Clerk's review

This reporting period saw the Senate department continue to support elevated levels of legislative and committee activity, and a further increase in demand for legislative drafting services. A number of important ICT projects were implemented, a new enterprise agreement was negotiated and the Parliamentary Education Office continued to increase delivery of digital programs. These activities are described in more detail in the balance of this report.

Legislative and committee activity

The focus of this review for the last few years has been on the entrenched level of demand for the advice and support we provide to senators in the context of their legislative and committee work. The department provides the secretariat for the Senate and for dozens of parliamentary committees. Much of this work requires us to manage unpredictable workloads and changing deadlines. Demand for our services is overwhelmingly driven by decisions of the Senate, its committees and senators themselves. This year – the second year of the 47th Parliament – followed the usual pattern of the electoral cycle which sees committee and legislative activity increase before an expected decline in the third year of the Parliament (primarily due to reduced demand during the election period). One key factor in how parliamentary activity translates to demand for our services lies in the party composition of the Senate. Compared to the previous Parliament there are fewer government senators, more opposition senators and a larger, more diverse crossbench. This means there are more senators seeking to express a greater variety of views through their committee work and by seeking to introduce and amend legislation. In 2023-24, this has resulted in a significant increase in demand for legislative drafting services and continued elevated levels of demand for secretariat support for committees.

Taking these matters in turn, levels of legislative activity in the past year were similar to the previous year. For example, there were 59 sitting days in 2023-24, compared with 56 days in 2022-23, supported through the usual levels of procedural advice and support from the Table Office (for the President, government senators and committee chairs) and the Procedure Office (for non-government senators). The Table Office and Senate Public Information Office also produced a suite of formal documents and informal guides in support of those sittings. However, the Senate passed more bills than the previous year (134 compared with 114 in 2022-23) and amended more of them (44 compared with 32).

The trend of increasing demand for the legislative drafting work undertaken by Procedure Office staff continued with 334 sheets of committee of the whole amendments (comprising almost 1,050 amendments) drafted and circulated, compared with 228 sheets (almost 750 amendments) in the previous year. On top of this, the office drafted almost 150 additional sheets of amendments, which senators did not ultimately circulate to the Senate (compared to 86 sheets in 2022-23). In addition, more private senators' bills were introduced in 2023-24: 31 compared with 26 in 2022-23. The office also progressed numerous other bills to different stages of drafting in accordance with instructions from senators. It is notable that the demand for drafting continued to trend higher, with the office receiving requests for 67 bills, compared with 63 in 2022-23. This trend is unusual. It is often the case that the demand for private senators' bills is strongest in the first year of a new Parliament and then falls away. This has not happened in the current Parliament, with demand continuing to rise. The department took steps to bring more resources to bear on legislative drafting services including by allocating some of this work to additional positions. However, this high demand means that not all requests for private senators' bills have been met within the timeframes originally proposed by senators.

Demand for secretariat support for committee inquiries remained elevated, including through the appointment of additional select committees. I commented last year on the large numbers of select committees seen in both the 46th Parliament and the current Parliament. This financial year saw an increase on the number of select committees over the 2022-23 figures with Committee Office staff supporting 31 distinct committees, including nine Senate select committees and two joint select committees. They processed almost 9,000 submissions, arranged 252 public hearings and 532 private meetings, and drafted 189 reports. What these numbers do not capture is the complexity of some of this work, particularly where inquiries deal with highly sensitive or contentious matters. Despite these challenges, senators frequently took the opportunity in debate on committee reports to record their appreciation of the support provided to committees by secretariat staff.

While most secretariats are provided by the Committee Office, staff in other offices also undertake committee work. For instance, staff in the Procedure Office supported the Parliament's three legislative scrutiny committees to examine bills and instruments against a set of scrutiny principles or, in the case of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, for compatibility with human rights. Notably in 2023-24, the secretariat to the Committee on Human Rights also supported the committee's inquiry into Australia's Human Rights Framework and the initial stages of an inquiry required by statute into compulsory income management.

