1

An introduction

Managing parliament: Why is this problematic?

Parliaments appear to struggle with the concept of institutional management. Parliament’s supposedly sovereign role ensures its place at the apex of the constitutional constellation, along with the other two branches of government: the executive and the judiciary. The doctrine of exclusive cognisance means that parliament, and only parliament, retains control of its internal business. Moreover, the doctrine of the separation of powers, while not strictly applicable in the loosely defined Westminster system of government,¹ is often called on to support the belief that the management of parliament, including decisions on its funding, should be carried out independently of the executive even though their powers are closely intertwined (Benwell and Gay 2011). Parliament is indeed unique—or is it?

Many views have been put forward over the years about the effectiveness of parliamentary management. On the one hand, there is evidence that parliament’s internal management has been insular, self-serving and elitist. Parliament has been likened to a gentlemen’s club, with its members holding on nostalgically to dominant traditions, resenting intrusions into mysterious practices and failing to communicate effectively with the public (Crick 1968; Reid and Forrest 1989; DDC 2015; Patience 2019). Parliamentary actors have traditionally been concerned with institutional continuity and preservation and rather less so with innovation and change. Conversely, the story of parliament is seen as a struggle by its members, representing the people who elect them—and sometimes its officials, representing the institution—against potential misuse of power by a dominant and authoritarian government. The struggle is aided by conventions and practices built up over centuries, reflecting hard-won concessions towards a devolution of power from the rulers to the ruled and from government to parliament. Seen in this light, the role of parliamentary actors in defending parliament from being sidelined by a rampant executive is, indeed, a noble pursuit and warrants the most sceptical questioning of parliamentary reformers, especially those proposing greater efficiency with apparent disregard for parliament’s effectiveness in carrying out its key roles (Evans 2003, 2004).

A third, less discussed, factor is the complexity of our understanding of the term ‘management’, which is often conflated with related concepts of ‘administration’ and ‘governance’. Management means different things to different people and many parliamentary actors are ambivalent about management theory and practice in the context of running the parliamentary institution. Contest between traditional long-serving parliamentary administrators and lately arrived management ‘technocrats’, perceived failures of new public management (NPM) and scepticism about the relevance and applicability of new forms of value-creating and collaborative management, with greater citizen involvement, appear to have limited enthusiasm among parliamentary actors for the take-up of new management ideas.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, public perceptions of the relevance and effectiveness of parliament have declined and the deference that politicians, institutions and officials could once count on has all but disappeared. Members of the public do not appear to appreciate the enduring significance of the contest between a government’s prerogative and a parliament’s right to scrutinise, viewing it instead as the pursuit of power and self-interest by politicians from opposing political parties. This phenomenon has been accelerated in no small part by the rise of social media, enhanced mainstream media scrutiny and, paradoxically, even by the broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings themselves. It seems that the more people know about politics (and by extension parliament), the more disaffected they become (Segal, in Crick 1968; Winnett and Rayner 2009; Fox 2012a). Parliament’s public standing is also complicated by the fact that many people conflate parliament, government and adversarial politics, consigning them all to the same fate of poor public opinion, distrust and disenchantment (Stoker et al. 2018). But the problem is also part of the cure: it is widely held that a lack of awareness and understanding about how politics and parliament work can equally feed into public disaffection (Lusoli et al. 2005; Stoker 2006b; Fox 2009; Leston-Bandeira 2014; Jennings et al. 2016). Accordingly, parliaments tend to remain committed to public engagement strategies while remaining unclear about their effectiveness (Kelso 2007b; Uberoi 2017; Weerasinghe and Ramshaw 2018).

In this book, I examine parliamentary management/administration (I talk about this distinction shortly) in the UK and Australian national parliaments. I attempt to provide a relatable account of how parliamentary officials and members of parliament (MPs) carry out their respective institutional roles, cognisant of the complexity and contradictions inherent in those roles. My aim is to enhance understanding of how parliament is managed and engender an appreciation of the difficulties faced by parliamentary actors who are committed to the ongoing effectiveness of the parliamentary institution. But in so doing I go beyond institutional description and validation, taking a critical approach at times given a demonstrated lack of collective responsibility, a culture of avoidance and a failure to appreciate the need for parliamentary actors, both officials and members, to see their roles more broadly as responsible public managers.

