| |||
|
|||
|
          |
 |
Annual Report 2004–05 You are currently viewing: Annual
report Output Group 1.1—Chamber and Main CommitteeAdvice and services to enable the Chamber and Main
Committee to meet and address business as scheduled
Processing and drafting of bills Creating and processing the records and papers of the Parliament Collection, analysis and publication of procedural and statistical information DescriptionOutput Group 1.1 is delivered through a number of work areas, including the Clerk’s Office, the Table Office, the Chamber Research Office and the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office. Other departmental offices contribute as required. Our staff coordinate the program for the business items of the House and of government and private members. In the Chamber, they act in accordance with the Parliamentary Service Values to provide procedural advice to members on both sides of the House. Behind the scenes, our staff:
Staff supporting Output Group 1.1 facilitate meetings of the House by providing secretariat support for the Chamber and Main Committee, the Committee of Privileges, the Standing Committee on Procedure, the Selection Committee, the Committee of Members’ Interests and the Standing Committee on Publications. In the department’s 2004–05 Portfolio Budget Statements and Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements, Output Group 1.1 appeared as the Chamber and Main Committee outputs (outputs 1.1 to 1.4) of Output Group 1 (Chamber, Main Committee and community awareness). The expenditure for Output Group 1.1 in 2004–05 was $3.14 million. The budget allocation was $4.12 million. Output group financial resources are summarised in Table 1. Staff levels, by location, are shown in Appendix 10. PerformanceThroughout 2004–05, informal feedback from members was consistently very positive about the services provided by the output group. For example, in his end-of-year valedictory remarks on 9 December 2004, the Prime Minister remarked that the Clerks at the Table ‘exemplify the very best traditions of independence and integrity in the discharge of their duties’. In the same debate, the manager of opposition business recorded the opposition’s thanks for ‘the Chamber research staff, on whom we are all so very reliant’. The results of the department’s annual members’ survey again indicated a high level of satisfaction with our work, supporting the informal feedback. Of the responses, 89 per cent (88 per cent in 2004) recorded extreme or high satisfaction and the remainder recorded satisfaction with the work of the clerks on duty at the table in the House and Main Committee. In respect of advice and services provided for members in relation to Chamber and Main Committee duties, 79 percent of responses (87 per cent in 2004) recorded extreme or high satisfaction (and the remainder who used the service recorded satisfaction). In 2005, as in 2004, all members surveyed who had used the department’s legislative drafting services were satisfied. In both years, all members surveyed were also satisfied with procedural and statistical publications. In 2004–05, sitting days totalled 51, reflecting an expected decrease (31 per cent) in meeting hours of the Chamber and Main Committee because of the election held in October 2004. Despite the decrease in sitting hours, increased legislative activity characterised the end of the Fortieth Parliament in 2004 and sittings of the Forty-first Parliament in the first half of 2005. Figure 7 provides a comparative analysis of the number of bills introduced into the House during the past four years. Table 2, appendices 1 and 2 and the department’s publication Work of the Session (available on our website) provide more detailed quantitative information.
