GOV0010

Written evidence submitted by Sir William McKay KCB, Sir Roger Sands KCB and Sir Malcolm Jack KCB

Introduction

1.         We are submitting this memorandum, which we hope will be of assistance to the Committee, as the three Clerks of the House and Chief Executives who served prior to Sir Robert Rogers KCB, based on our collective experience of the governance of the House.

2.         Our memorandum includes broad observations on governance and management matters as they have developed over recent times but it addresses what we understand from the Committee’s terms of reference to be its principal concern – namely the future allocation of the responsibilities currently exercised by the Clerk of the House and Chief Executive.

3.         We have not gone into detail here about the duties of the Clerk as Clerk of the House since we understand the main concern of the Committee is with the corporate side of the dual role. However, it should be recorded that in that role the Clerk is the principal adviser to the Speaker and all Members of the House on the practices and procedures of the House as well as on the law of parliamentary privilege.

4.      To perform that role convincingly, the office holder needs a deep understanding of how the House and its Committees function, gained from experience of all parliamentary activities. The Clerk is consulted regularly by Commonwealth Parliaments on Westminster procedure and practice and the application of passages of Erskine May to their jurisdictions.

Background

5.         Governance and management issues of the House have been examined on a number of occasions in recent times under the aegis of the House of Commons Commission (hereafter ‘the Commission’) which, by the provisions of the House of Commons Administration Act (1978), was made the ultimate authority for human resource and financial management of the House. The Clerk of the House, chairing the Management Board, offers advice to the Commission on strategic policy matters which have also been the subject of inquiry by the Finance and Services and Domestic Committees. The Clerk is appointed as Accounting Officer by the Commission. 

6.         While each House has control of its own internal affairs, it is important to note at the outset of any discussion of administration in Parliament that a number of areas – those covering the parliamentary estate, security and IT – are shared with the House of Lords and need to be to ensure the provision of modern, efficient services.

7.         The underlying aim of all the reforms of recent times – Ibbs (1990), Braithwaite (1999) and Tebbit (2007) has been to modernise House management so that services can be better and more efficiently provided for Members. There can be no doubt that in areas such as the provision of accommodation, IT and information services, they have resulted in a far higher standard of delivery to Members without which it would be impossible for them to carry out their demanding, modern duties.

8.         An equally important aim of the reforms has been to turn the House of Commons service itself into a model of modern, public administration in which the individual contributions, skill sets and morale of the entire workforce are recognised and valued. That in turn means that the energies of everyone working in the Service can be harnessed by management towards the four core House objectives of supporting the House and its Committees, supporting individual Members (and their staff), providing information and access to the public; and maintaining the heritage of buildings, objects and documents.

Ibbs Report (1990)

9.         The report of Sir Robin Ibbs (who was adviser to the Prime Minister on efficiency and effectiveness for five years in the 1980s) was a landmark in the development of the House’s management of its own internal administration.[1] Among other changes this involved taking over responsibility for the maintenance and fabric of the Palace of Westminster (together with the Lords) and moving to the Houses’ own Estimates, costs, principally of printing and computing services, which had formerly been part of the Estimates of various government agencies. The changes required the enactment of the Parliamentary Corporate Bodies Act 1992 under which, in the Commons, the Clerk of the House is designated as the Corporate Officer and in the Lords, the Clerk of the Parliaments.

Braithwaite Report (1999)

10.     The report of Mr Michael Braithwaite concentrated on matters of accountability and modern management methods.[2] The changes that resulted from it included the setting up of the Domestic Committees to oversee the provision of services to Members (in the area of accommodation and works, administration, catering and information) by Members themselves, since amalgamated into the Administration Committee. It also led to the setting up of the Finance and Services Committee to advise the Commission on financial matters. There was a new emphasis on the streamlining of management with a concentration on strategic planning and performance measurement. Further audit safeguards were recommended and subsequently put in place.