Parliament remains an essential institution in our democratic system. It does many things well. We may not know much about it, but we should be glad it is there (Uhr and Wanna 2000). This book is, indeed, a defence of parliament, notwithstanding its acknowledgement of widespread criticism through the decades. But it also argues that for parliament to remain relevant, inclusive and publicly respected, it must enhance its management capability.

Defining the problem

If I want to elevate the management role in parliament, I first need to be clear about nomenclature and how to distinguish between the terms ‘public management’ and ‘public/parliamentary administration’. Second, I need to demonstrate a relationship between ‘public management’ and ‘parliamentary management’. I can turn to the public management literature for guidance. Lynn (2012: 18), for example, has asked: ‘[W]hen we talk of “public management” or of “public administration” are we talking of the same subject or of different subjects?’ According to dictionary definitions, the distinction appears to be arbitrary,² but there are competing views as to whether public management and public administration are different concepts or whether one is a subset of the other. Early commentaries referenced by Lynn (2006) either viewed the two terms as synonymous or regarded management as the more general concept.³ Other scholars have claimed that management and administration are fundamentally different and have relegated management to a subordinate and even stigmatised status.⁴ Lynn suggested the subordination of public management in favour of public administration may be a reaction to the perceived appropriation of the former by graduate schools of public policy, which have tended to move political thinking about public managers towards a distinction between those who are able to change an organisation and those who play a custodial role (see also Moore 1995).

While the older view of public management may have been concerned with the responsible exercise of administrative discretion, the newer behavioural approach has emphasised the strategic political role of the public manager and placed a lower priority on institutional capacity and durable democratic values (Lynn 2012; Keulen and Kroeze 2014). Rosenbloom (1998, in Lynn 2012) claims the term ‘administration’ conveys more respect for the constitutional and political foundations of governance than does ‘management’. This approach seems particularly relatable to parliamentary administration when read in conjunction with governance reports in the Australian and UK parliaments and it also provides some insights into conflicting beliefs about the management role. Parliamentary ‘administration’ has tended to privilege maintenance and preservation over (public) ‘management’ concepts of leadership and results, the latter being viewed with suspicion in some parliamentary quarters (Barrett 1999; and later chapters of this volume). However, to Raadschelders (1999: 289), administrative legitimacy rests ‘with the swiftness and adequacy of its response to changing environmental conditions’. Shergold (1997) also argued that the relationship between the administrative and political domains is not linear but involves a ‘strategic conversation’ between all stakeholders, including the public.⁵ Sowa and Lu (2017) highlighted a focus on strategy, rather than managerial processes, and on interorganisational rather than intra-organisational relations. They drew on Hill and Lynn (2009) to advocate a holistic approach to public management—one that includes personnel and strategic dimensions within a larger system of resources, strategies and other components necessary to achieve legitimate goals. The problem can be summed up thus: How can a parliament balance the routine and strategic dimensions of its administrative roles? How can its administrators and managers play a strategic and political role while preserving institutional capacity and democratic values as well as responding swiftly to changing environmental conditions (Keulen and Kroeze 2014; Raadschelders 1999)? How can they conduct public strategic conversations between all stakeholders while minimising the risk of crossing the political/administrative divide (Shergold 1997)? These complexities would seem remarkably familiar to all public managers, whether in the parliamentary sphere or the wider public/civil service.

The theoretical dichotomy between the ‘old’ institutionally based administration and the ‘new’ action-oriented public management becomes especially interesting, and tricky, when it emerges within the parliament—an institution with the sometimes competing purposes of both enabling and holding to account the elected policymakers, as well as representing and supporting the democratic rights of citizens. I have touched on differing perceptions of the value of the more traditional specialist procedural and political skills when judged against calls for a more ‘professional’ approach to the management of the institution itself (HOCGC 2014). These perceptions are more fully exposed by interviews with parliamentary actors and other events discussed in following chapters. For the moment, we should at least be aware that parliamentary management is a broader concept than the provision of routine support services. My use of the term throughout this book favours the scholarly view of ‘management’ as a more general concept than ‘administration’, although I use the latter term where it seems more appropriate to the events described. As I have noted already, ‘management’ means different things to different people. In the parliamentary context, it might be thought of as managing practice and procedure through the routines and protocols that are consistently followed. Or it might be considered the efficient organisation of the functions or operations of service delivery. At its highest level, it might be synonymous with the exercise of overall authority or institutional governance. From an academic or practitioner perspective, it might include the adoption of management theory and techniques that could contribute to improving the effectiveness, efficiency, coordination and quality of the services parliament provides. This book takes a broad view in encompassing all these interpretations and the tensions among them. It includes examples of how opportunities for improved management have been ignored, sidelined, resisted or ineffectually implemented and what factors might have contributed.

