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Annual Report 2007–08You are currently viewing: Annual Report Output Group 1.5 — Members’ services
DescriptionOutput Group 1.5 provides advice, services and support for members of the House of Representatives. Responsibilities include support for accommodation at Parliament House; the delivery of office and communication services such as stationery, printing and information technology; and the payment of salaries and allowances. These responsibilities are undertaken by the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office, the People Strategies Office, the Information Systems and Publishing Office, and the Finance Office. In providing these services, the department maintains a close liaison with the Department of Parliamentary Services. The Department of Parliamentary Services is responsible for providing building maintenance and the central information technology services for Parliament House generally while staff in the Department of the House of Representatives act as the primary contact point for members in relation to the provision of the services. The expenditure for Output Group 1.5 in 2007–08 was $3.0 million. The budget allocation was $3.8 million. A summary of the financial resources for the output group is set out in Table 1; staff levels, by location, are shown in Appendix 10. PerformanceActivity levels across the output group in 2007–08 were generally higher than last year, reflecting the impact on the group of the election and its aftermath. The increased level of activity included arranging for the departure of retiring and defeated members, accommodating new members, and the major relocation of members associated with the change of government. The results of the 2008 members’ survey indicated a high level of satisfaction with our work. The detailed results of the survey as they relate to specific services are referred to in Appendix 11. Information servicesThree editions of House Update, the information bulletin for members, were published during the year. The department held seven House Briefings for members and their staff on House processes and procedures. Anecdotal feedback indicated that these services are valued by members and their staff as they help to keep them informed of developments in the House. Accommodation servicesAs a result of the general election and a later by-election, the offices of twenty-three retiring members and twenty defeated members were packed and readied for occupancy by newly elected members. As the election resulted in a change of government, all suites in the ministerial wing and most members’ suites in the House of Representatives wing were affected. Staff assisted with some 115 office relocations. Relocation requests were responded to within agreed time frames and to the satisfaction of party whips and individual members. The Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office received 674 requests to supply and move furniture, 197 more than in 2006–07. The significant increase was due to the many members occupying different suites and needing to rearrange furniture to suit their individual requirements. All tasks were performed within agreed time frames and to agreed standards.
Departmental staff working on the relocation of members’ offices in November 2007. Maintenance, access and transport servicesThe Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office manages responses to requests for emergency, routine and periodic maintenance work. A total of 378 emergency requests were processed during 2007–08 (416 were processed in 2006–07). As in the previous year, all were attended to within five minutes of receipt. The decrease in requests is due to improvements in the monitoring of suites through our system of checks before and after adjournment periods to ensure maintenance issues are identified and dealt with early to avoid more-serious problems developing. Four hundred and eighty-two routine maintenance requests for repairs or alterations to suites or common areas were submitted to the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS), 125 more than last year. Of those requests, 24 per cent resulted from pre- and post-adjournment period checks, which allow the office to avoid a bottleneck of maintenance requests when members return for sittings. This increase also reflects our monitoring of suites through the pre- and post-adjournment inspections resulting in maintenance being undertaken as a routine task and not as a request for emergency maintenance. Periodic maintenance, such as painting and recarpeting suites and maintaining air conditioning and fabric (timber, leather and brass), was organised with the agreement of affected members as part of the DPS program. The change of government presented an opportunity for some major refurbishments, including of the Leader of the Opposition’s suite, which is a large complex of offices accommodating over twenty persons. In addition, over fifteen sets of furniture from members’ suites were refurbished this year as part of the ongoing maintenance program. Major refurbishment, including recarpeting and painting of suites in the department’s Committee Office, also was undertaken during the year. The office received and dealt with 563 requests for assistance with telephone faults, relocations and allocation of telephone numbers (compared with 273 in 2006–07). The significant increase is a direct consequence of the general election. Of requests for telephone support, twelve related to faults and were reported to the telephone support service within five minutes of receipt (fourteen in 2006–07); all were acted on by telephone support officers within the agreed service