House of Representatives Annual Report 2002

Annual Report 2001–02

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Output Group 2: Committee Services

2.1 Non-inquiry support services

Providing services to support the general (non-inquiry) activities of committees

Although a survey of members satisfaction was not undertaken during the year, ongoing qualitative mechanisms were used to assess services provided to committees. They included discussions with members, initiated by the Clerk Assistant (Committees) and Clerk of the House, and structured interviews facilitated by individual secretariats. Feedback from these mechanisms indicated continued high levels of satisfaction and identified areas for further improvement, some of which reflected changes in needs arising from technological advances.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking of committee support activities continued throughout the year. During the period between parliaments a major focus of benchmarking activities was a project on the preparation and distribution of briefing papers. The project involved extensive face-to-face interview surveys of over 30 members of the House of Representatives, intended to ascertain their needs and preferences relating to all aspects of the form and delivery of inquiry briefing papers. The project was successfully completed and the results should enable secretariats to choose among a number of better practice solutions and fine-tune their service delivery to meet identified client needs.

Two other benchmarking projects examined the development of terms of reference for an inquiry and information technology research tools. The latter project highlighted the potential application of a range of software products to the research and analysis conducted by the Committee Office.

Parliamentary conferences

In July and August 2001, staff in secretariats to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Heritage and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works organised national conferences hosted by their respective committees. Both events were successful in terms of attendance, the opportunity they provided for the consideration of issues and the establishment and renewal of contacts with parliamentarians from other jurisdictions who are involved in similar areas of scrutiny and investigatory work.

Archiving of committee records

In late 1999, the department signed a Records Disposal Authority (RDA) with the National Archives of Australia (NAA) that established new arrangements for the retention, disposal, addition to and alteration of the departments records. The signing of the RDA created a requirement for the re-sentencing of nearly a centurys worth of committee documents archived before the RDA was signed. In total, that equates to files occupying approximately one kilometre of shelving.

The department engaged a consultant to assess the Committee Offices archival holdings at the NAA repository. In addition, in a major effort made during the election period, Committee Office staff worked at the NAA repository re-sentencing committee records. During that period, some 250 shelf metres were re-sentenced, with a six-member team sentencing some 10 metres of files per day. As at 30 June 2002, 750 shelf metres of files were yet to be reviewed, to be progressed in 200203.

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