I begin the account by recalling well-publicised events in the UK and Australian parliaments when the question of effective management was brought into the spotlight. They followed the attempt in 2014 by former UK Speaker John Bercow to replace the outgoing Clerk of the House of Commons, Sir Robert Rogers, with Carol Mills, the former Secretary of the Australian Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS). Mills had served as a senior executive in the NSW public sector but before her appointment to DPS had no parliamentary experience. Her appointment to the House of Commons was terminated and she was also later dismissed from the Australian Parliamentary Service following a series of senate committee inquiries.⁶ To say these events inspired this work would be an overstatement, yet they did serve as a useful illustration of the tensions that have long existed among those responsible for carrying out parliament’s multifaceted roles. The following quotations from long-serving and vocal former members of each parliament are telling examples of what was seen at the time as a paucity of effective parliamentary management:

[T]here is a serious problem to address in the management in the House [of Commons]. The House is a loveable shambles. Waste is everywhere. There is an absence of clear chains of command for many of the functions that are provided. The security arrangements are quite extraordinary … [T]he House is vulnerable to criticism once it has a budget of several hundred million, which is one of the reasons why the legislature needs to pay attention to the problem. It works despite, not because of, its organisational and management structure. It works because people are so deeply committed to making it work and to ensuring that the legislature functions. (HOCGC 2014: 92)

Over recent years … I have raised concerns about the senior management of the Department of Parliamentary Services. I have said in the past I consider DPS to be the worst run government [sic] department in the Commonwealth of Australia. Unfortunately, nothing has changed … This raises very serious questions about the probity and transparency of decision making in the Department of Parliamentary Services. I can assure the Senate that its Finance and Public Administration Committee will not let these serious questions go unanswered. (Australia, Senate 2014: 8785)

The first-cited criticism came from Andrew Tyrie, who, until his retirement in 2017, was a Conservative member of the UK House of Commons and chair of several influential committees. The second came from Labor Senator John Faulkner, who, until his retirement in 2015, was among the Australian Senate’s better-known critics of both public and parliamentary administration. He was scathing about the performance of the DPS, which was tasked with providing support services to members of parliament and those occupying and visiting Australia’s Parliament House. Both members were speaking from years of parliamentary experience and providing evidence to important inquiries into the effectiveness of each parliament’s management. They were not alone in their observations: through the decades, there have been many criticisms of the services that support the functioning of parliament.⁷ These criticisms from members, who are the recipients of parliamentary services as well as the custodians and overseers of the parliamentary institution, give early insights into the difficulties parliamentary administrators face in supporting parliamentarians and the institution itself—essentially involving issues of power and politics (Geddes and Mulley 2018; Geddes 2019b).

A generalised perception is that the UK and Australian parliaments are not well managed on several fronts, including accountability and transparency, efficiency and the effective use of resources.⁸ These parliaments also appear to be failing to secure the trust, support and engagement of citizens, thereby further reducing their effectiveness (Evans et al. 2013, 2017, 2019; Hansard Society 2019). Less publicly visible but also relevant are calls for procedural and other reforms to enhance parliamentary effectiveness both in holding the executive to account and in facilitating effective lawmaking (Kelso 2007a, 2009; Winetrobe 2013, 2014; Hansard Society 2014). Successive internal and external reviews over decades have done little to belie the impression that parliamentary management has been internally focused and insular, concerned with preserving the status quo, self-serving and resisting the changes confronting all public institutions. Of note are disturbing claims of bullying, harassment and sexual assault in both parliaments and subsequent investigations of workplace culture (Cox 2018; Ellenbogen 2019; AHRC 2021).

Despite continuing calls for reform, it is not clear what effective parliamentary management looks like and who should be held responsible and accountable. Indeed, management appears to have been viewed with suspicion by conservative ‘elites’ and some parliamentary officials. Administrative change has often only followed a crisis or critical juncture rather than taking a planned and strategic approach (Russell 2011b; Flinders et al. 2018a; Petit and Yong 2018). Little regard has been paid to the proposition that the public management requirements of a parliament, as a key public institution, should be taken as seriously as its political management. Instead, political and procedural outcomes have been accorded priority over policy outcomes and parliamentary actors have not taken sufficient account of their interrelationships.

