Annual Report 2004–05
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274KBDepartmental overview
Role
The department’s role is to serve the Senate and its committees, and its functions are almost entirely determined by their activities. In supporting the operations of the Senate and its committees, the department provides services in four main categories: Senate support, committee support, senators’ services, and public education and awareness.
The department is responsible to the Senate and all senators, and maintains complete impartiality in serving senators from all political parties and independent senators.
Aim and objectives
As stated in the department’s Corporate Plan, our aim is:
To provide effective services to support the functioning of the Senate, and its committees, as a House of the Commonwealth Parliament.
Within that broad aim, our objectives are to:
- maintain and improve services to the Senate, its committees, senators and other users of departmental resources
- ensure the highest standard of accurate and prompt procedural advice
- further develop our expertise in the constitutional and procedural bases of the Senate and its committees
- publish a range of practical, procedural resources on the work of the Senate and the parliament
- produce and deliver effective education and information programs
- maximise awareness of and access to the department’s services and information resources.
Organisational structure
The department is responsible to the Senate through the President of the Senate, Senator the Honourable Paul Calvert.The Secretary of the department is the Clerk of the Senate, Mr Harry Evans. The department is organised into five offices:
- Clerk’s Office, which provides advice in relation to the proceedings of the Senate and its committees, strategic direction for the department and secretariat support for the Procedure Committee, the Committee of Privileges and the Committee of Senators’ Interests, and maintains the Register of Senators’ Interests
- Table Office, which provides procedural advice and programming services; processes legislation; produces documents, including the record of Senate proceedings; is custodian of Senate records; provides an inquiries service; and provides secretariat support to the Senate and Joint Committees on Publications, the Senate Standing Committee on Appropriations and Staffing, and the Selection of Bills Committee
- Procedure Office, which provides procedural advice and legislative drafting services to non-government senators, secretariat support for the legislative scrutiny committees and policy support for interparliamentary relations; conducts parliamentary research; and promotes awareness and knowledge of the Senate and the parliament in the community
- Committee Office, which provides secretariat support for most Senate and certain joint committees and strives to increase the public’s awareness of the work of committees
- Black Rod’s Office, which provides office, information technology, printing and ceremonial services, and human resource, financial and records management services, for senators and departmental staff; and provides security advice.
Figure 1 identifies the elements that make up each of the offices. Contact details of office-holders and senior officers of the department are listed in Appendix 1, together with other contact information.
During 2004–05, the organisational structure remained the same as in 2003–04, except with regard to the department’s security function. As foreshadowed in last year’s report, security funding was transferred to the Department of Parliamentary Services from 1 July 2004, following a transfer of security staff in the previous financial year.
Outcome and output structure
Figure 2 illustrates the relationship between the department’s organisational and output structures, and summarises the outputs delivered by each output group. A detailed statement of each set of outputs—and, where relevant, administered items—is provided at the beginning of each output group’s report on performance.