4 Staffing matters
44. In spite of the media's tendency to see the
House of Commons as a singular entity, each of the 650 Members
of the House runs his or her own office in their own way. It is
not uncommon to suggest that the Palace of Westminster and its
associated buildings house something akin to 650 small businesses
with each individual MP taking responsibility for the running
of an office and employment of staff. For new Members, getting
to grips with their responsibilities as an employer is daunting.
One Member told us that "MPs are completely unprepared [...]
that they are, in effect, about to start running a small business
especially in terms of employing staff".[35]
45. The hiring of suitable researchers, secretaries
or other staff is among the first tasks a new Member must undertake,
and with only a matter of days separating election and the sitting
of Parliament, it is a task often undertaken in some haste. This
can raise future difficulties: some Members arrive at Westminster
with substantial office management experience and a detailed knowledge
of employment law; most do not. Nor are the skills of staff that
helped a Member win a constituency election necessarily the skills
required to run an office or be a caseworker, either at Westminster
or in a constituency.
46. The House provides a Personnel Advisory Service
(PAS) which offers Members assistance on matters including recruitment,
tribunals, redundancies and employment law. The PAS earns praise
from those Members who have used it—one told us that he
had found its support invaluable as he hired his permanent staff.[36]
Other new Members have, however, consistently told us that they
were unaware of what help was on offer until sometime after they
had set up their offices and employed their staff, or else thought
this was IPSA's role. The Head of PAS, Mr Dapo Coker, confirmed
to us in March 2013 that take-up of initial training sessions
by PAS had been low, and it is planning for presentations on these
matters to be provided a few weeks after new Members arrive in
2015 rather than in the first weeks, when the pressure of events,
office set-up and a new parliamentary life might tend to make
them a low priority.
47. We recommend that there
is clarification from the Personnel Advisory Service (PAS) and
IPSA on their respective roles in providing advice to new Members
on staff matters.
48. There is also the question of training in
employment of staff for new Members who may previously have had
no experience in that area. The parliamentary branch of Unite,
the only trade union that represents Members' staff, suggested
to us that new Members should have to undergo some mandatory training
on how to be an employer and how to manage staff. Max Freedman,
the branch chair of Unite, told us:
It would not be unreasonable to say that an MP should
have an hour of training or the opportunity to discuss [employment]
matters before they were given access to a budget for staff of
over £130,000.[37]
You have a range of different employment styles, to put it mildly,
in here, from people who are absolutely expert, terrific and very
professional in the way they do things, to people who have had
no training or experience in management and who are frankly slapdash
at it.[38]
49. Several Members have agreed that the experience
of employing staff can be a significant challenge. One told us
that guidance on contracts and job descriptions would have been
invaluable, and suggested that the House could contact all candidates
once an election was called inviting them to consider what would
be required in this area.[39]
This would be a considerable, complex and costly undertaking for
the House Service—there were more than 4,000 candidates
at the last election, most of whom, with the best will in the
world, had little or no chance of winning. Rather
than the House Service, it is for the political parties to have
processes in place to ensure that their candidates are suitably
aware of the challenges they will face if they win a seat in the
House.
50. We recommend that the
functions of the Personnel Advisory Service be more heavily emphasised
in both the written material sent to new Members ahead of arrival
at Westminster and in the New Members' Reception Area.
51. We recommend that staff
from the Personnel Advisory Service make telephone contact with
the offices of all new Members before the summer recess after
the general election to ensure that new Members are aware of the
services on offer.
52. We recommend that the
Personnel Advisory Service should be provided with additional
resources during the immediate pre and post-election period in
order to meet demands from departing and new Members.
53. One Member has suggested to us that a clearing
system could be created for experienced Members' staff that might
help new Members during the first weeks in Westminster. Several
others who provided us with experiences of the early days here
said that the inheritance of competent and experienced staff from
a predecessor had prevented constituents from suffering: "I
simply wouldn't have been able to deal in any sort of systematic
way with their issues, queries and problems, and would have been
left with a terrible backlog,"[40]
said one. Another suggested that a pool of secretarial staff could
be provided by the House Service for a few weeks to deal with
non-political work, such as the "mountain of correspondence
and invitations".[41]
This would also give new MPs some breathing space to employ staff,
avoiding the temptation to appoint too quickly and then have to
unravel arrangements that did not work out well.
54. We recommend that IPSA,
the House Service and the political parties consider the feasibility
of providing Members with access to a pool of short-term administrative
staff during the first three months after a general election.
55. It is accepted that new Members require training
but staff of new Members, whether in Westminster or constituencies,
are often overlooked. Lisa Townsend, Branch Chair of the Members
and Peers Staff Association (MAPSA), told us that in particular
new staff in constituency offices felt isolated. They would like
training but have little idea of what is available and are not
always able to come to London to attend training. Lisa Townsend
recounted a conversation that a staff member based in Scotland
had had with IPSA about training she wanted when she took over
as the proxy for her new Member. The staff member asked whether
it could be done via the internet or the phone but she was told
she would have to come to London. "These are things that
[MAPSA] are constantly trying to address with IPSA to just make
it a little bit friendlier."[42]
56. We recommend that IPSA
develops, and more vigorously promotes, training available for
Members' staff, which could be offered via the internet, video
conferencing or face to face outside London.
35 Ev 46 [Nicky Morgan MP] Back
36
Ev 48 [Duncan Hames MP] Back
37
Ev 7 Back
38
Ev 9 Back
39
Ev 46 [Nicky Morgan MP] Back
40
Ev 46 [Kate Green MP] Back
41
Ev 46 [Nicky Morgan MP] Back
42
Q 18 Back
| 
