4

Contemporary parliamentary management: How has it measured up?

Overview

In the preceding chapters, I have established the context for the underpinning tenet in this book—namely, that parliamentary management, while inherently complex and problematic, is not widely understood and remains undervalued. Issues range from parliament’s ability to win the public’s confidence, executive–legislative relations and a lack of overall authority and weak governance, to limited interest by many of parliament’s members in administrative matters, lack of capacity and resources, and problems both practical and symbolic with the buildings in which the parliament is housed. Parliaments have displayed a resistance to external calls for reform, with parliamentary actors sticking to a widely held belief that parliament is unique, further embedding traditions of insularity and specialisation. Nevertheless, parliaments have not remained static; they have evolved inexorably as the world around them has changed. Notably, we have seen an expansion of the resources available to members to carry out their representative, legislative and scrutiny roles, including new and extended accommodation, and significant technological advancements in parliament’s capacity for public engagement. Yet, the complaints about parliamentary effectiveness continue and, increasingly, they are directed towards parliament’s management capacity. Also increasingly, the complaints are coming from within; members are identifying management shortcomings, yet few appear to see themselves as part of the solution.

In this chapter, I examine the parliament’s management problems in a contemporary political context, addressing events to which I alluded earlier that have spurred a wider public interest in parliamentary governance. They go to the heart of the tensions that exist among the roles and priorities of parliament’s many actors.

The view from the Australian Parliament

Department of Parliamentary Services

The starting point for this review of contemporary management within the Australian Parliament is the 2004 amalgamation of the three parliamentary service departments. It was designed to increase structural efficiency and reduce duplication but with little apparent regard for the difficulties of merging many distinct roles and cultures—from gardeners, mechanics, chefs and engineers to shorthand writers, librarians, security guards and IT and broadcasting experts—or to enhancing historically poor relationships between the procedural and management departments. Despite the best intentions, in some quarters, resentment and suspicion remained.

The heads of the three Australian parliamentary departments, writing in the overviews to their annual reports, looked towards their post-amalgamation futures with mixed levels of enthusiasm. Then Clerk of the Senate Harry Evans described his department’s role as a ‘sceptical questioner’ of the amalgamation. He left no one in doubt about his department’s approach:

This administrative and financial rearrangement leaves the Senate Department much smaller in terms of budget and staff, but no less dedicated to its central functions of providing advice and support services to the Senate and its committees. It is hoped that the safeguards put in place by the Senate, the Appropriations and Staffing Committee and the President will ensure that the greatly enlarged joint department does not become a ‘black hole’, sucking resources out of the key legislative functions which remain the responsibility of the Senate Department. (Evans 2004: 5)

The Senate Clerk’s counterpart in the Department of the House of Representatives, Ian Harris, presented a more positive view of the new joint department:

The establishment of the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) … was a major development in the administration of the Parliament. I welcomed this administrative change and worked with my departmental colleagues to help ensure the success of the new structure. Initially, as far as our department was concerned, the most pressing issue was the establishment of the centralised security arrangements, but the department commenced working constructively with the new department and the Department of the Senate on other issues of common interest, such as streamlined and consistent finance and personnel systems and procurement processes. (Harris 2004: 8–9)

The new department’s first annual report (DPS 2004) revealed that savings from staff reductions were shaping up to be considerably less than those predicted in the Podger review (2002); the costs of managing Parliament House had increased disproportionately to past increases in budget funding and the divergence between costs and funding was likely to increase. The new department was forced into negotiations with the Department of Finance to seek a reversal of the funding cuts imposed for 2004–05 and the forward estimate years. Finance recommended careful analysis of the new department’s activities in a search for further efficiencies—whether or not related to the amalgamation. In return, DPS claimed that identifying the services for which it had been notionally funded in the past would be difficult and it might need to ‘start from first principles’ in determining what level of services it could continue to provide and where service reductions could be made (DPS 2004: 68). The predicted outlook for DPS by its new departmental secretary, Hilary Penfold, only five months after its establishment, was gloomy:

Having regard to our financial position, DPS will need to use this year to explore ways of providing our services more efficiently or renegotiating the provision of, or the service levels for, some of our services … At a departmental level, our focus will be on a number of areas that should provide efficiencies over the longer term … However, it is unlikely that these improvements will provide enough savings in the next two or three years to deal with our funding cuts and cost increases. (Penfold 2004: 14)

Penfold predicted reductions in standards of building maintenance, reduced service levels for Hansard and broadcasting, more efficient library services and the setting of priorities for IT and communications services.

The focus in the first full year of DPS, 2005, was almost exclusively on spending less money. External clients appeared to have found the transition fairly seamless, as far as the department was able to judge, but forthcoming efficiency reviews and a proposed departmental restructure left many staff uncertain of their futures and that of the department. Progress reported in 2005–06 included a major departmental restructure;¹ a performance audit by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO 2006) into whether the objectives of the Podger review had been met; the appointment of a parliamentary librarian under the provisions of the amended Parliamentary Service Act 1999 (which included a separate resources agreement for the library); the conclusion of the security enhancement project (about which the two chamber departments had been so concerned); and a call by the presiding officers for expressions of interest to operate a childcare centre in Parliament House.²

The ANAO performance audit concluded that improvements to physical security had been achieved but was ambiguous about the success of the amalgamation of the three service departments. It found that while ‘not all the efficiencies envisaged by the Podger review had been realised’, DPS had been able to absorb reductions of $6 million per annum with only ‘minor changes to its services’, while noting also that the department lacked objective measures of client satisfaction or an avenue for consultation on the types and levels of services required (ANAO 2006: 13–15). It also noted that decisions by the three parliamentary departments to pursue different human resource and financial information systems had not provided a foundation for efficiently moving towards the shared services model also envisaged in the Podger review (2002).

In 2007–08, then Parliamentary Service Commissioner Lynelle Briggs undertook a further review of the amalgamation of the service departments, finding that although significant savings had been delivered, it was not clear whether the savings were a result of the amalgamation itself or of direct management intervention. A sceptical questioner would likely conclude that the Department of Finance’s imposition of a $6 million budget reduction immediately after the amalgamation was a form of ‘direct management intervention’. DPS itself estimated that only $2 million in savings were directly attributable to the amalgamation and this amount was offset by its estimated $1.6 million cost. Briggs also recommended that the three departments develop a strategy to promote whole-of-parliamentary work and cooperation and embed the Parliamentary Service’s values into governance arrangements (Parliamentary Service Commissioner 2008).