Tebbit Review of Management (2007)

11.  In 2006 the Commission invited Sir Kevin Tebbit to review the management and services of the House.[3] While the review built upon the foundations of Ibbs and Braithwaite, it emphasised the need for the development of a more thoroughly professional House service that could support the growing requirements of Members subject to increasing demands made upon them. The recommendations of the Tebbit review concentrated on a streamlining of the service – strengthening the Clerk in managing corporate affairs with a dedicated Office for corporate affairs; a leaner and more strategic Management Board and a centralised HR team to develop staff as a collective resource. The corporate office which was established, the Office of the Clerk, has become a pivotal point for the co-ordination of strategic policy across the House Service. Its Head operates as a form of “chef du cabinet” to the Clerk in this area as well as being Secretary to the Management Board.

12.  A consistent theme of the report was responsiveness to Members’ needs, improved communication and a more proactive ‘customer facing’ and unified House service. One of the immediate and popular innovations that resulted from the ethos of more direct ‘customer facing’ was the one stop shop (set up in Portcullis House) where Members could get information and guidance about any aspect of the House service. Another was the setting up of a more wide-ranging induction centre for Members after the 2010 Election which concentrated on immediate, practical needs such as IT support.

Post Tebbit: Implementation

13.  The Tebbit Review, while proposing a streamlining of the Management Board stopped short of proposing a re-structuring of House Departments. The then Clerk of the House in his capacity as Chief Executive, took the view that to benefit fully from the management streamlining proposed in the report, it would be necessary to re-structure the service itself. The Commission agreed to his advice and endorsed the proposed changes. Three former departments – the Clerk’s Department, the Serjeant-at-Arms Department and Hansard were amalgamated into the new Department of Chamber and Committee Services, run on a day-to-day basis by the Clerk Assistant. A dedicated HR Department, separated from Finance was also established and the House of Commons Library was reconstituted as Information Services with the object of forming closer links with the existing joint service for IT provided by PICT.

14.  These changes involved a good deal of upheaval for staff of the House but contributed significantly to the efficiency of the unified House Service. The Clerk of the House, as Corporate Officer with his own dedicated support team, now had a Management Board with clear responsibilities for the various parts of the business – defined as the core service of provision of Chamber and Committee support; the information services so vital to Members’ needs, backed up by efficient provision of financial, HR and estate services without which the organisation could not function effectively. As head of that team of autonomous heads of departments, who by this time included professionals brought in from outside the Service, the Clerk was able to present far clearer strategic policy recommendations for the Commission and the various Committees of the House to consider and decide upon.  

15.  From the point of view of staff, once the rationale for the changes to traditional patterns had been understood and accepted, the benefits were considerable. Opportunities for movement across the House service increased significantly; emphasis was placed upon the need for individuals – from all parts of the House service – to acquire new skills. It became a given that anyone, from whichever department, who wanted to get to the highest levels in the organisation, would need to have the requisite management and technological skills. Acquiring relevant experience became easier in the new, open service where individuals could and did move around from one department to another.

Allocation of responsibilities: Clerk & Chief Executive

16.  The history of the administrative modernisation which we have outlined has, in our view, resulted in a House Service fit for purpose with one point of accountability in the office of the Clerk and Chief Executive. None of the reviews we have considered – Ibbs, Braithwaite or Tebbit recommended the dividing of the Clerk’s dual role but rather endorsed it.

17.  The arguments against dividing the roles of Clerk of the House and Chief Executive are set out succinctly in paragraphs 86 to 88 of the Tebbit Review; and on the basis of our experience we would stress one in particular. In the private sector the Chief Executive is expected to take the decisions which will set the strategic direction of the business and is subject to relatively few restraints in doing so. In the House of Commons the restraints are manifold. Under statute, as we have said, the responsibility for setting the House’s strategic direction and budget rests with the Commission; the interests of Members are expressed (often vociferously) through the Administration Committee and in other less formal means, and in matters  concerning the building, IT and security interests of the House of Lords have to be taken into account. As Sir Kevin put it “The self-governing nature of the Commons, where so much is political would constrain a Chief Executive, brought in from outside, from exercising the degree of control such an individual would expect to have in order to deliver objectives. It would not be an attractive position to take.”[4]

18.  In the House the role of the Chief Executive is rather one of coordinating and overseeing the work of professional specialists who head the different House departments and acting as their line manager, being a single point of accountability for the House Service, and being a single source of advice for the Speaker in both his administrative and procedural roles. This is a role suited to, and within the natural compass of, someone with substantial experience of the House and of its core business, which remains that of legislating and holding Government to account through questions, debates and committee inquiries.

