Schools hospitality

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Performance summary
Improving performance
Outlook

The department receives a special appropriation in order to provide modest hospitality to school groups visiting Parliament House. School visits are coordinated by the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office, working in partnership with the Parliamentary Education Office (PEO) and Visitor Services. In 2014–15, the administered appropriation for the schools hospitality program component was $0.325 million and expenditure (including accrued expenses) was $0.330 million. Progress against the deliverables and key performance indicator for the component is summarised in Appendix 1. Staff levels, by location, are shown in Appendix 2.

Schools hospitality

In 2014–15 there was an increase in the number of school students participating in educational tours of Parliament House, with 120,216 students recorded, up from 113,709 in the previous year. The number of students from the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia decreased, while all other states recorded higher numbers than in the previous financial year (see Table 9).

Table 9 Students visiting Parliament House, by location and year, 2010–11 to 2014–15

Year	ACT	NSW	NT	Qld.	SA	Tas.	Vic.	WA	Other	Total
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
2014-15	2,158	67,385	819	19,489	5,061	1,750	18,531	5,023	–	120,216

All visiting students participated in a guided tour and visited both chambers. Eighty-four per cent (100,254) received hospitality and 78 per cent (90,132) participated in the PEO program (see Community relations and awareness for more information on the PEO’s activities).

Improving performance

In previous years, school bookings were only taken for the next financial year from 1 July of that year. From July 2015, bookings will be taken on a rolling basis for the following two calendar years. This process was developed in conjunction with stakeholders to bring our booking schedule into line with other designated agencies on the visits program.

Outlook

By 30 June 2015, we had already booked 103,380 students from 1,578 schools for the following 12 months. Last year at this time we had 27,940 students booked from 732 schools. The large increase is a result of our bookings being undertaken one year in advance.