a Excludes suspensions. Advice to Members and House secretariat supportAdviceThe Clerk, Deputy Clerk, other senior managers and other Output Group 1.1 staff continued to advise the Speaker and members on the practice and procedures of the House of Representatives. Complex, detailed advice must often be provided very promptly, usually during peak periods of House activity. To sustain a rapid response, all departmental staff undergo continuing training. We help disseminate chamber knowledge and lessons learned from experience through a staff debriefing at the end of each sitting week. Our regular, specialised staff seminars are a very important part of the foundation of skills and knowledge that underpins the activities of the House. During 2004–05, staff presented segments on chamber practice and procedures as part of the orientation seminar for newly elected members. Acknowledging the results of the 2004 survey of members, we endeavoured to follow up the formal seminar with informal contact and support. New members and their staff welcomed the follow-up. We improved the procedural knowledge of members and their staff during 2004–05 by providing many individual briefings and holding regular general briefings (six) about procedural aspects of Chamber and Main Committee operations. Subjects included chamber documents; the legislative, budget and parliamentary committee processes; and opportunities for private members. Our oral and written advice to members ranged from the provision of immediate support in the Chamber to the preparation of guidelines for occupants of the Chair, and covered such topics as the application of the law and standing orders of the House, constitutional issues, procedural aspects of passing legislation, and motions to disallow subordinate legislation. We also gave practical advice on the daily conduct of House business and the requirements of the standing orders. New rules—the standing orders of the House—came into effect on 16 November 2004, the first sitting day of the Forty-first Parliament. On 1 December 2004, the House gave the Clerk an ongoing authority ‘to correct clerical errors or inconsistencies in the wording of the standing orders, but not so as to cause a change to the meaning of any standing order’. We published and distributed a second edition of the standing orders in February 2005 to resolve some minor inconsistencies in the first edition. Chamber practiceThe project to improve the captioning of chamber proceedings via the internal broadcasting network, known as the Events in Progress system, was completed in early 2005, and the system began operating for the budget sittings in May. The project involved staff from the department and the departments of the Senate and Parliamentary Services. Initial feedback, particularly from whips and independent members, has been very positive. The system continues to be refined as issues arise. The new system (pictured in Figure 6) features dedicated caption channels for the House, the Main Committee and the Senate. It is managed by Table Office staff with assistance from chamber attendants. Maintaining the captions service is a challenge during periods of peak activity on sitting days, but few problems have been encountered so far. The caption service is used as a key management tool by the chief whips’ offices, and its display on lobby monitors helps members and advisers working on the periphery of the Chamber and Main Committee. Figure 6 House of Representatives Chamber caption as broadcast on Channel 3 of the Parliament House monitoring service
During the year, Chamber and Main Committee email communications protocols were improved, leading to more efficient information flows to and from the Chamber and Main Committee. This proved particularly useful during periods of intense activity, such as the last days of the spring, autumn and winter sittings. The election of a new Speaker for the Forty-first Parliament provided the opportunity for the Speaker to make statements to the House about the future application of various practices, such as the rule of relevance. Our staff supported the Speaker by providing prompt, high-quality research and advice. Document provisionThe trend to provide more chamber documents to members, staff and others in electronic form where possible continued. The Notice Paper, Daily Program and Votes and Proceedings are available in hard copy as well as in electronic format, but an increasing number of users appear to be satisfied with the electronic documents. The introduction of the senators’ and members’ portal referred to in last year’s report—a gateway to computer programs and documents of particular use to members, such as notices of motion—increased this satisfaction. As mentioned, new standing orders came into effect on the first sitting day of the Forty-first Parliament. The standing orders were redrafted in plain Australian language and reorganised to make them easier to understand (and thus more accessible) for members and other users. This was the most significant change made to the format and wording of the standing orders in many decades, and necessitated complementary revisions of many chamber documents and underlying information technology systems, procedural documents, and publications about the work of the House. During the period, the House made one amendment to the new standing orders (affecting two orders). We prepared and circulated an insert on the day of the amendment.
Parliamentary committeesStaff contributing to the output group continued to provide secretariat support to a number of House committees and to one joint committee dealing with the powers and procedures of the House. These were the Selection Committee, the Standing Committee on Publications, the Standing Committee on Procedure, the Committee of Privileges, and the Committee of Members’ Interests, and the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings. Since the commencement of the Forty-first Parliament, the Standing Committee on Procedure has presented a report on the application of the ‘anticipation rule’. The recommendations made in the report have been adopted by the House. In February 2005, the committee marked the twentieth anniversary of its establishment. The Selection Committee continued to play a significant role in arrangements for the presentation of committee and delegation reports and private members’ business for Mondays. During 2004–05, it became apparent that there was a degree of dissatisfaction among members with chamber arrangements for the tabling of committee reports and the time allowed for members to debate such reports on, or very soon after, the day of their presentation. This issue was brought to the attention of the Selection Committee and is the subject of an ongoing inquiry by the Procedure Committee. The Committee of Privileges presented one report during the period. Procedural trainingStaff kept abreast of relevant knowledge:
Main CommitteeOur staff worked with the Department of Parliamentary Services on further preparatory work for a possible new venue for the Main Committee, a project recommended in several reports of the Procedure Committee in previous years. While the committee has been motivated by practical and procedural considerations, it has also been keen to return the current venue of the Main Committee to its original function as a multipurpose committee room. The architects engaged to give preliminary advice on the project gave several presentations to a representative group of officeholders, members and staff. Programming of business in the Main Committee continues to develop. Late in the winter sittings, a trend emerged towards longer sittings to allow more time for members’ three-minute statements, extra sittings on Mondays and Tuesdays, and extended adjournment debates. A broader range of our senior staff was rostered on for duty as Main Committee Deputy Clerk. This position continued to provide a valuable training opportunity to introduce staff to the challenges of clerking at the table. Staff newly rostered for duty as Deputy Clerk receive briefings before their debuts, as well as follow-up advice and guidance.
