Annual Report 2002–03
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Review by the Clerk
Our role
 The Department of the House of Representatives advises the House and
supports its representative and legislative roles. As a department, we
assist the House, its committees, individual members and their offices,
and foster the relations of the House and Parliament with the community
and with other parliaments, here and overseas.
The political issues of the day drive much of the work of the parliamentary
departments, and the forums we service are Australia's key political
arenas. Our job is to support the House and all its members, regardless
of their politics, with a highly professional, impartial and, where appropriate,
confidential service. The volatility of politics means we are never certain
about future demands on the department, and we must remain flexible and
committed.
Unusual developments during the past year called for both flexibility
and innovation. For example, the cloning and embryo legislation involved
a series of rare 'free votes', and for the first time the
House divided a bill, requiring procedural innovation and consideration
of constitutional and processing issues. Some debates were almost unprecedentedly
long: 38 hours on human cloning and embryo research, and some 71 hours
on Iraq – a considerable proportion of the sitting time of the
House. The routine legislative and representative work of the House had
to be fitted in around such debates, and the department needed to be
flexible in programming and in processing Chamber business. Changes to
the sitting hours, which omitted meal breaks, also demanded that we be
responsive and develop new staffing arrangements and procedures for quorums
and divisions.
Photograph: Clerk of the House, Ian Harris
The year in review
World events continued to have a direct impact on the department, particularly
in relation to security. Parliament House is a great national symbol,
and we were challenged to provide a safe environment for those who work
in the building or who visit it. The interdepartmental Security Management
Board – established at the beginning of 2002–03 in response
to the report of the Parliamentary Service Commissioner, Andrew Podger – guided
a continuing security upgrade. The Podger review also recommended the
centralisation, in the Joint House Department, of security services for
the whole of Parliament House, where previously security had been a shared
responsibility of the departments of the House of Representatives and
the Senate. The Presiding Officers agreed to the recommended new structure,
which will operate under a purchaser–provider arrangement, and
the first stage of the handover was completed on 1 July 2003. The
Serjeant-at-Arms will continue to serve on the Security Management Board.
World events continued
to have a direct impact
on the department.
Andrew Podger presented his report on other aspects of the administration
of parliamentary services in October 2002. The review recommended the
amalgamation of the three parliamentary departments that serve both Houses,
with the Chamber departments to remain independent. The review further
recommended that, if the amalgamation could not be achieved, a shared
services centre should be established to provide human resources and
finance and office services. The Speaker and I supported the recommendations.
I was pleased that the Podger review team agreed that the Department
of the House of Representatives had the most efficient corporate services
area and was very efficient in other areas too.
A new three-year corporate plan came into effect in July 2002 and the
department is already a good way 'down the track' in implementing
the plan's priorities for improvement. A working group, set up
to review performance indicators across the department, reported in April
2003; the new indicators were in place at the beginning of the 2003–04
financial year.
During 2002–03, we introduced a new approach to measure satisfaction
with our services, surveying a random sample of 30 members in June 2003.
We will conduct this survey annually, with a different sample of members
each time, to assess our work and look for ways to improve. Results from
the first survey are described later in this report, but I am pleased
to note here that 70 per cent of the members contacted participated
and 16 made time for an interview. We asked 15 questions, and most members
were highly satisfied or better with departmental services.
We devised a new way
to measure satisfaction
with our services.
Improvements in our services to members included enhanced electronic
delivery of material. For example, in May 2003 the department was able
to reduce the number of hard-copy budget papers supplied to members by
promoting and providing better access to electronic versions. Together
with other parliamentary departments, we also began work on a parliamentarians'
portal for easy access to commonly used information held on the internet
and parliamentary intranets.
Compared with financial year 2001–02, in which a federal election
was held, 2002–03 saw activity return to more normal levels as
the House moved into the middle part of the election cycle. From an unusually
low base in the previous year, the number of sittings of the House and
meetings of the Main Committee rose by 43 per cent, with total sitting
and meeting time rising almost 50 per cent to 845 hours. The number
of bills introduced declined slightly, to 203 from 214 last year, and
the number of bills assented to increased to 160 from 143 last year.
There continued to be dramatic fluctuations in the level of committee
activity – the number of meetings supported by the department,
having dropped nearly 60 per cent in 2001–02, rose by 85 per cent
in 2002–03. The number of committee reports presented rose by only
3 per cent to 67 but will build up as inquiries move from evidence
gathering to reporting stages. Appendices 1 to 4 detail the levels of
activity of the House and its committees during the year.
The department continued to develop outreach programs. In one guest
lecture program, which aims to broaden ties between the House of Representatives
and tertiary institutions, the Speaker and I presented lectures about
the role of the House to students at their places of study. Following
successful lectures at selected universities last year, and with the
strong support of the Speaker, we have invited all Australian tertiary
institutions to participate in future.
We also made the department's centenary CD‑ROM and documentary A House
for the Nation more widely available through sales to members,
institutions and the public, a touchscreen kiosk in Parliament House
and a web version which will be available early in 2003–04. I
was delighted when the CD-ROM was selected as a finalist in the 'best
tertiary educational resource' category of the prestigious Australian
Teachers of Media Awards for 2003.