standard of forty-five minutes. The Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office processed 576 applications for access to suites and general circulation areas (771 in 2006–07). This decrease in applications was the result of our ongoing inspections and progressive maintenance during the previous parliament, which meant that a smaller number of suites required work or refurbishment at the end of the parliament. The office coordinated transport services for members, including managing the members’ shuttle service, on behalf of the Department of Finance and Deregulation, during sitting weeks. Our target was to conduct the transport service without error, and, for the 3,988 bookings made, we achieved a success rate of 99 per cent (6,311 bookings in Software and hardware servicesThe election saw a changeover of forty-two members. This resulted in a great deal of movement and reallocation of information technology equipment as well as creation and deletion of network accounts and updates to internet pages for members. Laptops and desktop computer equipment were retrieved from retiring and defeated members and any hard disks were sanitised. As part of the asset replacement program, and timed to coincide with the new parliament, 200 new laptops were provided to members. The DPS conducted a tender process for office printers, in cooperation with Department of the Senate and the department. As part of the asset replacement program, 172 printers were replaced for members and departmental suites in Parliament House. The changes to the petitioning process for the House of Representatives required that a new database be developed to track the processing of all petitions received by the House. This database is nearing completion and will be available for use by the secretariat serving the newly established Standing Committee on Petitions prior to the Spring sittings of 2008. An electronic version of House of Representatives Practice (using eComPress technology) was made available to all members and their staff on desktops and laptops located in Parliament House. The electronic version also includes the House of Representatives Standing Orders and the Constitution. This allows easy navigation, searching, tagging and annotating of the documents. Plans are under way to upgrade all computers to use Microsoft Office 2007 by the end of 2008. All departmental software applications are being tested and modified to comply with Microsoft Office 2007. Internet and intranet servicesCommDocs, a series of private intranet sites that are tailored to provide access to committee documents for members and authorised staff, was provided to all committees at the commencement of the Forty-second Parliament. Work on the project to provide streaming video and audio on the Parliament of Australia website continued. The new service will allow clients to replay the About the House television program, question time, various Chamber highlights and audio clips. This will be available on both the House of Representatives and Senate pages and will be launched during the Spring sittings of 2008. PrintingThe department’s in-house printing service produced approximately 7.3 million impressions in 2007–08. Of these, four million impressions were completed for members as part of their in-house printing allowance. A total of 148 members used all or part of their allowance, with six members transferring part of their allowance to other members. Staff from the printing service continued to actively manage the photocopier fleet, providing a ‘valet service’ of remote monitoring of equipment and prompt repair of equipment and replacement of consumables. Training to members and their staff in the use of devices was conducted. At the commencement of the Forty-second Parliament, profiles for new members and staff were added to the devices to enable scanned documents to be emailed directly to the user. Messenger servicesDuring 2007–08, the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office continued to provide messenger services to the standards specified in the service charter of the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office. We received no complaints, either formally or through the feedback process identified in the charter. Most messengerial staff are employed on a contract basis for the life of a parliament. When the Forty-first Parliament was prorogued, a significant selection process was conducted and all non-ongoing attendants were able to reapply for employment. Twenty-four persons were appointed at the end of this process, four of whom are new employees. Parliamentary assistants programThe department continued its program of recruiting university students to work as parliamentary assistants alongside the messengerial attendants. This is the ninth year of the parliamentary assistants program, which has elements of employment, educational and outreach programs, and is managed through the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office. As in previous years, parliamentary assistants performed the duties of messengerial attendants for an average of ten hours per week. Duty rosters are planned around individual study commitments, with many students working in the Chamber during the evening on sitting days when they are not scheduled to attend lectures and tutorials. At the end of 2007, all parliamentary assistants newly appointed for 2007 were invited to apply to become senior parliamentary assistants and assist with the incoming team. Four of them were selected and are providing valuable help in training four new parliamentary assistants appointed for 2008. The new assistants are from New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria.