The financial pressures on DPS were again acknowledged when a new secretary, Alan Thompson, was appointed. He reported that DPS operated in 2007–08 within a budget (of $116 million) that was only slightly larger than the combined budgets of its three predecessor departments ($115 million) in 2000–01, even though the consumer price index had increased by more than 30 per cent in the intervening period. He did not, however, allude to cutting services or reducing service levels but undertook to continue ‘normal’ service delivery, albeit ‘very frugally’ (Thompson 2008: 5–6). The pressures continued in 2008–09 (Thompson 2009) and the need to ‘progressively adjust’ services was raised with a commitment to prioritising support for the chambers and committees. DPS and the departments of the Senate and House of Representatives all presented submissions to an inquiry into the efficiency dividend by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA 2008),³ following which the committee recommended a ‘parliamentary commission’ co-chaired by the presiding officers to recommend funding levels for the parliamentary departments—common practice in other Westminster parliaments, including the United Kingdom. The government did not support the recommendation and subsequent attempts at greater collaboration between the parliament and the Australian Public Service appear to have been limited.⁴

Table 4.1 Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee: The performance of the Department of Parliamentary Services—Background and interim findings

Date	Event
23 May 2011	Matters raised at budget estimates hearings and in answers to questions taken on notice relating to disposal of two billiard tables with possible heritage value.
23 June 2011	Senate reference to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee (SFPALC 2012a) to inquire into and report on the performance of the Department of Parliamentary Services with wide terms of reference relating to asset management, heritage values, services and efficiencies following amalgamation, IT and any related matter.
16 November 2011	Public hearing—witnesses appearing: Romaldo Giurgola, Pamille Berg and Hal Guida, architects.
2 May 2012	Public hearing—witnesses appearing: National Trust of Australia (ACT); Walter Burley Griffin Society; Community and Public Sector Union; and Department of Parliamentary Services.
27 June 2012	Interim report published (SFPALC 2012a)—key comments and conclusions: Major weaknesses in DPS’s stewardship of assets in Parliament House; the actions of the department in providing a senate committee with misleading information were unprecedented and unacceptable (p. 16). Disposal of billiard tables from Parliament House in 2010 resulted in significant expense for DPS and brought to light questionable practices in a parliamentary department where ‘only the highest levels of conduct should be maintained and only the best example set’ (p. 21). Committee acknowledged concerns of presiding officers regarding heritage listing of Parliament House and ‘possible executive government interference in parliamentary decision making processes’ (p. 31). Committee noted ‘foresight of the [former] Joint House Department [JHD] in commissioning the Central Reference Document, the appointment of a Design Integrity Officer and the use of a building consultant to undertake annual audits’, but was unable to judge the success or otherwise of the JHD’s regime to protect the heritage of the building (p. 34). Matters for further consideration included the need to improve the accountability and transparency of DPS in relation to heritage matters; the role of presiding officers and parliament in relation to heritage matters; the role of outside experts in guiding change in the building; and what constitutes a ‘significant change’ to the building (p. 54).

Despite continuing reports of the financial, technological and political challenges to DPS’s role in supporting the parliament, it appears to have been only by accident that MPs turned their attention to the parlous state of DPS and then only under the auspices of the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee (SFPALC). The disposal of two billiard tables was questioned at estimates hearings in February and May 2011, where it transpired that a DPS official had misled the committee about the timing and status of an assessment of the heritage value of the tables (SFPALC 2012a). A wide-ranging inquiry ensued, including into the effects of the amalgamation on DPS’s performance. The committee’s hearings and interim findings are summarised in Table 4.1.

In 2012, a new secretary, Carol Mills, was appointed following the retirement of Alan Thompson amid the fallout from the ‘billiard tables affair’. Mills began her own investigation of the circumstances surrounding the disposal of the billiard tables before the SFPALC’s interim report was tabled in June 2012, resulting in more robust asset disposal policies and a ‘strategic approach to heritage assessment’ (DPS 2012: 17). But further cuts to the DPS budget, following an increase to the efficiency dividend, would lead to another ‘reprioritisation’ (Mills 2012: 2) and the financial year 2012–13 brought a ‘transformational change agenda to reshape DPS into a more professional, outward-looking and service focused department’, including changes in senior management and functional realignment (Mills 2013: 1). DPS was also required to respond to the final report of SFPALC (2012b) (see Table 4.2). Among other things, the committee called for greater accountability and transparency and a revision of performance measures that were considered to be not sufficiently informative. In the interim, Mills continued to develop the department’s role in meeting the rapidly changing technology requirements of members, following a ‘whole-of-parliament’ external review of information and communication technology (ICT) services. A new ICT service delivery model was recommended and responsibility for all parliamentary ICT was transferred from the chamber departments and the Department of Finance to DPS (Roche 2012).⁵ The role of independent external advice was strengthened by establishing a new audit committee with two independent members and creating an expert advisory panel to assist in developing a conservation management plan for Parliament House. The financial situation still presented a major challenge and substantial changes to services were forecast (Mills 2013).

Table 4.2 Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee: The performance of the Department of Parliamentary Services—Final report

Date	Event
30 October 2012	Public hearing—witnesses appearing: Carol Mills, Secretary, DPS; Diane Heriot, Acting Parliamentary Librarian, DPS.
28 November 2012	Final report published (SFPALC 2012b)—key comments and conclusions: Lack of clear information (p. 56), strong leadership and vision (p. 207) and strategic planning for maintaining building (p. 57); reduced spending (p. 188). Major deficiencies in engagement with moral rightsholders, project management and design integrity (p. 90); poor asset disposal practices (p. 110). Poor and expensive security management and planning (pp. 148, 219). Deficiencies in ICT provision, including fragmented service delivery and poor project management (p. 174). Amalgamation savings not achieved; poor resource management leading to increased costs; ineffectiveness in securing adequate funding for new projects (p. 188). Poor contract development and management (p. 196). Lack of administrative responsibility by presiding officers (p. 197). Deficiencies in annual reporting (p. 201). Poor employment culture (p. 207).

The final SFPALC report (2012b) made 23 recommendations to address the identified shortcomings in DPS’s performance, 20 of which were accepted by the department. But the committee also pointed to the failure to achieve the amalgamation efficiencies despite many attempts by DPS; a decline in DPS’s purchasing power combined with increasing costs; the impact of further decreases on building maintenance and services to support parliamentary processes; and the ineffectiveness of administrators to ensure adequate funding. It declared:

The requirement to seek funding from Government for funding the Parliament, in the committee’s view is a matter which requires further consideration. There is a need to ensure that the budget for DPS is such that services required by the Parliament are sustainable in the long term and the committee considers that it is time for further deliberations on the appropriate model of funding for DPS. (SFPALC 2012b: 189)

Its first and key recommendation was for DPS’s ‘funding and administration to be overseen by the Senate Appropriations and Staffing Committee and the House Appropriations and Administration Committee meeting jointly for that purpose, and that Standing Orders be amended as necessary’ (SFPALC 2012b: 208). Responses were equivocal. DPS officials supported an appropriate level of scrutiny and advocacy for its role and noted there was no single entity to advocate for its needs, unlike the chamber departments, each of which had a specific parliamentary committee. But they also suggested that existing levels of accountability were sufficient. The President of the Senate (who had appointed Mills to ‘fix’ the department) undertook to discuss this recommendation with the Senate appropriations committee and advised that the Senate House Committee would be an appropriate mechanism for raising concerns about services and facilities, which could then be forwarded to the Joint House Committee (both house committees meeting together). The Senate House Committee received briefings from DPS on two occasions, 10 months apart, including on the financial difficulties it was experiencing, but it appears no formal steps were taken to implement the SFPALC’s recommendation on the oversight of DPS’s funding and administration (SFPALC 2015b). On the contrary, there is little evidence of an ongoing interest in an ex ante governance or advocacy role for anyone in relation to DPS.⁶ The recommendation that DPS be exempted from any future one-off additional efficiency dividends was also not supported by the government.

