Schools hospitality

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The department receives a special appropriation in order to provide modest hospitality to school groups visiting Parliament House.

In 2013–14, the administered appropriation for program component 2.1 was $0.325million and expenditure was $0.314 million.

In this section:

Performance summary
Improving performance
Outlook

Schools hospitality

School visits to Parliament House are coordinated by the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office, working in partnership with the Parliamentary Education Office (PEO) and Visitor Services.

In 2013–14 there was a small decrease in the number of school students participating in educational tours of Parliament House, with 113,709 students recorded, down from 115,651 in the previous year. The number of students from New South Wales and the Northern Territory decreased, while all other states recorded slightly higher numbers than in the previous financial year (see Table 11).

All visiting students participated in a guided tour and visited both chambers. Of those, 84 per cent (97,383) received hospitality and 77 per cent (87,657) participated in the PEO program, a small decrease on the previous financial year (see page 25 for more information on the PEO’s activities).

Table 11 Students visiting Parliament House, by location and year, 2009–10 to 2013–14

Year	ACT	NSW	NT	Qld.	SA	Tas.	Vic.	WA	Other	Total
2009-10	3,703	70,294	623	15,845	4,618	1,394	17,041	4,378	59	117,955
2010-11	2,730	70,294	707	16,411	4,205	1,262	17,458	4,048	62	114,598
2011-12	1,637	66,036	899	17,389	5,059	1,676	17,312	4,706	80	114,794
2012-13	1,657	67,955	881	16,395	4,742	1,471	17,245	5,064	241	115,651
2013-14	1,859	62,597	835	18,193	5,390	1,581	17,766	5,488	–	113,709

Improving performance

In previous years, school bookings were only taken for the next financial year from 1 July of that year. From 2014, bookings were taken on a rolling basis for the following calendar year. This avoided the deluge of bookings that would be received each 1 July, smoothing the booking workload for the Serjeant-at-Arms Office.

Outlook

By 30 June 2014, we had already booked 27,940 students from 732 schools for the following 12 months.