Serjeant-at-Arms, David Elder, addresses the Commonwealth Serjeants-at-Arms Professional Development Conference in August 2007. Also pictured, the Clerk, and the former Speaker, the Hon David Hawker MP. Picture courtesy of Auspic Members’ secretarial supportThe department has for many years provided secretarial support to members, originally in the form of typing pools. With changes in technology and in the nature of support staff working directly for members, these secretarial support services are no longer required in the form in which they had been provided. The responsibility for administering the remaining two staff positions providing extra support for members was transferred to the Department of Finance and Deregulation with effect from 1 July 2008. The staffing entitlement of the chief government and chief opposition whips has been increased by one position each from this date.
Participants in the Commonwealth Serjeants-at-Arms Professional Development Conference in August 2007. Management and administrationMembers’ salariesAll processing of members’ salaries and entitlements by the People Strategies Office was in accordance with legislation and administrative decisions. In the 2008 members’ survey, 55 per cent of members were extremely or highly satisfied (84 per cent in the 2007 survey) and 96 per cent were satisfied with services in relation to their base salary, electorate allowances and deductions (100 per cent was recorded in the 2007 survey). Annual expenditure on members’ salaries and other entitlements was $25.83 million during 2007–08, an increase over the $24.19 million spent last year. All performance targets were met during the year, with all salary variations completed when required and with 99 per cent accuracy. The cost per transaction rose slightly from $5.99 to $6.15. The office processed one pay rise during the year, with effect from 1 July 2007. The pay rise increased the members’ rate of pay to $127,060 per annum. Office holders’ additional salaries were also adjusted in accordance with the formula outlined in Determination 2006/21. The office processed the cessation of Office Holders’ Allowance at the dissolution of the Parliament. Forty-two members’ entitlements ceased either at the date of dissolution or on the day before election day. The office also processed the payment of a new entitlement, Resettlement Allowance, which was payable on the meeting of certain criteria to former members who were elected from 2001 onwards. The forty-two new members were paid their initial entitlements within two weeks of their poll being declared. Staff of holders of public officeThe department administers the salary payments and conditions of service for the personal staff of holders of public office—namely, the Speaker’s, Deputy Speaker’s, and Second Deputy Speaker’s staff. The responsibility for administering the salary payments and conditions of service of these staff was transferred to the Department of Finance and Deregulation with effect from 1 July 2008, following a request from the Prime Minister to the Speaker. The People Strategies Office processed all variations initiated by office holders’ staff and the salary increase due to them as a result of the Commonwealth Members of Parliament Staff Collective Agreement 2006–2009 and maintained the 99 per cent accuracy rate of previous years. Improving performancePolicy and procedural documents were reviewed and revised to take account of issues arising at the end of one Parliament and the beginning of the new Parliament. OutlookThe financial year 2008–09 is expected to show a return to more usual levels of activity for the output group as the Forty-second Parliament enters its middle phases. The Australian Parliament will host the Australia and New Zealand Parliamentary Information Technology Forum in late 2008. This will be the fifth forum where staff from the Australian Parliament and Australian state and territory parliaments, along with staff from the New Zealand Parliament, gather to discuss areas of common interest in providing information technology services to parliaments. Preparations for this forum are well under way. During the 2008–09 year, e-Recruitment will be implemented. This will allow applicants to lodge applications online and gain information on the progress of their application. In recent years, there have been noticeable changes in the work of the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office as a result of increased frequency and longer hours of sittings of the Main Committee, greater focus on security issues, and more complex processes in relation to business (continuity of business, strategic planning and works and maintenance projects). To address these demands, an assessment of responsibilities of senior staff in the office has been undertaken. One outcome is the appointment of a second member of staff from elsewhere in the department to act as shadow serjeant on sitting days. The extension of the measure for shadow serjeants is aimed at satisfying the need to develop and maintain skill levels and knowledge of an adequate number of staff in the department available to perform critical roles in supporting the operation of the House.
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Output Group 1.5