Processing and drafting of billsLegislationTable 2 shows the total number of bills introduced in the House (including those first introduced in the Senate) for 2003–04 and 2004–05. Figure 7 provides comparative data over four years. During the year, 215 bills were introduced (195 in 2003–04), of which 192 were initiated in the House of Representatives and 23 were received from the Senate. Of the bills introduced, eight were private members’ bills for which the output group provided drafting assistance for the bills themselves and, in some cases, for the accompanying explanatory memoranda. See Appendix 2 for further details. The House amended seven bills that were initiated in the House, which resulted in the Table Office incorporating the amendments into the text of the bills and arranging for their reprinting before transmittal to the Senate. In addition, 11 bills were amended by the Senate and agreed to by the House or amended by the House at the request of the Senate, requiring further processing by the Table Office to incorporate the amendments before the bills were presented to the Governor-General for assent. In total, the office prepared, printed and checked for accuracy 117 bills prior to assent (181 bills in 2003–04). In addition, the output group provided drafting assistance for second reading (in principle) amendments and detailed amendments to bills moved by private members during the year (details are in Appendix 2). In the 2005 members’ survey, members indicated their satisfaction with the drafting service that we provided. Figure 7 Total bills introduced, 2001–02 to 2004–05
We met all deadlines, and continued to maintain very high levels of accuracy during all stages of processing. No errors arising from our legislative work were identified during the year. The Table Office continued to use Workshare’s DeltaView document comparison technology, supplemented with some limited manual checking, in preparing all types of legislation. An officer of the New Zealand Parliament visited the Table Office to study the document comparison technology and our methods for processing bills, with a view to that parliament adopting a similar approach. We used the period between the Fortieth Parliament and the Forty-first Parliament to undertake ‘end of Parliament’ and longer term tasks and to prepare for the opening of the new Parliament. This included producing bound volumes of the bills of the Fortieth Parliament for permanent record. Thirty-nine volumes were produced. The bills subscription agreement with Canprint Communications, which was arranged following the closure of the Australian Government Bookshop network in October 2003, was extended for a further year.
Record of proceedings and House documentsVotes and ProceedingsThe electronic compilation of Votes and Proceedings (the formal record of the House) continued successfully, in conjunction with the production of the Votes Officer’s Minutes (the real-time electronic record of the proceedings of the Chamber and the Main Committee compiled progressively throughout each sitting day). The Votes Officer’s Minutes document, which is refreshed every 15 seconds, is available through the parliamentary computing network to all network users in Parliament House and electorate offices. Informal feedback from a number of sources indicates that this document is extremely useful. Members and their staff increasingly use the electronic Votes Officer’s Minutes to follow events as they unfold in the Chamber. Parliamentary departmental staff also use them to check on events that have occurred earlier in the day and to confirm decisions of the House. The proof Votes and Proceedings is provided electronically and incorporated in the printed volumes of Hansard for each sitting day. With proposed reductions in the supplies of hard-copy Hansards for members and parliamentary staff, the electronic availability of Votes and Proceedings has become more important. During the period work was progressed on ‘end of Parliament’ tasks—preparation of Votes and Proceedings volumes and the indexes to the Votes and Proceedings and parliamentary papers for the Fortieth Parliament. This work was nearing completion at 30 June 2005. Documents presented to the HouseThe system to organise the many hundreds of documents ‘deemed to have been presented to the House’ pursuant to standing order 199 underwent change in 2004– 05, arising from the Legislative Instruments Act 2003, which came into operation in 2005. Under the Act, all non-exempt legislative instruments in force before the commencement of the Act need to be registered in a central database. We have seen a very large increase in