Rogers and Walters (2015), former clerks in the House of Commons and House of Lords, argued that the more effective a parliament is, the better it will serve its real ‘owners’: the people. Yet, few informed observers are likely to agree that parliaments operate effectively (Uhr and Wanna 2000; Evans et al. 2013, 2017, 2019; Oliver 2014; Hansard Society 2015, 2017, 2019). Even fewer will have considered how parliaments could be better managed. It is only when something goes wrong—when the media reports on the misuse of members’ entitlements, when a security project runs into trouble, when the Speaker makes a seemingly partisan statement about a head of state or selects a controversial amendment, when Big Ben stops chiming, when MPs or officials are forced to resign due to a process failure or shortfall in behaviour or when a serious crime is alleged to have been committed in the parliamentary building—that we sit up and take notice.⁹ Even then we are inclined to blame the self-interest, incompetence and venality of political elites (Fox 2009; Allen 2011; Negrine and Bull 2014; Snow and Robertson 2015). Little constructive thought goes into how parliament as an institution could be better managed to achieve its deliberative, legislative, scrutiny and representational functions.

The problem is exacerbated when there appears to be no clear line of authority or responsibility for the effective performance of parliament and differing views on how effectiveness can be achieved. When things go wrong, who do we blame? Who is responsible for running the institution, enhancing its reputation and making sure it can carry out its functions effectively? How does parliament operate? What role should a parliament’s members play? Should a parliament be managed like any other public institution? Perhaps more problematic is the lack of agreement within parliaments as to what parliamentary management even means. To some, it is seen as the provision of facilities and catering services, information technology (IT) support, keeping the lights on and providing comfort to the parliamentary building’s occupants. This view of ‘management’ as the provision of administrative support services relegates the concept to a subordinate function that can oversee service provision and perform necessary tasks and routines, enabling the ‘real’ activities of parliamentary staff—providing procedural advice to the government and its opponents—to proceed untrammelled by lesser concerns. Others take a more holistic view of parliament and see their roles as part of a larger engagement with members and the public to ensure members can operate effectively, to maintain and preserve the parliamentary building (both physically and symbolically) and to promote the institution of parliament as the pinnacle of democracy. From this perspective, a critical task is to acquire and effectively manage political backing and resources (CPA 2005; IPU and UNDP 2017). MPs also regard themselves as individual officeholders—a view that can obscure a wider institutional responsibility to act and lead to perceptions of poor governance (HOCGC 2014). These competing views do not always reconcile and competition between them does not assist effective parliamentary management.

At risk of oversimplifying the challenges of parliamentary management, we can think of them in terms of the need to prioritise and contribute to fulfilling parliament’s roles. The key functions of parliament are to: 1) form government and enable it to achieve its mandated program, including authorising spending; 2) allow scrutiny of an incumbent government’s policy proposals and their implementation and administration; and 3) provide a public forum for deliberation, policymaking and addressing public concerns. When we think of management in the context of the first two functions, we are immediately drawn to the concept of ‘political management’ and the agonistic contest between opposing political parties, which is exacerbated during periods of instability and small government majorities. We might have some awareness of the need for managing the support services that allow this contest to proceed and turn our minds to the myriad underlying ‘operational’ and ‘routine’ management functions, encompassing finance and budgeting, human resources, and building and facilities management. Some might argue these functions could be successfully outsourced, but all of us would at least recognise that they must be carried out efficiently and with an eye to the future and accept the need for parliaments to adopt business and strategic planning methods like any other organisation. We might also think of ‘political’ management in terms of the procedures and structures that allow governments to govern and parliaments to scrutinise. Parliamentary ‘governance’ also comes to mind during and after a crisis, particularly of an administration’s own making—think of recent scandals involving parliamentary expenses or examples of bullying and harassment within the two parliaments. But we might be less inclined here to see the corollary between effective strategic governance and management and parliament’s ongoing legitimacy, relevance and public standing. We might overlook the need for MPs and officials to exercise agency in building and maintaining public trust in the institution of parliament, rather than seeking to avoid public scrutiny and opprobrium at all costs. During a major national or international crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, we might be inclined to overlook parliament’s scrutiny role while placing our faith in the government’s ability to wield extensive emergency powers in our collective interest.

