Resource Agreement 2017–18
The Parliamentary Service Act 1999 requires that the Librarian and the
Secretary DPS make an annual agreement specifying the resources that will be
provided to the Library.
The agreement must be made between the Secretary and the Parliamentary
Librarian, and approved by the Presiding Officers in writing after receiving
advice about the contents of the agreement from the JSCPL.
The Resource Agreement helps assure the Parliamentary Librarian’s continued
independence and enables parliamentary scrutiny of the Library’s resourcing. The
2017–18 agreement was:
- signed by the Parliamentary Librarian and Secretary DPS on 1 June 2017
- considered by the JSCPL on 19 June 2017, and
- approved by the Presiding Officers on 22 June 2017.
Financial performance
The Resource Agreement 2017–18 provided:
- an operating budget of $15,491,243
- a capital budget (used for the Library collection and minor capital
projects) of $3,593,168, and
- an average FTE, including capitalised salaries, of 137.5
Actual expenditure was $15.367 million in operational funding and $3.304 million
in capital.
Employee costs accounted for the majority of the Library’s budget, with the
remaining funds largely spent on the collection. Collection expenditure in
2017–18 comprised:
- information resources (including database subscriptions and news
services)—$2.139 million (operational)
- reference serials and monographs—$0.649 million (capital)
- digitisation—$1.436 million (capital)
- digital repository—$0.059 (capital), and
- news clips–$0.116 (capital).
The major pressures on the Library’s budget in 2017–18 were cost increases
for collection resources of around five per cent over the previous financial
year, exacerbated by fluctuations in the value of the Australian dollar. Both
affected the Library’s purchasing power.
The end of year result was closely aligned with the available budget. There were,
however, some minor internal variations to anticipated expenditure on employee
and collection costs (both operational funding). Employee costs were under-spent
by some 2.5 per cent ($0.329 million). A number of factors contributed to this,
including recruitment timelines and the absence of a senior manager due to a
work-related injury. The underspend of $0.288 million in the
Library’s capital budget was primarily the result of the vendor delay in
completing the final phase of the scanning of the information files. In 2017–18,
news clips from the 1950s began to be digitised. These are in a more fragile
state than those from later decades, and, as a consequence, the pace of
digitisation slowed considerably. The final payment for this work has been
rolled over to 2018–19.
A more detailed breakdown of budget and actual expenditure can be found in the
financial tables at pages 142–143.
Figure 6: Parliamentary Library budget 2005–06
to 2018–19
Figure 7: Parliamentary Library budget (resource
agreement)
and expenditure 2015–16 to 2017–18
The year ahead
The Presiding Officers approved the Parliamentary Library Resource Agreement 2018–19
on 1 August 2018. It provides that the Parliamentary
Librarian receive:
- operating funding of $15,613,010, and
- capital funding of $3,033,105.
Footnotes:
Parliamentary
Service Act 1999 section 38G.