subordinate legislation presented to the House through the deemed document mechanism. More than 15,000 documents and disallowable instruments were processed in 2004–05, an increase of the order of 300 per cent. Most of this increase was from the rescinding and remaking of approximately 11,000 Civil Aviation Authority Air Worthiness Directives. We have maintained systems and processes to securely handle, catalogue and store this material. Appropriate modifications were made to the citation of subordinate legislation in the Votes and Proceedings and the disallowable instruments list. This development has substantially increased our workload in this area, and we are closely monitoring our resource allocation. In May 2005, the Presiding Officers decided that, in view of the increasing electronic availability of documents in the Parliamentary Papers Series, from the beginning of 2006 distribution of free hard copies of papers in the series would be restricted to state libraries, state parliaments and tertiary education institutions. Municipal libraries, government departments, foreign embassies and political parties will no longer be entitled to free distribution. The Presiding Officers have also sought advice from the Joint Committee on Publications on possible further changes to the distribution of the Parliamentary Papers Series. Such changes include the possibility of supplying the series in an electronic format, or providing a subscription or other cost recovery service. It is anticipated that the committee will inquire into these matters in 2005–06. Custody of recordsWe continued the long-term relocation of House records into archival-quality containers, culling and reboxing parliamentary papers. We made significant progress in the period between parliaments. The project, working forwards from papers from 1901, has reached the mid-1960s. The volume of documents created each year has increased significantly in recent decades, and the project will continue for some years. A consultant from the National Archives of Australia inspected the on-site archive area and produced a report on the long-term preservation of House records. The report was positive about the conditions in which documents are kept and the progressive reboxing of records, but made a number of recommendations for further improvements. These will be addressed in 2005–06.
ResearchThe Chamber Research Office continued to collect, store, analyse and publish a range of procedural and statistical information. The main procedural electronic database for the House, the Procedural Record System, was upgraded to include an additional field for the new standing orders. AdviceIn addition to its routine publications, the office provided advice on a range of subjects, including:
Feedback from the Speaker, members and the public on the provision of chamber-related services and advice was very positive. Publications
In June 2005 the fifth edition of House
of Representatives Practice was launched by the Speaker. At the launch,
from left, Deputy Clerk and Assistant Editor, Bernard Wright; Assistant
Editor, Peter Fowler; the Speaker; and the Clerk and Editor, Ian Harris. The fifth edition of House of Representatives Practice, the authoritative explanation of House history, practice and procedure, was completed and published in June 2005. The project involved comprehensive editing and rewriting to reflect the new standing orders and the changed use of some procedural terms in the standing orders. The introduction of the new standing orders also necessitated rewriting the Infosheets series, a collection of 21 illustrated documents about the House that is available in hard copy and in electronic form from the department’s website. The series aims to cater for students from upper secondary to tertiary levels and other members of the public who require a detailed knowledge of the way the House works. The Chamber Research Office continued to publish and distribute two documents derived from the electronic precedent database, which is updated each sitting day. At the end of each sitting fortnight, the electronic entries were converted into Procedural Extracts, which is a chronological record of items of procedural interest, and the Procedural Digest, which is a subject-based record of proceedings. Statistics on legislative activities and other chamber-related actions continued to be collected and entered into the various statistical databases maintained by the Chamber Research Office. Two editions of the statistical overview, Work of the Session, were published electronically and in hard copy during the year: 2003 Autumn and Winter Sittings and 2004 Spring Sittings.