Enhancing ICT systems

An important component of the department's capacity to meet the demand for its services in the future is working with the Department of Parliamentary Services to ensure we can harness ICT in ways that effectively support senators, maximise the efficiency of our processes and ensure others are able to engage with the Parliament and its committees. Pleasingly, the last few years have seen a maturing of these relationships and the systems for managing ICT projects. During 2023-24, the results of this collaborative work included implementation of a redeveloped version of the Committee Office's bespoke drafting program, Report Builder, and the roll out of the Online Tabled Documents system to all executive departments; work completed in partnership with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The department welcomes the government's recognition of the importance of this work through additional funding in the 2024-25 budget for a collaborative project to modernise parliamentary business systems. This work is being led by the Department of Parliamentary Services and will be a key focus over the next two years.

Public information and parliamentary education

While these Clerk's reviews have rightly focused on our tasks of supporting the Senate, its committees and certain joint committees, another important area of the department's work is public information and parliamentary education. During this period, the Parliamentary Education Office consolidated work to deliver its programs via videoconference. The office delivered over 370 digital programs while maintaining the number of onsite programs (approximately 2,100) as well as its work on outreach and teacher professional learning programs. It has been a long-term aspiration of the office to ensure education programs can be delivered to students unable to travel to Canberra so that such programs are accessible to all young people. It is very satisfying to see this work come to fruition, particularly as it represents a silver lining to the disruptions the office experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. If demand to deliver digital programs continues its current trajectory, in the absence of additional funding, the department will face some difficult decisions about the balance between onsite, video and outreach programs but these are amongst the best type of problems to have.

Human resource management

Another key task for the year was the negotiation of a new enterprise agreement for staff. There was a high level of engagement in these negotiations as well as the vote on the agreement with 96% of those who voted supporting the new agreement.

We also participated in the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) census, having adopted the approach of taking part every second year. The results continued to demonstrate that our staff are motivated, inspired and enabled to deliver our services, have high regard for their managers and view the Senior Executive as a cohesive team. Participation in the survey (77% of staff) was higher than the 2021-22 survey however – although our results continue to exceed the APS results by a healthy margin – they are not as high as they were in the previous survey. We will discuss with our team how we reverse that trend and use that feedback to gauge where we can usefully focus our efforts to improve our policy settings and workplace practices.

Work continued under our refreshed diversity and inclusion policy and associated action plans. The development and implementation of these plans has seen high levels of engagement from our teams no doubt driven by a shared understanding that attracting and retaining the best officers, and creating the conditions for them to perform, requires flexible and inclusive policies and practices.

We also continued to work with our colleagues across the Parliamentary Service to implement the remaining recommendations of the Set the Standard report. Implementation of these recommendations has been led by a taskforce, comprising eight members and senators drawn from around the Parliament and an independent chair. We continued to engage with the work of the taskforce through various working groups and leaders' forums. This included working closely with the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service (PWSS) as it expanded its operations and was established as an independent statutory agency.

Looking ahead

Shortly before the tabling of this report, legislation to establish an Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission (IPSC) was being considered by the Parliament. The establishment of the IPSC was a recommendation of the Set the Standard report and represents the closing stages of the work to implement those recommendations.

It appears that the elevated levels of demand for our services experienced in the first two years of the 47th Parliament will be sustained into the final year of the Parliament. The election period will provide the department with the opportunity to update the core procedural and practice resources we use to support institutional capability. We will also strengthen that capability by giving staff the opportunity to rotate to new positions which helps to broaden the pool of officers with the more technical skills we require as well as contributing to their professional development and career satisfaction.

The year ahead will see preparations for the federal election and the opening of the 48th Parliament. This will include providing an orientation program and administrative support to newly elected senators.

The political dynamics of the Senate, its legislative workload and program of sittings, and the number of committees and their workload are the key factors which drive demand for our services. We will closely monitor that demand following the election and the implications of this for the sustainability of the department's budget position over future years, with a view to positioning the department to meet whatever level of demand there is for our services.