In 2013–14, Mills reported ‘a cautious, but brighter view of the financial outlook for the year ahead’ following her successful attempts, with the support of the presiding officers, to secure additional funding of $15 million with a one-off supplementation of $5.5 million. Savings in contract management and other costs, such as external cleaning, were also reported (Mills 2014: 6). An increasing emphasis was placed on visitors to Parliament House in collaboration with Canberra’s cultural institutions and the tourism sector. The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO 2013) became the fourth parliamentary department, on 23 July 2012, after significant discussion about its structure and location within the parliamentary administration.⁷

Table 4.3 Further inquiries into DPS’s performance

Date	Event
February 2014	CCTV images of a DPS staff member putting an envelope under the door of Senator John Faulkner’s Parliament House office are used in the investigation of a staff management issue.
26 May 2014	Senator Faulkner raises concerns during estimates hearings about a breach of the CCTV Code of Practice and improper monitoring of interactions between his office and a DPS employee. DPS Secretary refers to ‘inadvertent conflict’ between staff management issues and protection of members’ and senators’ rights (SFPALC 2014: 31–42).
18 June 2014	On joint motion of senators Cory Bernardi and Faulkner, matter is referred to Senate Committee of Privileges (2014: 1) to investigate whether there was improper interference, whether disciplinary action was taken and whether a contempt was committed.
5 December 2014	Committee finds no contempt; rather, the CCTV Code of Practice had ‘accountability gaps’ and use of CCTV was not authorised. It refers to ‘misleading evidence’ given at estimates committee hearing on 26 May 2014 to SFPALC and recommends review of Code of Practice and training for senior officers ‘to acquaint themselves with the principles of privilege’ (Senate Committee of Privileges 2014: 38).
26 June 2014	Senate refers further inquiry into performance of DPS to SFPALC with multiple terms of reference.
26 February 2015	Following SFPALC’s 2012 inquiry, ANAO publishes audit report that concludes that DPS’s processes ‘do not exhibit the discipline required to provide assurance that assets and contracts are being effectively managed’ (ANAO 2015: 15).
21 April 2015	DPS Secretary’s appointment terminated.
28 April 2015	SFPALC presents interim report covering asset and contract management, photography commission and inquiry into the use of CCTV material at Parliament House. Committee concludes that DPS is ‘deeply dysfunctional’ (SFPALC 2015a: 20) and announces intention to look broadly at role, functions and structure of DPS, in conjunction with presiding officers, to improve its management and operation.
25 June 2015	SFPALC presents second interim report (2015b), concluding it was misled by the DPS Secretary at the estimates hearing on 26 May 2014 and the misleading evidence had a substantive impact on its work. The report acknowledges the termination of the secretary’s employment and reports it has pursued the matter as far as practicable.
27 August 2015	Senate President announces the presiding officers have requested the Parliamentary Service Commissioner arrange for an independent structural review of DPS (SFPALC 2015c: 3).
17 September 2015	SFPALC presents final report (2015c) with some terms of reference not addressed. Multiple recommendations related to: DPS updating committee on senior management structure; progress on conservation and design documentation; bullying and harassment complaints; Hansard; use of Parliament House facilities; and visitor experience review. Stocktakes and audits of assets and contracts. Joint meetings of relevant Senate and House of Representatives committees to oversee DPS’s funding and administration.

After two years of financial deficits, DPS received significant investment in the 2014–15 budget, allowing it to begin to restore service levels because of Mills’s efforts. But her tenure was marred by poor relations with her colleagues and alleged missteps and incompetence. In 2014, the attempted recruitment of Mills to serve as Clerk of the House of Commons by Speaker Bercow (discussed later in this chapter) became a major controversy in both parliaments, horrifying some members and senior officials. Following a House of Commons committee inquiry, her proposed appointment was terminated (HOCGC 2014). In April 2015, Mills’s appointment in the Australian Parliamentary Service as DPS Secretary was also terminated by the presiding officers following critical findings by the Senate Committee of Privileges (2014), ANAO (2015) and a further review of DPS’s performance by SFPALC (2015b). These further public inquiries and their outcomes are summarised in Table 4.3.

The independent review into DPS by the Parliamentary Service Commissioner was conducted by Ken Baxter, a former senior public servant in the NSW and Victorian governments (Baxter 2015). The commissioner forwarded Baxter’s review to the presiding officers in December 2015 but it was not made public until April 2017, and then only in response to a question on notice from a member of the SFPALC. Baxter found a consistent view among officials that the objectives of the Podger review were not achieved and its implementation had not been particularly successful. Drawing on the highly critical reviews of DPS and discussions with members and parliamentary officials in the Australian, UK and Canadian national parliaments and the NSW and Victorian state parliaments, Baxter identified four key areas in which management was deficient: communications within parliament and between senators and members, the presiding officers and DPS; the absence of credible long-term strategic and financial planning on a whole-of-parliament basis; inadequate planning and funding for the ongoing maintenance of Parliament House; and administrative and financial inefficiencies resulting from a trifurcation of funding. Baxter attempted to address these deficiencies through several recommendations, including whole-of-parliament strategic planning and funding; a governance body, with external directors, like those operating in the UK and other parliaments; targeted funding of the building; and changes to organisational structures and nomenclature. In common with the HOCGC (2014), he made many observations that are germane to the questions raised and arguments promulgated in this book. Examples of these are incorporated in Table 4.4; they are indicative of the lack of priority afforded to strategic management and governance issues, and a lack of support for DPS.

Table 4.4 Relevant observations from Baxter (2015): Australian Parliament

Question (i): How do competing beliefs about the relative value of procedural and management skills influence effective parliamentary management? Question (ii): Do MPs engage constructively in managing their parliament?
‘The Building’ … should dominate the debate about funding and … will require … greater supervision and control by the Parliament through the presiding officers (p. 10).
The current funding flows, associated administrative arrangements, and the management structure of DPS diminishes [sic] the ability of the department to prepare for implementation of a meaningful, measurable, medium to long term strategic plan for the whole of parliament and to gain acceptance of that plan from the presiding officers (p. 10).
There is a need for frequent, regular and well planned consistent communications within the whole of parliament and in particular between senators and members and their services provider DPS (p. 12).
The relationship and communication channels between the presiding officers and the Clerks of the two Houses are working well. The working relationship between the presiding officers and the parliamentary departments as a whole has been problematic … [M]easures must be put in place to ensure that effective professional working relationships are reinforced and do not rely solely on personality and goodwill (p. 11).
[H]ad there been focussed, adequate, consistent and continuing oversight of the formation of DPS and its internal relationships, very different and far more positive results would have been achieved (p. 18).
[T]he major elephant in the room is that there is not an appropriate organisational structure to deal with major maintenance and renovation of ‘The Building’ … [T]he Parliament … should move as quickly as possible to establishing accounting and financial management systems associated with the ‘global’ or whole of parliament funding. This would require a single annual appropriation (p. 13).

The presiding officers were advised by then Parliamentary Service Commissioner John Lloyd that several of the recommendations required further thought and consultation (Lloyd 2015). In the end, not all were accepted, including the establishment of an advisory board and whole-of-parliament funding arrangements. In further correspondence with the presiding officers, Lloyd (2016) advised that he had discussed the report with the new DPS Secretary, Rob Stefanic, who was implementing important changes, some of which had been canvassed by Baxter. The letter included non-specific language, such as ‘options are being explored to introduce a more strategic approach’, ‘senior executive roles have been reviewed to realise improved role clarity and better performance measurement’ and ‘DPS will work towards becoming a learning and forward thinking organisation’ (Lloyd 2016: 2). Governance arrangements were left on an informal basis, leaving them open to being dependent on personalities and goodwill, and funding arrangements were not streamlined. It appears Baxter’s recommendations to introduce formal governance and whole-of-parliament funding were unpalatable. Evidence from some interviewees confirmed that the Baxter report was not much more than a device to satisfy the SFPALC and followed the longstanding and familiar parliamentary practice of having ‘to be seen to be doing something’. It was also suggested that Baxter’s proposal to rename the titles of principal officeholders was not well received and he did not sufficiently understand the parliamentary context.

