executive. One way of achieving this may be to bring forward the
shuffle for each oral question time but to shuffle Members' names
rather than their Questions. Members successful in the shuffle
would then have up until the existing cut-off time for orals to
table the Question they wished to ask. Only Members successful
in the shuffle, the number of which varies between 8 and 25, would
need to research and craft oral Questions. Each would be doing
so knowing that their Question will reach the Order Paper, rather
than hundreds of Members spending time and effort preparing Questions
each day which are never asked. As the deadline for tabling Questions
would not change, there should be no effect on the topicality
of Questions while Members may benefit from earlier knowledge
of their Chamber commitments.
WPQ ANSWERS BY
EMAIL
12. The delivery of answers to Members, and the
means of that delivery, is the responsibility of the Government
body providing the answer. Individual departments could provide
email copies of answers. There have been several attempts over
the last decade to make electronic delivery of answers to Parliament
routine. For the most part these have been frustrated by the complexity
of bringing together such a large number of answering bodies in
a single framework. The House itself has now taken the initiative.
Work designed to improve the efficiency of the administration
of printing and publishing answers offers the potential for routine
electronic delivery of answers to Members.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
TOOLS
13. The Committee also asked for Members to have
access to the Table Office's tools to check whether WPQs had been
answered. The Committee may have in mind the reports on unanswered
questions which are available to all those with access to the
parliamentary network. These can be found on the parliamentary
intranet on the Parliamentary Information Management System homepage
at http://pimsdata.parliament.uk.
14. There are two such reports which provide
real time information on unanswered questions, one breaking the
information down by Department, and a second, "Tabled Questions",
which provides a list of questions tabled by a Member but not
yet answered regardless of the Minister to which the question
was directed. The Table Office has no tools to monitor unanswered
questions which are not available to Members.
Andrew Kennon
Principal Clerk, Table Office
December 2010
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