House of Commons - Speaker's Committee - First Report

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Select Committee on Speaker's Committee First Report

Speaker's Committee First Report 2003

Introduction

1. The Speaker's Committee is appointed in accordance with the provisions of section 2 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA), to perform the functions conferred on it by that Act. A summary of the principal statutory functions of the Committee is given in Appendix 1.

2. By virtue of the provisions of paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 2 of PPERA, the Speaker's Committee is required to report to the House of Commons, at least once in each year, on the exercise by it of its functions. The last report was published in November 2002 as HC 56 of Session 2002-03. This covered the period from the appointment of the Commission in January 2001 to 30 October 2002.

3. The present report covers the period from 31 October 2002 to 30 November 2003.

4. There have been a number of changes of membership in the period covered by this report. These arise both from the changes in the machinery of government announced in June 2003 and from changes in the Committee structure of the House of Commons. Appendix 2 gives details of the membership of the Committee, and how it has changed.

5. The Committee met twice in the period under review. The Chairman and the Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission attended part of each of these meetings. Continuing the practice established in the Committee's first report, the minutes of both meetings are reproduced at Appendix 3. The bulk of both meetings was devoted to consideration of the Electoral Commission's Estimates, and its draft Corporate Plan for the period 2002-03 to 2006-07.

Parliamentary Accountability

6. In the period under review, 41 parliamentary questions addressed to the Committee were tabled for answer in the House in the four-weekly periods of fifteen minutes shared with the Church Commissioners and the Public Accounts Commission. Of these, 25 received oral answers in the time available; the remainder received written answers. In addition, five written questions have been answered.

7. The Committee's last report recorded its decision that Mr Alan Beith should answer parliamentary questions on behalf of the Committee. Mr Beith sought to relinquish this responsibility in February 2003, having been chosen as the Chairman of the newly established Committee on the Lord Chancellor's Department. The Committee appointed Mr Peter Viggers in his place.

8. Other members of the Speaker's Committee answer parliamentary questions on its behalf if the appointed member is unable to do so for any reason.

The Comptroller and Auditor General's Report

9. By virtue of the provisions of paragraph 16(1) of Schedule 1 of PPERA, the Comptroller and Auditor General is required each year to carry out an examination into the economy, efficiency and effectiveness (or, if he so determines, any combination thereof) with which the Commission have used their resources in discharging their functions (or, if he so determines, any particular functions of theirs).

10. In his report for 2001-02, reproduced at Appendix 4, the Comptroller and Auditor General concentrated on the system of registration for political parties, including donation returns, as this was the main area of activity of the Electoral Commission during that year. The report also details progress made by the Commission in response to his report for 2000-01.

11. The Committee is grateful to the Comptroller and Auditor General for this report, and took it into account when considering the Estimates, and the Commission's Corporate Plan.

The Commission's Estimates

12. The Committee has considered two Estimates submitted to it by the Electoral Commission, a Supplementary Estimate for 2002-03 and the Main Estimate for 2003-04. In respect of both of these, the Committee received statutory advice from the Treasury, in the form of letters from the Chief Secretary, which it took into account when coming to its decisions on the Estimates. Both Estimates were laid before the House without modification.

13. The Supplementary Estimate for 2002-03 sought an increase of £1,294,000 in the Commission's Net Cash Requirement under the year end flexibility provisions, to cover validated claims for policy development grants that had not been paid in the previous year, costs relating to advertising campaigns, and capital expenditure on the Commission's various offices. This Estimate was laid before the House of Commons on 28 February 2003 as HC 423.

14. The Main Estimate for 2003-04 sought a Net Resource Requirement of £25.7 million, an increase of £5.4 million on planned expenditure for 2002-03. The Committee questioned in particular the need for the scale of the proposed increase in expenditure on training (£3,107,000, compared to £300,000 in 2002-03), given that provision of training is not a statutory function of the Commission. The Chairman informed the Committee that this provision was being sought principally to provide training for electoral administrators in connection with the European Parliamentary elections to be held in June 2004. He also noted that training for the 1999 European Parliamentary elections had been centrally funded by the Home Office, from which Department oversight of electoral administration had now passed to the Commission.

15. The Committee's approval of this Estimate was given subject to the condition that any underspend on the provision of £3,000,000 for European Parliament elections 2004 - training development and delivery, is not used to cover overspends elsewhere in the Estimate without its prior approval. The Estimate was laid before the House of Commons on 6 May 2003 as HC 657.

16. In view of the Committee's concerns about aspects of the Electoral Commission's role in providing training for electoral administrators, particularly the value for money aspects, it has invited the Comptroller and Auditor General to examine this aspect of the Commission's activity in 2002-03 as part of his statutory annual examination work. The Committee understands that preliminary work on this topic has started, with a view to a detailed investigation being carried out in the first half of next year.

The Commission's Corporate Plan for 2003-04 to 2007-08

17. The Committee approved the Commission's draft Corporate Plan with one modification. The original draft estimated that the Commission's staffing requirement would rise to 167 in 2003-04, and remain at that level up to and including 2007-08, the last year covered by the draft Plan. Following discussion with the Electoral Commission, and with its agreement, the Committee reduced the figure for 2005-06 and subsequent years to 127 on the grounds that, by then, work on the local government reviews consequent upon the proposed establishment of regional assemblies, the cost of which is to be reimbursed to the Commission by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and for which it had projected in the Plan a specific requirement for 40 staff, was expected to have been completed.

18. In approving the Corporate Plan, the Committee took into account the statutory advice it had received from the Treasury. In this, the Chief Secretary commented:

"While the Commission's proposed objectives fully reflect the work of the Commission, the supplementary targets are expressed mainly in terms of inputs and outputs, rather than outcomes. I would urge you to refine these targets so that they fully reflect what the Commission aims to achieve rather than how it does so."

19. In the light of this advice, and the Electoral Commission's own recognition that more needs to be done on the impact its activities will have, the Committee will be seeking, in the next Corporate Plan, greater use of outcomes when defining targets, and has asked the Commission to keep it informed of progress towards this aim.

20. The Commission's Corporate Plan for 2003-04 to 2007-08, as modified by the Committee, was laid before the House of Commons on 9 June 2003.

© Parliamentary copyright 2003
Prepared 23 December 2003