In the years following Mills’s termination in 2015, DPS has continued to travel ‘a path of transformation’ designed to make it ‘fit for purpose’. The three-stage, five-year process has included reforming core policies, processes and governance to increase accountability and coherence, strengthening capability across DPS to serve parliament effectively and moving DPS to a ‘more agile and high-performance operational model’, to meet its strategic priorities of ‘innovation, quality service delivery and improving our corporate culture’ (DPS 2020: 5).

From this detailed illustration of the troubled history of DPS during its short existence (in parliamentary terms), one could conclude that its problems were caused by poor management on the part of successive secretaries, and critics could point to evidence of a lack of judgement, foresight and management capability at senior levels of the new department. However, it is also evident that the performance problems were deep-seated and exacerbated by the design and implementation of DPS, subsequent funding decisions, an absence of constructive governance arrangements at the outset and a lack of support from members and senators, including successive presiding officers. Criticism of the department’s performance has continued: in September 2020, the SFPALC announced a further broad-ranging inquiry into DPS’s management and operations, which then collided with several investigations into an alleged sexual assault within a minister’s office in Parliament House (the outcome of these investigations is addressed in the Epilogue). DPS management mounted a spirited defence to this inquiry and questioned the legitimacy of evidence submitted by some of its critics. One can only speculate as to the political intent of the inquiry; as it turned out, the committee distanced itself from related investigations into the alleged assault and DPS’s handling of its security role. Its report was largely confined to acknowledging DPS’s efforts towards improving workplace culture and ICT security. Nevertheless, additional comments by non-government senators suggest serious management problems, whether real or perceived, remain within DPS and the level of political scrutiny is likely to continue (SFPALC 2021). I turn now to a brief review of the two chamber departments from 2004 to 2021 to compare the extent and complexity of management challenges within the three departments.

Department of the House of Representatives

There is little evidence of serious challenge to or complaints about House of Representatives services following the amalgamation of the service departments—it has appeared to be largely a case of business as usual—although the House of Representatives has no estimates committees to regularly scrutinise departmental performance and its Standing Committee on Appropriations and Administration, which primarily considers the department’s funding estimate, was not established until 2011. Annual reports pointed to high levels of satisfaction from clients and staff, while referring to the need to improve departmental culture, reduce barriers across the department and ensure the department’s specialised working environment would not obscure its external view (Department of the House of Representatives 2006, 2007).

The 2010 election, which led to a minority government, posed procedural challenges for the House of Representatives departmental staff, but these were welcomed by the clerk (Wright 2011). In providing technical advice to multiple members on issues that may not have arisen before, the clerk took the unusual step of publishing detailed procedural notes, even on politically sensitive subjects, to ensure house practices were consistently explained. Under reform agreements negotiated by the minority government, the Appropriations and Administration Committee was established to consider, among other things, departmental funding. The committee was able to secure supplementary funding to meet the additional costs incurred by the new parliamentary arrangements and it was seen as an important conduit between members and departmental staff.

In 2016, the department acknowledged the importance of maintaining effective relationships with the other parliamentary departments (Department of the House of Representatives 2016).⁸ The financial outlook for the department was positive: the report noted that public service agencies were continually being challenged to work more efficiently and deliver the best value for money and the Department of the House of Representatives was no exception. A collaboration theme was evident in the following year’s annual report when the Strategic Plan for Parliamentary Administration, first mooted in 2013, was endorsed in 2017 (Department of the House of Representatives 2017; Parliament of Australia 2017b)—at least one outcome that appears to have been influenced by the Baxter review. The department also received a positive government response to its request for additional funding to enhance procedural capacity.

Continuing management themes for the Department of the House of Representatives in the twenty-first century appear to have been dominated by a highly specialised focus (particularly in responding to ongoing procedural challenges), both internally and in its interparliamentary and outreach work; a strong focus on staff development, departmental leadership and services to members, resulting in high satisfaction rates on both counts; and an acknowledgement of the need for cooperative relations with the other parliamentary departments. The department’s annual reports reveal the hallmarks of a well-run, well-supported department providing high-quality services but apparently with few complex management challenges. Exceptions include the 43rd Parliament when the absence of a majority-elected government resulted in several unusual practices and reforms and a significant upsurge in chamber and committee activity, questions relating to dual citizenship under Section 44(i) of the Australian Constitution and the ineligibility of certain members to sit, and the parliament’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic (Department of the House of Representatives 2018a, 2020).

Department of the Senate

The value of the specialised work of the Department of the Senate was very much to the fore in its twenty-first-century annual reports. Senate Clerk Evans, until his retirement in 2009, consistently defended the Senate’s constitutional and independent status. Before the 2004 amalgamation, the clerk defended a budget surplus in the Senate Department as resulting from a low level of legislative activity caused by the sidelining of the legislature by a ‘rampant’ executive and a ‘cramming’ of legislation designed to reduce sitting days and lessen the Senate’s scrutiny of government activities. A budget surplus was ‘not a matter for apology’ (Evans 2003: 4); it could be justified on the basis that expenditure might arise in the future, notwithstanding that the number and scope of inquiries were limited by the available time of senators. This theme was repeated in subsequent reports: a fluctuating workload, combined with increased internal technological efficiency, requiring a continuing high level of resources in anticipation of future committee workload, notwithstanding that the time constraints of senators tended to militate against potential increases. The inevitable consequence was that after more than a decade of accumulating cash surpluses by ‘efficient’ use of its appropriations, the Senate in 2008 was required to return half its cash surplus (more than $10 million) to the government (Evans 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008).⁹

I have already touched on the self-proclaimed role of the Senate as the parliamentary service’s sceptical questioner in relation to Podger’s proposals for reorganisation of the parliamentary departments. Evans claimed there was a great deal to be sceptical about in the process and implementation of the Podger review, and there is evidence to support this claim, including from Podger himself (see Chapter 3). There are many references to the Senate, acting through its officials, playing a sceptical questioner role on matters of politics and management—for example:

A demand for public sector departments and agencies to look and sound like private commercial corporations has long been in evidence, and continues despite its poor conceptual basis and institutional inappropriateness. If regard were to be had to that demand, the most prominent feature of this report would be the considerable reduction in size of the Senate Department and its budget as a result of the transfer of the security function, equipment and staff to the joint department … Perhaps in commerce-speak it might be said that the department has downsized and is concentrating on its core business. That sort of conceptualisation only leads to even more inappropriate analogies: small bodies are ripe for takeover by larger organisations with more functions and money. No doubt there are some who see the change in those terms. The rationale of the department, however, is constitutional and institutional, not economic, and is related to the proper conduct of the public affairs of the body politic. (Evans 2005: 5)

The exhortations of the Senate Clerk forcefully staking a claim for more resources in anticipation of additional workload, combined with his vigorous defence of the Senate’s institutional role, contrasted with the more understated reports of other parliamentary heads. They reflected a greater assertiveness on the part of the Senate that has pervaded administrative outcomes in the Australian Parliament through the years.