Regarding the third parliamentary function I have ascribed, we might reject altogether the prospect of a parliamentary institution that fosters effective public debate and input into policymaking, arguing that citizens have little opportunity to participate in or influence the course of policy and politics; they elect politicians to do that (assuming each eligible citizen places an informed vote). Indeed, the Hansard Society in its annual series of parliamentary audits has produced much evidence of a lack of public engagement and efficacy and an abundance of apathy and disengagement. The Democracy 2025 project in Australia, while not focusing directly on parliament, draws similar conclusions (Stoker et al. 2018). In this respect, we could conclude that parliament is not effectively fulfilling its role as a deliberative forum and broker of ideas (Crick 1968), it will continue to serve only as a forum for adversarial politics and parliamentary government will continue to fail to solve society’s most pressing problems. We might never have considered whether new approaches to managing public institutions could enhance parliamentary effectiveness in each of its roles.

Despite all the signs of a lack of engagement with parliament and disaffection with adversarial politics, there is evidence to suggest that ‘parliament matters’ (Norton 1993). Uhr and Wanna contend that although ‘people are ignorant of what [parliament] does [they] are nevertheless glad that it is there’ (2000: 23). The Hansard Society (2017) found that most people believe parliament is essential to democracy.¹⁰ Flinders and Kelso (2011: 249) claimed the ‘parliamentary decline thesis’ is exacerbated by political scientists who reinforce the perception of an ‘eviscerated and sidelined parliament’, thus perpetuating and fuelling public disengagement and disillusionment. If, as parliamentary scholars and practitioners, we hold to the view that the more effective parliament is, the better it will serve the constituencies it represents (Rogers and Walters 2015), it would seem necessary, at the very least, for scholars and practitioners to engender a greater understanding and appreciation of the management challenges of delivering a ‘thriving parliamentary democracy’¹¹ to an increasingly sceptical public.

Encouragingly, recent publications suggest the study of parliament’s administration is gaining in popularity; they emphasise the importance of understanding parliamentary reform from an administrative or management perspective (Besly et al. 2018; Geddes and Meakin 2018; Leston-Bandeira and Thompson 2018; Meakin and Geddes 2020). Leston-Bandeira and Thompson (2018), in their book Exploring Parliament, presented perspectives from parliamentary scholars and practitioners on many aspects of parliamentary activity. Their central purpose was ‘to bring the study of Parliament as a constitutional entity together with the study of Parliament as a multi-layered and complex actor which shapes, and is shaped by the life of the nation’ (p. 10). I have drawn heavily on their excellent publication. Also in 2018, Marc Geddes and Alexandra Meakin presented a paper to the Political Studies Association International Annual Conference on the dilemmas of managerial reform in the UK House of Commons in which they acknowledged that exploration of the administrative and managerial organisation of the UK Parliament was largely missing. Drawing on Bevir and Rhodes (2003, 2006), they used an interpretive approach to demonstrate how the concept of dilemma, in concert with a focus on the beliefs and everyday practices of parliamentary actors, can explain how change occurs. This approach was further developed in Geddes’s work on the influence of power relations on practice (2019b; see also Meakin and Geddes 2020).

My contribution to the field complements these contemporary works: first, by illuminating management practices in the UK and Australian national parliaments (influenced in part by a related ‘crisis’ or ‘critical juncture’);¹² and second, by placing parliament within the context of public management theory rather than adopting the path-dependent institutional approach traditionally associated with parliamentary practice. I have taken a broad view of ‘management’ to include procedural and cultural management and reform and the influences of power, authority and relationships. I have drawn on Bevir and Rhodes (2003, 2006) and Geddes and Rhodes (2018), whose work has provided an ideal interpretive framework for examining the roles and actions of parliamentary actors in the context of traditional beliefs and practices and the potential for situated agency. The discussion in Chapters 5 to 7 is structured in terms of specific dilemmas arising from three key elements of managing a parliament: governance, operational management, and procedural and cultural reform. These dilemmas emerged from wide-ranging interviews with parliamentary actors, academic literature and parliamentary and media reports. As well as illustrating conflicts that have emerged between existing beliefs and traditions, they offer the potential to consider and deploy newer and more generalised approaches to parliamentary reform.

Why choose the UK and Australian national parliaments?

The national parliaments of Australia and the United Kingdom have a longstanding relationship. They both have a common heritage in what is often called the ‘Westminster family’ of parliamentary democracies. The UK Parliament is often regarded as the ‘mother of parliaments’,¹³ while many of the Australian Parliament’s practices and procedures, particularly in the House of Representatives, are modelled on the United Kingdom’s Westminster system. Each parliament closely monitors and sometimes adopts the other’s procedural and management reforms¹⁴ and information is shared regularly through meetings of members, clerks, officials and academics.¹⁵ Both institutions are bound by tradition; parliamentary reform in the Westminster system is slow to materialise (Kelso 2009).