19.  While there is no room for complacency, we therefore conclude that successive Clerks of the House have been able to deliver considerable improvements in service to Members (and in the important area of parliamentary outreach to the public through the parliamentary website and other direct channels) because they have been professionally supported by well-qualified staff but also because of their knowledge of the core business of the House and its Committees, how they function and what can be expected of them.

20.  That progress has, of course, also come about because the Commission has been able to take the necessary strategic decisions, with the benefit of advice from Member Committees. The Clerk of the House is in the middle of this complex web of decision-making between the Commission, the Committees and the administration. Over and over again in our experience on the Management Board, the Clerk’s knowledge and understanding of how the House works has been brought to bear upon the decision making process of a corporate nature. It has also been a vital element in his ability to deal with Members of the House serving on all the various bodies with authority, gleaned from his role as Clerk of the House, visible in the Chamber and from long experience in various parts of the House Service.

21.  Moreover, the dual role of Clerk and Chief Executive mirrors the dual role of the Speaker as umpire in the Chamber but also Chairman of the Commission. The Clerk is at the Table of the House when the Speaker is in the Chair and therefore is familiar with Members’ current views on domestic matters, including those expressed at Business Questions or in questions to the Member representing the Commission. The Clerk is in daily contact with the Speaker and there is therefore an opportunity to discuss administrative, as well other matters, on a regular basis.     

A New Deputy Corporate Officer? 

22.  We believe that the record shows that significant progress has been made in service delivery but we acknowledge that, over the years, the Clerk’s corporate duties have increased. If the refitting of the Palace’s infrastructure requires a move from the precincts, that in itself would provide a major project challenge of immense complexity. For this reason, while we are strongly of the view that there needs to be one source of authority at the head of the House Service, it may be that the time has come to designate a Deputy Corporate Officer to support the Clerk in that part of his or her duties.

23.  We note from the debate in the House that there is concern among Members about the different skill sets that may be needed by a person handling corporate affairs on a strategic as well as a day-to-day basis from those needed by the Clerk of the House as principal adviser on the core business of the legislature. Matters raised which Members considered required those different skills ranged from the handling of visitors to the Palace to the possibility of further co-operation in procurement contracts with the House of Lords. We recognise those concerns and would recommend that such responsibilities would fall at an operational level to the Deputy Corporate Officer, responsible to the Clerk, who would also oversee decanting from the Palace should that prove necessary and the supervision of major projects in IT.

24.  Such an office holder would, of course, be a member of the Management Board with a key role to play in its corporate decision making. He or she would need a base from which to operate which could be the existing Office of the Clerk, which as we have said, already plays a key role in the co-ordination of strategic policy across the House Service. The post of Deputy Corporate Officer could be designated without the need to amend the Parliamentary Corporate Bodies Act 1992.

25.  It may be that in the longer term greater efficiency would be achieved by the setting up of a Joint Services Department with the House of Lords. Management of the estate and the provision of IT are already organised on a joint basis and that has contributed considerably to better delivery. Shared services would be a further step in that direction though it would probably require legislation.

Conclusion

26.  We would like to conclude with an observation which we consider of great importance to the House – namely the very marked loyalty that exists in all parts of the House service. As Clerks of the House and Chief Executives we have been able to act as figureheads for that commitment right across the House departments, with immense benefit for the functioning of a modern and lively Parliament.

Sir William McKay KCB (Clerk of the House 1998 to 2002)

Sir Roger Sands KCB (Clerk of the House 2003 to 2006)

Sir Malcolm Jack KCB (Clerk of the House 2006 to 2011)                        

October 2014

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