The successor to Evans as Clerk of the Senate, Dr Rosemary Laing, continued his formidable defence of the institution along the same lines: continuing financial pressures and the intellectual skills of senate staff with a strong emphasis on their professional development. Generational change and the need to retain ongoing corporate knowledge were tackled by developing a new learning framework, establishing the Senate Public Information Office and using new technologies, including Twitter (Department of the Senate 2011, 2012). Deviations from a business-as-usual approach included a strategic review of ICT across the parliamentary departments, commissioned by the presiding officers. The result was the establishment of a central ICT division within DPS—a ‘one-stop shop’ for the computing requirements of parliamentarians and staff—and staff in the parliamentary departments bringing a strategic overview to formerly unsatisfactory arrangements (Department of the Senate 2013). The limited effectiveness of the Senate Appropriations and Staffing Committee in seeking to influence the appropriations for the Senate Department and resolving disagreements with the government was reportedly enhanced by a new consultative process between the Minister for Finance, the Expenditure Review Committee and the Senate President. This was seen as ‘an important step forward in recognising the constitutional independence of the Senate and the correct application of parliamentary procedure in the budget process’ (Department of the Senate 2013: 6). A continued focus on financial independence for the Senate and institutional continuity was reported in 2014, together with updated coordination arrangements between the parliamentary departments and a modest surplus in the department’s financial results. A third review of the scope for achieving efficiencies through shared services concluded the cost of system upgrades would outweigh potential efficiencies, although the discussion appeared to be ongoing (Department of the Senate 2014, 2019). In 2015, the department reported a continuing deterioration in its budget after years of efficiency dividends, and an unprecedented level of committee activity. The previous year’s modest surplus had now become a small deficit with a similar outcome budgeted for the following year, notwithstanding a one-off injection of additional funding (Department of the Senate 2015).

The effects of the well-publicised differences between the Senate Clerk and the Secretary of the DPS in 2014 were tempered by a positive framing of the cooperation across the parliamentary departments following the centralisation of ICT and changed security arrangements. Indeed, collaboration between parliamentary departments and other parliaments was a key theme of the clerk’s 2015–16 review (Laing 2016a). The debate on financial independence continued and, despite the efforts of the President of the Senate and the renamed Appropriations, Staffing and Security Committee, little changed regarding the budget setting.

The appointment of a new clerk, Richard Pye, in 2017 did not appear to change the Senate rhetoric; the key themes explored in his first review included institutional continuity, the need to raise awareness of the Senate’s work, the capacity of its staff and the workload—again acknowledging that the demand for the Senate Department’s services was ‘directly influenced by the composition and dynamics of the Senate’ and that senators themselves determined workload. Following the 2016 dissolution, referrals to committees increased to record rates as the number of parties in the Senate sought to pursue their policy and political interests (Department of the Senate 2017). The increased activity brought budget supplementation and the Appropriations, Staffing and Security Committee was able to secure an ongoing increase in following years (Department of the Senate 2018a). Institutional continuity, meeting the demand for procedural, legislative and committee support, and supporting staff and collegiality among parliamentary departments were key themes in subsequent reporting periods (Department of the Senate 2019, 2020).¹⁰ The reported evidence over almost two decades indicates the Senate Department is managed well in terms of achieving its outcomes and securing sufficient funding; the same evidence also suggests an institutional outlook that could be interpreted as defensive and self-serving.

Externally, however, the reputation of the whole parliament was damaged by a series of allegations of misuse of parliamentary entitlements, particularly those relating to travel, and a publicly funded helicopter ride in 2014 led to the resignation of then Speaker Bronwyn Bishop (Grattan 2015). While the surrounding public disclosures were less dramatic than those in the United Kingdom some years earlier (detailed later in this chapter), numerous reviews led to the establishment in 2017 of the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA) under the auspices of the Department of Finance. Although the public view portrayed by the media was inclined to see individual MPs who did not follow the rules as self-serving, the 2016 review of the entitlements system confirmed the conclusions of previous reviews that the system was complex, confusing, incomplete, contradictory and immensely di­fficult to follow and administer (Committee for the Review of Parliamentary Entitlements 2016). These issues are discussed further in Chapter 6.

The view from the UK Parliament

House of Commons Service

The previous chapter documented a series of management reforms conducted by the House of Commons Service, including in the early part of this century. A triumphant review of the 2007 Tebbit inquiry by an external member of the House of Commons Management Board concluded:

[V]ictory can be declared on the major part of Tebbit with major improvements implemented across a wide range of activities ranging from transformation of a dysfunctional board of management to an effective management board to major improvements in service delivery and business management processes. (Jablonowski 2010: 4)

But this positive evaluation of management performance—repeated in annual reports in following years—contrasted starkly with the fallout from two seemingly separate but related incidents that caught the public’s attention and exerted considerable pressure on members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and parliamentary officials.

The first was an investigation in 2009 by Telegraph journalists that revealed systemic abuse of the system of allowances. Although most expense claims were found to be ‘within the rules’, the public could now see the extent to which the regime could be manipulated to maximise personal gain and the intentional lack of transparency and accountability that governed it (Winnett and Rayner 2009). The fact that members had deliberately sought to keep the details of their expense claims from being publicly disclosed reinforced a widely held belief that politicians were subject to a different set of rules and standards and were increasingly out of touch with the lives of ordinary British citizens (vanHeerde-Hudson and Ward 2014). The consequences of the scandal for the whole institution were far-reaching. They included the resignation of the Speaker, Michael Martin, who had fought strongly to prevent the release of the expenses details, a severe dent in the reputation of the Commons officials who had administered the expenses system and a major change to the House’s future governance and administration (Gammell 2009; Wright 2014). Although the ‘expenses scandal’ was a significant political event, there were mixed views about its long-term impact, including on election outcomes.¹¹ VanHeerde-Hudson and Ward (2014) found that the most significant consequences were administrative. The 2019 release of a documentary by The Telegraph and an account by Crewe and Walker (2019) of why the scandal still mattered suggested the reputational damage was ongoing. Ten years on, Flinders and Anderson (2021) claimed subsequent reforms were more widespread than was commonly recognised yet the scandal had failed to stimulate discussion about the inevitable cost of politicians.

As a result of the ‘scandal’, the expenses system was taken out of the hands of the House of Commons Department of Resources (formerly the Fees Office) and an independent body, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), was set up to regulate and administer a new regime. IPSA itself did not escape criticism for its ‘conflicted’ role as both regulator and administrator, its focus on the public interest rather than as a service provider to MPs and its treatment of members who found it to be bureaucratic and unhelpful (Gay 2014). Although parliament had to be seen to be doing something to appease public concern, the introduction, through IPSA, of complex rules and procedures rather than a risk-based approach appeared hasty and not well thought through (Fisher and vanHeerde-Hudson 2014; Gay 2014; Norton 2017). The response highlighted the dangers of legislating according to ‘the something must be done syndrome’ (Parpworth 2010).