When viewed through a historical institutionalist lens, the change process within the two institutions is seen to be gradual and incremental but also characterised by ‘drift’ due to shifts in the environment and operating within a context that favours certain strategies over others (Hay and Wincott 1998; Streeck and Thelen 2005; Mahoney and Thelen 2010). The patterns followed are broadly similar: the two parliaments have experienced repeated reviews of structure and organisation and they provide a large source of comparable data (Bottomley 1975; House of Commons Commission 1990, 2007a; Braithwaite 1999; Adams 2002; House of Lords 2002; Podger 2002; HOCGC 2014; departmental annual reports). Yet, while they might come from the same Westminster family, they are nevertheless different in their constitutional, structural, governance and financial arrangements and this provides the potential for differences in observable outcomes (Anckar 2008; Keman 2011). Although both parliaments are bicameral, the House of Lords is not elected and therefore lacks the democratic legitimacy claimed by the Australian Senate. Also significant are the differences in each nation’s electoral system. In the United Kingdom’s first-past-the-post and voluntary voting system, a dominant executive is more likely to result.¹⁶ Voting is compulsory in Australia and a system of preferential voting in the House of Representatives tends to reduce government majorities while proportional representation in the Senate usually precludes executive control.

The principal difference in financial terms is in the ability of the House of Commons to decide its own funding (the budget put forward by the House of Lords administration is also rarely challenged). The Australian Parliament relies on the executive government for its funding. The structural and governance arrangements are also quite different in each parliament and these are addressed in detail later in the book. The main difference is that, historically, the House of Commons and House of Lords have retained separate control over their support services, whereas in the Australian Parliament the House of Representatives and the Senate have been served by separate service-related departments. An outcome of this key structural difference appears to be a greater division of responsibility between the management and procedural functions in the Australian Parliament with an increasing propensity to ‘blame it on the manager’ (Keulen and Kroeze 2014). These arrangements have evolved over time under pressure from both internal and external factors, as the next few chapters will show.

Both parliaments have been affected by a series of events and missteps that publicly highlighted management failures and I recount these in detail in later chapters. That these events were characterised by their capacity to change the structural influences bearing on each parliament and expand the choices open to parliamentary actors would justify their classification as parliamentary ‘critical junctures’.¹⁷ For those inside the two parliaments, the episodes and their consequences highlighted pre-existing underlying tensions relating to the constitutional roles of the two parliaments and their management trajectories. For those outside, each event provided yet another example of a parliamentary brouhaha increasing public cynicism. From an academic perspective, they provided a catalyst for engendering a greater interest in the administration and management of parliaments—an observation borne out by the emergence of relevant literature during this study.

The number of reports that have questioned the effective management of both national parliaments also provides a rich field for analysing management practices within them, including the beliefs and actions of parliamentary actors that have influenced them. The reports have highlighted difficulties in managing parliaments that may not be encountered within mainstream public sector organisations, including:

• ad hoc, piecemeal and often reactive approaches to procedural reform (Winetrobe 2013)
• a lack of high-level managerial expertise at senior levels and complexity of governance arrangements, particularly at the ‘interface’ between parliamentary actors and the institution (Winetrobe 2014)
• a governance structure inadequate to deal with a mammoth workload, split between constitutional and strategic management roles (Hansard Society 2014)
• inherent conflict between clerks and managers (Mulgan 2014)
• combining effective decision-making with transparent accountability; matching best-practice governance in the public sector; developing skills; and preparing for future challenges (HOCGC 2014)
• alleged misleading of a senate committee by a parliamentary official (SFPALC 2012a, 2012b)
• possible improper interference with the performance of a senator during a disciplinary investigation (Senate Committee of Privileges 2014; SFPALC 2015a)
• managing assets and contracts in Parliament House (ANAO 2015)
• allegations of poor workplace culture in both parliaments (Cox 2018; Ellenbogen 2019; AHRC 2021).

These related examples have raised important questions about the management and administrative functions within the two parliaments including:

1. How do competing beliefs about the relative value of procedural and management skills influence effective management in the UK and Australian parliaments?
2. To what extent do MPs engage constructively in managing their parliaments?
3. How do structural and other differences between the two parliaments inhibit or facilitate effective management and governance?
4. Is managing parliaments similar to managing other complex organisations, and could contemporary public management approaches be usefully applied?

