Services and advice
Media services
The Serjeant-at-Arms and staff continued to work with the various media bureaus and the governing committee of the Parliamentary Press Gallery to ensure compliance with the rules for media-related activity in Parliament House and its precincts.
During the year, the Serjeant-at-Arms, the Usher of the Black Rod and their delegates liaised closely with the press gallery to balance media access, security and parliamentary requirements at major parliamentary events, including budget day and party room leadership ballots for the positions of Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Speaker.
On a day-to-day level, the Serjeant-at-Arms and delegates work with members’ and ministers’ offices, representatives of the press gallery, the AFP and the Parliamentary Security Service to ensure that media events on the precincts are conducted in compliance with the rules and with minimum inconvenience to all.
During the year, the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office responded to some 150 requests to film or photograph in the private areas of the building.
During a division. Left to right: Mark Coulton, MP, Chief Nationals Whip; Mike Gilby, Parliamentary Assistant;
David Elder, Clerk of the House of Representatives; the Hon Tony Smith MP, Speaker of the House of Representatives;
Claressa Surtees, Deputy Clerk of the House of Representatives; Trudi Elphick, Parliamentary Assistant;
Jill Hall MP, Deputy Opposition Whip.
Information services
To help keep members and their staff informed about developments in the House, three editions of the members’ bulletin, House Update, were published during the year. In addition, the annual series of briefings on procedural and other developments in the House continued. Nine briefings were held during the year, including two briefings specifically targeted at members’ staff.
During 2015, the department continued to operate its drop-in centre every sitting Tuesday to enable members and their staff to get information or give feedback on any of the services it provided. Nine sessions were held, yielding eight queries. As in previous years, the sessions were staffed by senior departmental members and a customer service officer from DPS was invited to attend to increase the value of the service to members. No sessions were held during 2016 because of the very low take-up of the opportunity by members and it has been decided to discontinue the drop-in centre. Alternative ways of engaging with the issues of members and their staff will be pursued.
Accommodation services
The Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office provides a concierge service for members and, as part of this, coordinates accommodation, capital works and routine maintenance services in the House of Representatives wing.
During the year, the office arranged 28 office relocations as a result of ministerial changes and changes to office-holder positions. This number was significantly more than in 2014–15. The office worked closely with the chief government whip to ensure the relocations were completed quickly. The office also coordinated 428 requests to supply and move furniture (significantly more than in the previous year). The requests arose from movements of members to and from the ministerial wing.
All tasks were performed within agreed timeframes and to agreed standards, and to the satisfaction of the whips and individual members.
Given the high number of senators in the first Turnbull ministry (and therefore fewer members in the ministry), there was a shortage of accommodation for the extra backbench members in the House of Representatives wing. As a result, one backbench member was accommodated in a vacant senator’s suite and one in the ministerial wing. Plans have been drawn up to convert two rooms of departmental office accommodation into members’ suites, and it is expected that the work will be completed before the recommencement of sittings in 2017.
Maintenance, access and transport services
Maintenance requests for work in members’ suites are coordinated by the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office, and include both emergency and routine work. During the year, the office coordinated 164 emergency requests, which were all attended to promptly. In addition, the office coordinated 155 routine maintenance requests for repairs or alterations to suites or common areas. We take a proactive approach by performing office shutdowns and inspections over the autumn and winter recesses so that issues can be identified, reported and addressed while parliament is not sitting.
In 2015–16 the office coordinated 1,126 requests for assistance with telephone faults, relocations, and allocations of telephone numbers. This is a significant increase on the previous year as a result of the ministry changes and the furniture replacement project. Faults reported were referred to telephone support in DPS within five minutes of receipt, and appropriate timeframes for resolution were agreed with the affected areas.
As the area responsible for access to members’ suites, the office approved 615 requests by DPS for access to suites and to general circulation areas for maintenance and services.
The Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office provides a Transport Office to coordinate transport services for members, including managing the COMCAR shuttle service during sitting weeks. The shuttle service provides a readily available, secure car-with-driver service in Canberra for members. In 2015–16 the Transport Office managed 8,172 bookings from members, compared to 10,335 bookings in 2014–15. (Figures exclude unbooked shuttle trips from the House of Representatives entrance.) This was a 20 per cent decrease in bookings on the previous year, which did not include an election period.