The chair of the Select Committee on the Reform of the House of Commons established in response to the expenses scandal also pointed to regulatory overreaction and suggested that enforced transparency with tighter rules and audit would have been sufficient to improve the system had not political demands required political detoxification and public reassurance (Wright 2014). Wright was also frank about the reasons for the scandal in the first place: the problem was a lack of machinery to safeguard propriety or sound the alarm. Members controlled their own financial affairs and defended their parliamentary sovereignty against external intrusions. The officials administering the system believed their primary duty was to assist members to make claims. Importantly, from the perspective of this book, Wright (2014: 58) claimed the level of attention devoted by officials to ensuring the proper conduct of parliamentary proceedings did not extend to the administration of expenses and allowances and, as a consequence, parliament paid a high price for such laxity. It seems no one thought it was important enough.¹²

The Wright Committee recommendations were an enduring and positive consequence of the scandal; unlike earlier modernisation proposals, they addressed the relationship between the parliament and the executive by proposing the election of select committee members and allowing backbench members to control more of parliament’s business (Russell 2011b). The expenses scandal also prompted the Institute for Government (Nicholls 2010: 3) to argue for a reinterpretation of the principle of self-regulation and a move away from an ‘insular model of governance of MPs, by MPs and for MPs’. It made several recommendations to improve transparency and accountability, capacity and capability, and risk management, including value-for-money audits by the National Audit Office,¹³ the inclusion of more non-executives on the House of Commons Commission and the management board, and public committee hearings on the House’s administration.

The second significant event in bringing the governance of the UK Parliament to public attention was precipitated by the election of John Bercow as Speaker, following the forced resignation of Speaker Martin as a consequence of the expenses scandal.¹⁴ It was also a catalyst for reform, both procedural and administrative (HC Debates 2009; Wheeler 2009). Bercow, although a Conservative Party member, was seen as more progressive than his predecessors and keenly supported the Wright reforms, particularly those strengthening the role of the backbench. His ambitions, though, led to clashes with his principal official, the Clerk of the House Robert Rogers.¹⁵ Rogers’ subsequent resignation triggered a bizarre recruitment controversy—the aforementioned ‘Mills affair’—which highlighted the relationship between the Speaker and the Clerk of the House of Commons and the roles of clerk and chief executive and culminated in the establishment of the House of Commons Governance Committee (HOCGC), chaired by a former Leader of the House, Jack Straw. The HOCGC (2014) recommended sweeping changes to the House of Commons Service’s governance and administration, including the appointment of a new position of director-general. As we have seen, the recruitment controversy also involved the Australian Parliament and contributed to an unusual level of media interest in that parliament’s administration. The HOCGC inquiry and its report are summarised in Box 4.1.

Box 4.1 The Mills affair

Highlighting the relationship between the Speaker and the Clerk of the House of Commons and the roles of clerk and chief executive On 16 July 2014, the House of Commons acknowledged the early retirement of then clerk Sir Robert Rogers (HC Debates 2014a). Members commended his role in steering reform and his contribution to improving the House’s procedures and the public’s understanding and appreciation of its work, as well as his achievements as chief executive. Media reports (Cooper 2014; D’Arcy 2014; Wintour 2014) discussed persistent rumours that the clerk’s early retirement resulted from his working relationship with Speaker Bercow. The relationship was said to be untenable and highlighted conflict between clerkly conservatism and the Speaker’s frustration at the slow pace of implementation of his push to reform the workings of the Commons. In the recruitment process for a new clerk, Speaker Bercow was said to have emphasised the executive side of the job and downplayed the procedural advice side, so that the job description that once required a ‘detailed knowledge’ of parliamentary procedure now called only for ‘awareness’, allowing for a much deeper recruitment pool (D’Arcy 2014). On 30 July 2015, a selection panel of five members and one independent person, appointed by the Speaker, recommended the appointment of Carol Mills to the role of clerk. (Ms Mills was at the time the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services in the Australian Parliament, having assumed the role in 2012.) When knowledge of the proposed appointment emerged, a furore ensued. Several House of Commons members were concerned about both the process and the outcome (HC Debates 2014b). The Clerk of the Senate in the Australian Parliament, Dr Rosemary Laing, in an email to the retiring Commons Clerk, Rogers, launched a ‘stinging attack’ on Ms Mills and her professional abilities. According to Dr Laing, staff in Canberra’s Parliament House were ‘utterly taken aback’ that someone with no understanding of parliamentary procedures could be under consideration for such a role (Towell 2014). Mills was disparaged in the United Kingdom as the ‘Canberra caterer’ (Doyle 2014; Guido Fawkes 2014). Acknowledging the level of disquiet among members about the suitability of the proposed appointment, on 1 September 2014, the Speaker announced a ‘modest pause’ in the recruitment process (HC Debates 2014b). On 10 September 2014, the House agreed to the appointment of the House of Commons Governance Committee, to consider the governance of the House of Commons, including the future allocation of the responsibilities for house services currently exercised by the single office of Clerk of the House and chief executive (HC Debates 2014c). The committee reported on 17 December 2014 (HOCGC 2014). It recommended, among other things, the appointment of a new director-general to run the delivery of services, under the authority of the clerk, who was to remain as head of the House Service.

Unlike the SFPALC management inquiries in the Australian Parliament, the HOCGC did not arise directly out of concern for a systemic failure in the management of services to the House, and its report noted that not all the individual failings brought to its attention resulted from poor management.¹⁶ Some were the consequence of the inherent complexity of a bicameral parliament, while others resulted from different perspectives or experiences (HOCGC 2014: 35). The report was muted in its criticism of inconsistencies in the recruitment of a new clerk/chief executive and proposed an organisational framework in which the House could operate more efficiently and effectively, reinforcing the development of a unified House Service. It noted that governance of the House had developed over time, often in response to issues or events. Inherent complexities had been compounded by layers of interventions, building on and adapting what went before rather than rationalising or restructuring arrangements (HOCGC 2014: 13).¹⁷ An academic interpretation might construe this finding as a veiled criticism of a path-dependent approach to parliamentary administration, although the committee did commend earlier reforms, noting the increased emphasis on the CEO part of the clerk/CEO role and a more efficient and unified service following the Tebbit review. But it acknowledged longstanding concerns about the relationship between management board officials and members of the commission; inadequate decision-making and implementation; a culture that placed the clerk’s procedural role above that of the management role, with sharply divided views on which should prevail in any new structure; a lack of focus on strategic management issues; and insufficient attention to the development and recruitment of senior staff.

Evidence given to the HOCGC (2014) directly relates to questions raised in Chapter 1: first, the persistence of the perception that the procedural role is superior to the management role (whether embodied in the same person or not); and second, the level of constructive engagement by members in managing their parliaments. Table 4.5 provides extracts from evidence to the committee; it contains some illuminating and sometimes colourful descriptions.