A new approach to the study of parliaments

I have two main purposes in writing this book. One is simply to engender a greater understanding and appreciation of the challenges and complexities of managing a parliament; the other is to consider whether these challenges are unique to the parliamentary environment or whether they can be addressed within the wider context of public management theory and practice. A third concomitant purpose has emerged, which is highlighted but not fully explored here—that is, the connection between parliamentary management, public policymaking and broader democratic reform. I hope this work will at least serve as a building block for further research.

A typical ‘historical institutionalist’ approach to writing about parliaments would seek to describe their evolution and reform and explain how and why changes have come about (Kelso 2009; see also Geddes and Rhodes 2018). This is important and I am not dismissive of this approach. Understanding the past is an essential element in explaining reform and shaping the future. But this approach also needs to acknowledge and analyse the inherent complexities and tensions that arise from parliament’s multifaceted and competing roles and the beliefs and actions of the members and officials who perform them.

This study is cognisant of a traditional division in scholarship of parliamentary reform between ideas of attitude (or agency) and context (or institutional settings). Proponents of attitudinal change (Norton 1983, 2000; Russell 2011b) assert that political will, especially when combined with a coherent reform agenda and a window of opportunity, can bring about meaningful change. Others (Kelso 2003, 2009; Wright 2004) argue that in the parliamentary institution change is constrained by party politics and the lack of a collective parliamentary voice or agenda. In this sense, the evolving and sometimes conflicting roles of parliamentary actors can be overlooked or even dismissed. Integrating these two schools of thought, however, is the acceptance by interpretive scholars that the dilemmas that arise from the need to make choices between outcomes that may be undesirable, at least to one set of interests, are built on webs of belief, or traditions, which are influenced by the context in which individual actors find themselves (situated agency) and which play out in everyday practice (Meakin and Geddes 2020). It is only by elucidating these dilemmas and examining the relationships among parliamentary actors—influenced by their beliefs and actions—that it is possible to consider ways in which they might be mutually resolved or at least accommodated within the constraints of the parliamentary environment.

My research approach draws from the work of Bevir and Rhodes (2006) on interpretive political science, taking up, specifically, three of their arguments. First, they acknowledge that beliefs and practices are constitutive of each other: the way people act depends on what they believe. Second, they assert that beliefs are inherently holistic and each belief or meaning is located within a wider web of beliefs or meaning. In the parliamentary context, what parliamentary actors believe about the effective management of a parliament will depend on what they think about its multifaceted roles and how they should be prioritised, what they think about their own roles, whether they are attracted to management theory and practice, public or private—in short, a host of relevant and influential beliefs that interact with one another to inform and motivate behaviour, relationships and actions. Third, Bevir and Rhodes conclude that practices, while arising from individual beliefs or meanings, are not fixed but are affected by the contingencies of political (and social) life. Parliamentary management is complicated by unpredictable political events to which parliamentary actors are required to respond or exercise their ‘situated agency’.

In seeking to explain the challenges of managing parliament, including differing interpretations of parliamentary effectiveness, this narrative adheres to Bevir and Rhodes’ interpretive concepts of traditions, beliefs and dilemmas. But it also seeks to place parliamentary traditions, beliefs and concepts within a public management framework to offer a path towards a new set of traditions, beliefs and practices for parliamentary actors in ways that move beyond an overreliance on institutionalised structures, cultures and discourse. This approach sits well with Bevir and Rhodes’ notion that situated agents use their conscious and subconscious reasoning to adjust existing beliefs and practices and to question traditions. It also suggests that the beliefs and traditions held and practised by parliamentary actors within their institutional settings could be influenced beneficially by a greater knowledge, appreciation and application of public management approaches—by learning from outside. An emergence of new beliefs and practices could enhance parliamentary effectiveness, particularly in the degree to which parliament remains publicly relevant and valued.

A word here on ‘effectiveness’: a basic conundrum is that parliamentary effectiveness will always be a contested concept in a legislative context given parliament’s conflicting roles.¹⁸ Measuring parliamentary effectiveness is difficult. This research will not alter either of these truisms, nor does it shy away from them. Its twin purposes, as outlined, are to understand the dilemmas and offer a new perspective on their mutual resolution or accommodation.