Parliament House security
The Serjeant-at-Arms represents the department on the Security Management Board. The board is established pursuant to section 65A of the Parliamentary Service Act 1999 to provide advice to the Presiding Officers on security policy and the management of security measures for Parliament House. The board met eight times in 2015–16. The department was consulted on a major program of work to improve physical security for the building, which will continue through 2016–17.
The department is also represented on two other security-related consultative groups. The Incident Planning and Response Committee is chaired by the National Manager Protection (AFP) and attended by representatives of the parliamentary departments and several external agencies. It meets prior to meetings of the Security Management Board in order to provide specialist advice to the board. The Joint Management Group is chaired by the Security Manager Parliament House (AFP) and attended by representatives of the parliamentary departments, the Department of Finance and the AFP. This group meets weekly to consider security-related matters
and coordinate responses at the operational level.
This year for the first time, in collaboration with the other parliamentary departments, the department submitted a compliance report under the government’s Protective Security Policy Framework. Through the compliance-checking process, the parliamentary departments are able to benchmark themselves against the government’s physical, information and personnel security requirements and seek to introduce best practice standards.
The department also established a business continuity network to coordinate work area contingency plans in the event of business disruptions. The department ran a desktop exercise in November 2015 for several work groups to test their responses in the event that they had to operate off-site. Further exercises are planned for other areas of the department. These exercises are planned in cooperation with other parliamentary departments to ensure coordinated responses in the case of emergencies.
Security screening
Certain guests are exempt from security screening on entry to Parliament House. Approvals for any other exemptions are jointly made by the Serjeant-at-Arms and the Usher of the Black Rod. During the year, exemptions were approved for 26 groups and individuals (compared to 40 in 2014–15).
Information and communications technology
The department continued to work within the revised ICT service delivery framework, under which DPS provides most of the department’s ICT functions. The department represents its interests by participating in a range of advisory and management committees, and through the DPS customer engagement model.
The Joint Management Committee, which comprises senior parliamentary department staff, continued to oversee the service-level agreement and met four times during the reporting period. The Serjeant- at-Arms is the department’s representative on the committee.
Software and hardware services
Projects continued to develop ICT support systems for committees and members’ services during the year. These systems included:
· the Table Offices Production System
· the Parliamentary Procedural Records System
· the e-petitions system
· the Shared Committee Information Database
Work continued on developing the Report Builder template, which will simplify the production of committee reports. Output will be in .xml format that can be repurposed into other formats, such as PDF for printing, and HTML and eBook for electronic distribution on the website.
The department continues to work with the Department of the Senate and DPS to determine ongoing support arrangements for the venue management system, following the completion of project activities.
The department also continues to use e-Trim to file and manage records electronically, while opportunities to upgrade and enhance the system are being investigated. With electronic recordkeeping now well established, the department is investigating ways of improving access to and searching e-Trim records across its intranets.
Internet and intranet services
In June 2016 the department launched new intranet portals for members and departmental staff. The new sites provide greater accessibility to information, in particular providing ready access to tailored committee information for members. The site has also adopted the standard technology used across all parliamentary websites and intranets, making them collectively more efficient to support.
The department developed a new web portal to provide electronic information for participants in outgoing delegations, resulting in significant cost reductions to the department, and worked with DPS to introduce a video-on-demand solution on the website to deliver information about the House and its committees.
Printing
The department’s in-house printing service produced about 1.9 million impressions in 2015–16 (a decrease of 0.5 million on 2014–15). The decrease reflects the earlier than anticipated election period, which reduced the production of routine chamber documents and associated departmental printing requirements.
Parliamentary assistants program
The parliamentary assistants program, managed by the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office, entered its 16th year. Parliamentary assistants are university students who perform the duties of messengerial attendants for an average of 10 hours per week. Rosters are planned around student commitments and the requirements of the House.
Six students took part in the program in 2015–16: three were existing assistants, and three were new appointments. The new assistants came from New South Wales and Victoria, and all were studying at universities in Canberra. Former parliamentary assistants were also engaged in the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office to work at the front counter and in other areas of members’ services.