Table 4.5 Relevant evidence taken by HOCGC, UK Parliament

Question (i): How do competing beliefs about the relative value of procedural and management skills influence effective parliamentary management?
A. Spicer and J. Silvester, psychologists, Cass Business School	We think in some quarters there is a deeply held but maybe unexpressed concern that the rise of a more thorough-going managerial approach will lead to these [deeply held] traditions being replaced by a more generic corporate culture which could be found in any workplace (p. 33).
David Blunkett MP	It does not follow that those with legal training and constitutional expertise should have primacy over those running the personnel and services of the House of Commons … It strikes me that the objections raised to anything that does not give the Clerk complete primacy over all other personnel (and therefore functions), fall into the category of William Blake’s ‘mind-forged manacles’ (GOV0009, p. 94).
Sir Peter Luff MP	I am becoming more and more concerned that the House of Commons is becoming a tourist attraction, catering facility and visitor centre rather than a place of democratic debate, scrutiny, and legislation. We are in danger of losing sight of the purpose for which this place exists. I am therefore clear that the Clerk’s role must be the predominant one in the new arrangement. He or she must be the custodian of our procedure and the guarantor of our freedoms (GOV0005, p. 95).
Andrew McDonald, CEO, IPSA	Does one want to reinforce the existing culture, which prizes procedural expertise above all else? Or does one recognise that the quality of its leadership and management are fundamentally important? The choice is an important one. Important to the future direction and culture of the whole House administration (GOV0073, p. 95).
Baroness Royall	[T]o have a chief executive officer or a chief operating officer for Parliament as a whole would be a very sensible way forward. The public see us as Parliament, and for Parliament to be managed as a whole would be very sensible. But that should not impinge on the role of the Clerks in their constitutional duties: advice to whatever is happening in the Chamber. That is my personal view (EV, Q487).
Question (ii): Do MPs engage constructively in managing their parliaments?
Nigel Mills MP	Probably no one came to Parliament to spend a lot of time considering the price of a bottle of Coke in a vending machine. Clearly people’s priorities will be proper priorities of Parliament, not running the internal House service. Some people are press-ganged, rather than choosing to be there, and obviously people are promoted out of the way and therefore can’t stay on the Committee. I don’t think it is a sign that the [Administration] Committee is dysfunctional, it’s probably a sign that we can’t actually make fundamental decisions. That is the way it is (EV, Q303).
Robert Flello MP	My experience over almost ten years is that the bureaucracy of the Commons is self-serving. Decisions are taken that suit the wishes of those running the House and, too often with the acceptance of House Committee chairs, they are nodded through with no real scrutiny and yet with the fig leaf of acceptability as having been agreed by one or more of the various committees. Reports or papers are brought to House Committees where the select few MPs have been asked to attend. Some MPs don’t attend because of the demands on their time of other parliamentary matters whilst others, and I include myself in this, refuse to lend credibility to a system that is believed to be a fig leaf for House officers running things for their own purposes (GOV054, p. 94).

The HOCGC inquiry could be considered a defining influence on management of the House of Commons Service—characterised by some as a masterful compromise by its chair—particularly in its decision to ‘split’ the clerk/CEO role and establish a new role of director-general.¹⁸ It is not clear, however, that a public management culture has become ingrained within the parliamentary institution. Not all of those affected by the outcomes of the inquiry were unanimous in their assessment of its utility.¹⁹ The inquiry itself may also have been seen as the creature of former Speaker Bercow, about whom opinions were sharply divided. Indeed, following Bercow’s departure, the election of the new Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, and the appointment of the new Clerk of the House of Commons, Dr John Benger, we can discern subtle but important differences in the influence and standing of the director-general’s office. From 2018 to 2019, the administration’s annual reports contained joint rather than separate introductions by the clerk and the director-general; in 2021, opening remarks by the director-general disappeared altogether (House of Commons 2019, 2020, 2021). The 2021 report revealed changes arising from a review undertaken by the clerk ‘to consider whether the House of Commons Service teams and departments were structured in the best way to deliver key parliamentary functions and services’ (House of Commons 2021: 11). The changes had the overall effect of strengthening the influence and status of three categories of ‘core’ parliamentary functions: chamber and legislative-focused activities, select committee-focused activities, and supporting members in their constituency work through research and information services. Greater ‘circulation’ between committee staff and chamber staff was designed to improve career paths for those staff and offer greater potential to attract external candidates and internal candidates at more senior levels. The bulk of the participation/engagement function was brought within the purview of the clerk assistant, with its managing director no longer represented on the Commons Executive Board. The review also flagged some dissatisfaction with the current House of Commons strategy and foreshadowed an improved approach to strategy development (Benger 2020). The changes reflect the observations of Silvester and Spicer that the closer one’s role is to the legislative process, the higher are the status and importance accorded to that role (HOCGC 2014).

Following the review, the inaugural incumbent of the position of director-general, Ian Ailles, left the service of the House. The functions of a newly described position of Director-General (Operations) are now more narrowly specified, and the former ex officio role of the director-general as chair of the Commons Executive Board (above the clerk) has been removed. We may have witnessed the end of the primus inter pares experiment, a gradual rewinding of the clock and a restoration of the old order—according to Ailles, the changes represent a ‘dilution and regression’ in management reform²⁰—or perhaps the latest restructure is a necessary refocusing of the arrangements embedded in the Bercow era. In either case, we can detect ongoing tensions between the procedural and management roles and the forging of new internal alliances. The structure of the House of Commons Commission itself has also not escaped recent criticism, with a former Leader of the House, Andrea Leadsom, suggesting its members should be elected and officials and non-executive members should be entitled to vote (Haddon and Thimont Jack 2020).

House of Lords Administration

The House of Lords has taken a hesitant but mainly positive approach to elevating the management role, falling broadly into line with the House of Commons while maintaining its commitment to self-regulation and maintaining the House of Lords ‘voice’ (HOCGC 2014). It, too, was affected by significant external events, including the expenses scandal, and repeated attempts (or threats) by successive governments to reform it. The Lords’ response to the expenses scandal, in which a number of peers were embroiled, differed from that adopted in the House of Commons, with the Lords preferring to keep matters largely within their own control. The code of conduct was strengthened and the position of the Independent Commissioner for Standards was established to investigate any breaches. The Review Body on Senior Salaries, an advisory non-departmental public body, reviewed the financial support provided to peers and the Lords agreed to new ‘flat rate’ allowances, tighter arrangements for the designation of principal residences and more frequent publication of information relating to peers’ expenses (SSRB 2009).

Both peers and House of Lords administration officials contributed to the HOCGC inquiry, emphasising their willingness to engage in providing joint services, and even highlighting the potential for one chief executive officer for the whole parliament. Lord Laming, then a member of the House of Lords House Committee, argued that the danger was in drift; it was healthy to pause from time to time and reflect on changed circumstances and key values (HOCGC 2014). There was evidence of good working relationships between the two houses with occasional meetings of their respective governance committees. The House of Lords Leader’s Group on Governance (House of Lords 2016a) examined governance of the services and facilities provided to members of the House. Its report acknowledged increasing scrutiny of the House of Lords, closer public interest in how the House worked and how peers conducted themselves, and the growing need for cohesion and shared purpose between the two houses. It recommended the establishment of a House of Lords Commission, with two external members and two supporting committees—a structure very similar to that in place in the House of Commons. Of note is the report’s concentration on productive relationships between members and staff, including informal settings for meetings; the need for routine and effective communication; and a focus on improving the governance of shared and joint services with the House of Commons. It went so far as suggesting an annual ‘away day’ for members of the commission and management board to discuss strategy, priorities and business and financial plans.²¹ It also called for regular joint meetings with the equivalent Commons committees to discuss and decide on issues of common concern.