Information technologyThe Table Office document production system continued to be of fundamental importance in meeting work objectives, and much significant effort went into its ongoing maintenance and improvement. A draft contract for ongoing maintenance of the system by an external provider, jointly negotiated by the three parliamentary departments, was under consideration at 30 June 2005. We continued to work with the Department of Parliamentary Services to document the essential infrastructure and applications of critical business systems. We established protocols and contingency provisions to enable the Chamber support information technology systems and applications to continue to operate in the event of network failure. A risk analysis of core and critical systems in the Table Office was completed. The study confirmed the need for server redundancy (or back-up) identified for these systems during 2003–04, and the Department of Parliamentary Services has agreed to install an additional server. Updated business continuity plans for the Table Office and the Chamber Research Office were completed during the period. Information technology also continued to be centrally important in the production and processing of legislation—the core business of the House. Maintaining our systems remained our primary means of avoiding problems in this risk area. In conjunction with the other parliamentary departments and external stakeholders, we began planning a project to identify systems redevelopment requirements for the BillsNet system (the system which supports web-based publication of bills and associated documents) and the Bills in Progress system (a secure file management and editing application). These systems are major elements of both the electronic management of legislation in the Table Office and the provision of public access to information about legislation. The systems are almost a decade old and are in need of major overhaul to improve functionality and accessibility. The further development of certain aspects of chamber support software applications—for example, the implementation of a generic upload system package—has improved the efficiency and reliability of the process used to electronically export the Notice Paper and proof Votes and Proceedings to the ParlInfo repository at the end of each sitting. The networked secure rack system we developed for storing Chamber and Main Committee laptops and the Speaker’s personal digital assistant during non-sitting periods has boosted the reliability of these appliances, and enabled them to capture all parliament-wide system updates as they occur. Improving performanceThe many strategies to improve performance referred to in last year’s annual report continued to be applied successfully during 2004–05. These included planning, monitoring and reviewing operations to ensure client requirements are met in the immediate and longer terms, making optimal use of technology, and having very effective staff. The output group again sustained high levels of performance against departmental internal and external performance indicators (see Appendix 1 for external indicators), including achieving most of the targets in the annual business plan and performing well against budget. As may be expected in any election year, there was some under-expenditure against budget. The results of the annual survey of members in respect of the output group were again pleasing. An internal review of the department’s output structure in 2004–05 resulted in the removal of the lower level of the structure. This has produced a simpler structure for the output group, with some minor operational benefits. Among the year’s achievements, the following have specifically enhanced the output group’s performance:
Examples of our activities to meet members’ needs proactively included: our special tailoring of procedures for an extended consideration in detail stage of the Migration Amendment (Detention Arrangements) Bill, to reflect a strategy negotiated between the government and the opposition; a party room briefing on the legislative process that we provided for the opposition; and our reworking of certain procedural scripts used in the Chamber and the Main Committee, to make them more user friendly. OutlookWe will continue to focus on providing advice and services of the highest standard to support the Chamber and Main Committee of the House of Representatives, developing and sustaining staff knowledge and skills, and deploying suitable information technology and applications. Demand for Chamber support advice and services will depend largely on the sittings of the House and the business it conducts. The year 2005–06 will be the middle period of the three-year parliamentary cycle, meaning it is likely that a heavier legislative workload and greater number of sittings will be experienced. Demands on budget resources will increase. The 2005–06 reporting period will see a new phase in the evolution of the Parliament and its support services, with a government majority in the Senate from 1 July 2005. This may lead to changes in the operation of the House of Representatives. For example, in the winter 2005 sittings, a trend was emerging for the ‘consideration in detail’ stage of bills to be longer and more complex. This necessitated changes in the nature and level of support we provide, and had implications for the programming of government business, which can be expected to continue in 2005–06. The project to identify requirements for redevelopment of the bills systems will be undertaken in conjunction with the other parliamentary departments, the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and the Attorney-General’s Department. Depending on the outcomes of the project and the case for redevelopment, redevelopment of these systems will commence. Our computer desktop platforms are scheduled to be upgraded early in the next period. Experience suggests that careful management of the migration process will be important to achieve a seamless transition and maintain full functionality during and after the changeover period. Support for Output Group 1.1 committees will be maintained. The Procedure Committee has been particularly active in recent years and it is anticipated that this level of activity will continue. The anticipated inquiry by the Publications Committee into the Parliamentary Papers Series will be appropriately supported. Finally, the preservation and conservation of the records of the House will receive further attention during the period, as will the scope for digitising certain records to ensure their ongoing availability and greater public access. You are currently viewing: Annual
report
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