In April 2003, I was honoured to be the first Australian elected as
President of the Association of Secretaries General of Parliaments, an
international organisation constituted as a consultative body of the
Inter-Parliamentary Union. In the three-year term of my presidency, I
will work to strengthen democratic practices in parliamentary institutions
and foster the development of parliamentary staff around the world. The
additional responsibilities will impose some burdens on the department,
but will also help us foster international parliamentary capacity and
provide development opportunities for departmental staff.
As president I will work
to
strengthen democratic
practices in parliamentary
institutions around the world.
Attracting, developing and retaining a corps of committed, skilled and
knowledgeable staff is one of the department's most important responsibilities.
Our accreditation under the international 'Investors in People' standard
was renewed after an independent audit in 2002, and we will continue
to use this as a measure of our commitment to positive practices. I intend
to supplement this approach by surveying the department's staff
to determine what they see as important in the workplace.
Our fourth regular leadership survey allowed staff to give anonymous
feedback on the performance of their supervisors, the Senior Executive
Service staff and me, in relation to 13 leadership skills and behaviours
outlined in our Leadership Statement. The Australian Public Service Commission's
publication Building capability: A framework for managing learning
and development in the APS includes our highly structured leadership
evaluation program as a case study under principle 7 – evaluation
of learning and development.
The department formalised its work on knowledge management by appointing
a steering committee to identify and coordinate knowledge management
activities and initiatives. The steering committee will oversee a project
to upgrade our records management, for which a specialist records manager
is being recruited. One activity begun during the year was a program
of briefings on Committee Office operations, to complement existing briefing
programs on general parliamentary topics and procedural discussions.
An early retirement provision in our certified agreement, aimed at improving
the mix of skills in the department, resulted in the departure of 16
staff members. While the initiative made a positive contribution to our
future workforce needs, the loss of some 224 years of accumulated parliamentary
experience in a small department highlights the importance of sharing
and passing on corporate knowledge. We will continue to focus on workforce
planning and knowledge management during the coming years.
Our financial result, while showing a surplus because of a technical
issue of bringing into the accounts the balances in two trust accounts,
reflected an underlying loss. The underlying loss was caused by increased
expenses for additional security at Parliament House in response to the
changed security environment, and by pressure from other departmental
services in a non-election year. The loss this year is balanced by a surplus
made last financial year when there was reduced activity in an election
year. Our budgetary position will be tight next financial year as legislative
and committee activity reaches a peak at the end of the Fortieth Parliament.
Outlook
As we move into 2003–04 and the election-driven parliamentary
cycle reaches its peak workload, the department aims to make significant
progress towards the priorities listed in the 2002–05 corporate
plan.
Security will remain a significant focus while the
Security Management Board continues its program of progressive security
upgrades. The transfer of security operations to the Joint House Department
puts our department, with the Department of the Senate, in the role of
contract manager for the service, as funding remains with the Chamber
departments. Managing such a large contract will be a new challenge for
us.
Security will remain
a significant focus.
The Podger review's recommendations on other aspects of the administration
of the Parliament were agreed to by the House of Representatives on 14 August 2003
and the Senate on 18 August 2003. The Houses agreed to the
abolition of the three joint service departments – the Department
of the Parliamentary Library, the Joint House Department and the Department
of the Parliamentary Reporting Staff – with effect from 31 January
2004, and the creation of a new Department of Parliamentary Services
with effect from 1 February 2004. I am delighted that the Houses have
decided to fully implement the recommendations of the Podger review and
will be working to ensure a smooth transition to the new administrative
arrangements.
Some additional funding was provided in the 2003–04 Budget for
improved security for the Budget year and the following three years,
but this will be offset for the three out-years by a requirement over
those years to find savings of $18.8 million across the parliamentary
departments. These must be achieved either by the implementation of the
Podger recommendations or by other means, which will place considerable
pressure on resources, including those needed for the work of committees.
In 2001–02, the department supported four additional committees
without receiving additional resources; we now support a fifth extra
committee. Activity levels of all committees are likely to peak over
the next year or so, resulting in significant pressure in this area.
A new certified agreement is due to be negotiated by the end of 2003.
Despite pressure on our budget, the department will try to maintain the
competitive pay and conditions, opportunities for staff development,
positive working environment and sound management practices that make
ours an attractive place to work. We will also look for ways to encourage
our highly skilled and experienced staff to remain within the department.
Knowledge management issues, including the records management project,
will be an important focus. We will also be looking at the results of
the survey of members, to assess the priorities that the members place
on various services and consider where improvements might be made.
The detailed performance sections of this report outline specific measures
the department will take to maintain and improve performance in 2003–04.
We expect the next year to be increasingly busy, with growing parliamentary
and committee activity and the normal political uncertainties of parliamentary
government. Funding increased activity, compulsory savings and the new
certified agreement – from a budget with little remaining scope
for productivity gains – will be a major challenge.
Ian Harris
Clerk of the House of Representatives
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