The House of Lords’ annual reports provide some evidence of a constructive approach to management, giving a richer context for the changes resulting from formal governance reviews. Like the House of Commons, the House of Lords has moved slowly towards adopting a stronger focus on management and appears to have followed the reform path without too much outward resistance but with limited apparent effectiveness. The Lords governance reviews I have recounted reinforced a desire to involve peers more closely in administrative matters, but, as later chapters will reveal, officials in both houses have expressed cynicism about the extent of members’ interest in administration—except when things go wrong—and further external reviews have been critical of management effectiveness, particularly the Ellenbogen review of workplace culture in 2019 (see Chapter 7 for a detailed account). The most recent annual reports I have examined (House of Lords 2017–18 to 2020–21) reference a continuing ‘professionalisation’ of senior staff with the appointment of new finance and human resources directors; strategic priorities that emphasise adaptation and innovation, excellence in service delivery, working together and embracing diversity; and an innovative response to the Covid-19 pandemic.²² In 2020, the House of Lords Commission ordered an external management review (EMR) of the governance, management and organisation of the House of Lords (one of Ellenbogen’s recommendations). The EMR uncovered continuing organisational issues of concern stemming from unclear accountabilities, insufficient professional capabilities, insufficient general management capacity, tentative leadership behaviours (including slow progress in tackling the perceived ‘clerk privilege’ highlighted by Ellenbogen) and outdated systems and processes (Leslie and Mohr 2021). It proposed ‘a new approach to governance, management and people development’, favouring a ‘step-change’ over incremental improvement and with new leaders in senior management roles ‘who can make the change happen’ (Leslie and Mohr 2021: 5). However, the review stopped short of supporting a key recommendation from Ellenbogen (2019), which itself went a step further than the HOCGC (2014). Ellenbogen recommended the appointment of a director-general who would have ultimate authority within the House administration. Instead, having considered ‘insights from current and former leaders in the House of Commons’ and the risk of ‘conflict between two centres of power’, Leslie and Mohr’s review (2021: 87) recommended the appointment of a chief operating officer. At first glance, the proposed chief operating officer’s functions and authority appear to emulate the ‘diluted’ version of the House of Commons Director-General; however, as deputy chief executive reporting to the Clerk of the Parliaments, the chief operating officer would have ‘oversight of major change programmes and all non-procedural services to the House’ as well as responsibility for ‘most of the House’s approximately 600 employees’, the ‘bulk of the resource and capital budgets’ and providing ‘visible and inclusive leadership to the whole organisation’ (Leslie and Mohr 2021: 113–27). This sounds like a broad and complex remit with the risk it could lead to the new occupant becoming the ‘fall-guy’ for the next crisis. The EMR also sought, inter alia, to address a lack of management capacity and interest within the commission by recommending a small panel to assist the commission’s oversight of the management board and establishing a statutory basis for House of Lords governance like the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978.

Although embracing change, prima facie, the traditional custodians of practice and procedure continue to be concerned about ceding control to management newcomers. Further work to consider and implement EMR recommendations was due to take place in the financial year 2021–22 (House of Lords 2021). Time will tell whether the EMR’s ‘wide-ranging and radical’ recommendations (if adopted) will herald another ‘new era’ of effective management in the House of Lords.

Factors influencing management effectiveness in two parliaments

In Chapter 1, I questioned how structural and other differences between the two parliaments inhibited or facilitated effective management and governance. I have provided examples in Table 4.6. An obvious effect arises from differences in the way procedural and support functions are organised. In the Australian Parliament, most of the non-procedural support functions have been located in separate departments and now reside within the DPS, which has lacked political support and shouldered the burden of financial efficiencies since its formation in 2004. A high turnover of senior executive staff within the DPS and the missteps exposed by senate committees have led to perceptions of a lack of deference towards parliamentary procedure and culture (see later chapters) and suggestions of ‘reckless ignorance or indifference’ on the part of officials whose job it is to serve the parliament (Laing 2014: 8). Latterly, the DPS has been accused of mismanagement, abuse of process and perpetuating a dysfunctional organisational culture (SFPALC 2021). In the UK Parliament, each house is responsible for its own management services—a factor that might be expected to have generated more support from members and clerks for the management function; however, repeated management reviews in the UK Parliament have demonstrated that this is not necessarily the case. Organisational structure alone is no panacea for effective management.

A second factor is the resources available to each parliament through their respective funding arrangements. Chapter 5 discusses these in more depth; for now, it is apparent that the power of the executive in appropriating the Australian Parliament’s funds is a significant driver of efficiencies while a lack of executive control may have, at least in the past, reduced the incentive for the UK Parliament to commit to more radical efficiency reforms. In this respect, the size of each parliament is also significant: the Australian Parliament, as a small agency, is disproportionately affected by the efficiency dividend imposed by the executive (JCPAA 2008). But this difference belies the expenditure constraints that are placed on both parliaments by public expectations, particularly when new expenditures or budget overruns attract media publicity. Alleged misuses of parliamentary expenses by members, whether deliberate or inadvertent, can also be seen as failures of parliamentary management, particularly in the UK Parliament.

A third factor is the constitutional differences between the two parliaments, which are reflected in the relative powers of the Senate and the House of Lords to influence administrative reform, including through joint departments, and this might explain to some extent the reluctant adoption of modern management principles by the House of Lords.

A fourth factor is the different governance environments in the two parliaments. The legislative framework from which the Australian Parliamentary Service draws its authority mirrors that of the Australian Public Service, which serves the executive government of the day, and the presiding officers do not enjoy the same independence as those in the UK Parliament. On the one hand, this may have contributed to a more efficient and accountable parliament; on the other, the Australian Parliament has no overarching governance body that simultaneously oversees and advocates for the effective funding of procedural and management services across the parliament.

Table 4.6 Factors influencing management effectiveness in the two parliaments

Question 3: How do structural and other differences between the two parliaments inhibit or facilitate effective management and governance?
Influencing factors	UK Parliament	Australian Parliament
Location of management support services	Procedural and management support services collocated with House of Lords and House of Commons administration. Slow pace of reform reflects lower management priorities. Repeated reviews have led to incremental change with some changes prompted by critical events.	Procedural and management support services located in separate parliamentary department. With less political support, reduced funding and shorter tenure for senior officials, DPS has become a target for extensive criticism.
Funding, authorisation and efficiency	House of Commons sets out its own estimate; House of Lords budget rarely challenged.	Australian Parliament is funded by executive, subject to efficiency dividend.
Constitutional limitations or freedoms	The House of Lords is an unelected chamber with limited powers and little capacity to influence administrative reform sponsored by the House of Commons, although it strives to retain its ‘voice’ in joint arrangements.	The Senate, as an elected chamber, usually with a non-government majority, claims greater legitimacy and has greater powers to influence or oppose administrative reforms initiated in the other house.
Governance	The two houses are not governed by an executive-driven legislative framework and the presiding officers function independently of government. The House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978 is not prescriptive. Presiding officers are independent.	The Parliamentary Service Act 1999 mirrors the Public Service Act 1999, and the parliament is a Commonwealth agency under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013. Presiding officers are not independent. There is no overarching governance body.

Conclusion

We have seen from this account of contemporary parliamentary management that despite the differences in the way each parliament is structured and governed, there are many similarities in their management approaches. Both parliaments have been slow to reform, insular and self-interested. Administrative reforms have been influenced by the need to preserve parliamentary sovereignty; procedural expertise has traditionally been prioritised over management expertise; and MPs, while eager to protect their privileges and immunities, appear less willing to engage in constructive management reform, lacking time, expertise or interest. In the following chapters, I analyse specific examples of governance, management and procedural and cultural reforms, using Bevir and Rhodes’ (2006) concept of dilemma to explore how the beliefs and practices of parliamentary actors can be both explained and modified. I also discuss more closely differences between the two parliaments’ organisational structures, strategic planning and public engagement activities.

---