To summarise, parliaments have traditionally resisted external intrusions into their internal operations; at the same time, they have resisted administrative change and forestalled reforms, in effect consigning the concept of management to a subordinate and technocratic status. Despite this insularity, such reforms as have been achieved have often been driven by exogenous factors, particularly after a crisis. Procedural reforms have tended to arise from the political contest between governments and oppositions in performing two key parliamentary roles: government and scrutiny. Cultural reforms have been resisted, with parliaments using their ‘uniqueness’ as a defence against calls for reform of all public institutions. In the case of the most widespread management reforms achieved during the past half-century, most have related to organisational efficiency, ‘doing more with less’, ‘letting the managers manage’, mimicking the slogans of new public management and managerialism. Managers have been seen as technocrats with little understanding of the political dimensions of parliamentary administration. To a large extent, ‘management’ has been compartmentalised and reduced to measures of efficiency: reduced spending, greater outputs, activity-based costing, greater use of technology, business planning and avoidance of risk.¹⁹ Of course, these are important aims; the public expects the parliament to operate efficiently at the least cost to taxpayers. But thinking of the management task in such narrow terms begs the much larger question of whether parliament remains relevant and effective in representing the interests of the public in an era of greater public and media scrutiny, adversarial, divisive and populist politics, and public disengagement and cynicism. Neither the preservation of traditions nor a narrow pursuit of efficiency appears to have enhanced public perceptions of parliament’s effectiveness in upholding the United Kingdom’s or Australia’s democratic systems, particularly in the context of parliament’s key role in providing a forum for public participation and deliberative policymaking (Crick 1968). This will become apparent from a reading of the various dilemmas I address throughout this book, which highlight the failure of both parliaments to exemplify a respectful, safe and inclusive workplace culture and to achieve a less divisive and more deliberative public discourse. Addressing these dilemmas will require parliamentary actors to understand and accept new beliefs, practices and traditions, as practice and theory in managing all public institutions evolve.

These are bold and simplified claims that require justification. Managing parliament is complex; the parliamentary context is unique, the wholesale adoption of private or public sector management models would not be appropriate and parliament must retain its independence and legitimacy. But it can be argued that these factors demand greater, not less, attention to management theory and practice. Parliament is a key public institution that requires effective public management if it is to remain relevant and play its part in our democratic system.

Outline of the book

In writing about an institution steeped in history and precedent, it is important to look to the past. Reinforcing the need to understand the historical context of parliamentary reform, Chapter 2 provides an account of the nature of reforms in each parliament through the previous century. It highlights an ongoing conflict between government efficiency (in achieving its legislative mandate and securing re-election) and parliamentary scrutiny, and notes parliament’s limited relationship with the public. It introduces the important and symbolic role of the parliamentary buildings and the complexities surrounding their preservation and security.

It is also important to understand the administrative context in the two national parliaments: the parliamentary actors and their roles, the internal management structures and the governance arrangements. These are described in some detail throughout this book, starting in Chapter 3, which also provides a historical and institutional perspective of administrative reform in each parliament. Chapter 4 examines each parliament’s management challenges in a contemporary political context, addressing in detail controversial events that have spurred wider public interest in parliamentary management. They go to the heart of the tensions that exist among the roles and priorities of parliament’s many actors.

Chapters 5 to 7 unravel key administrative dilemmas characterised in terms of governance, management and procedural and cultural reforms. These dilemmas help to illustrate the differing beliefs, actions and practices of parliamentary actors as well as the ways in which they have influenced change (Bevir and Rhodes 2006). On governance (Chapter 5), the absence of definitive administrative authority has contributed to inertia and avoidance and a lack of collective responsibility and advocacy for parliamentary administration. The capacity for effective management (Chapter 6) has been diminished by the difficulties encountered in establishing a shared parliamentary identity across multiple roles and conflicting goals—exacerbated by strident scrutiny from the media, the public and internal critics. The dilemmas recounted in Chapter 7 include the capacity for the parliament to meet public expectations by changing behaviours to become more inclusive, representative and respectful, and by expanding the opportunities for public engagement and participation. The chapter also highlights the dilemma of leaving decisions in the ‘too-difficult box’. Chapter 8 summarises the two parliaments’ management challenges before addressing differences between parliamentary and public management. It discusses the potential benefit of public management approaches—in particular, public value, collaboration and co-production—to improve parliament’s management processes and outcomes and allow the institution to play a more influential role in broader democratic reform.

Last, in the Epilogue, I reflect on unfolding events and suggest a future research path for parliamentary management.

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