House of Commons - The Speaker's Committee

Mr Viggers welcomed members of the Committee. Mr Speaker was unable to attend due to illness, but had approved the Agenda. He welcomed Mr Streeter and Mr Woolas to the Committee.

2. The Electoral Commission's Main Estimate, 2006-07, and Corporate Plan for 2006-07 to 2010-11

The Committee considered the Electoral Commission's proposal for a revised Main Estimate for 2006-07 from that approved on 25 January, and the accompanying revised five-year forecast of Resource Requirements proposed to be substituted for the forecast in the Corporate Plan for 2006-07 to 2010-11 approved on 25 January.

The primary purpose of the revised proposals was to make provision for the additional resources that would be required to meet new obligations on the Electoral Commission in 2006-07 and subsequently, arising from the enactment of the Electoral Administration Bill.

[Mr Sam Younger, Chairman of the Electoral Commission and Mr Peter Wardle, Chief Executive were invited to join the meeting].

The Committee asked how robust the Electoral Commission considered its bid for additional resources to be, given the remaining uncertainties over the likely final content of the Electoral Administration Bill. Mr Wardle said that the revised proposals had benefited from considerable discussion between the Commission, the Treasury and the Department for Constitutional Affairs. He was confident that it fully reflected current assumptions; the risk was, however, that the Bill could still change.

Of possible changes being canvassed, the registration of all loans to political parties would not represent a particularly significant additional burden for the Commission in resource terms. However the issue of personal identifiers, and whether there should simply be pilots, as proposed by the Government, or a more general roll-out, as discussed in the House of Lords, raised greater uncertainties in resource terms, and Mr Wardle saw this as the principal area of risk.

The Committee asked what plans the Commission had to continue to review the core elements of its expenditure, and how it planned to seek out further efficiency savings. Mr Wardle explained that the strengthened financial management had only recently enabled the Commission to improve its financial forecasting. It planned to introduce properly costed annual efficiency savings plans, as recommended in the Scrutiny Unit review, and was confident that these, alongside the more robust financial management that had been introduced, would ensure that its resource requirements would be forecast with greater precision in future.

Asked about whether the 2006-07 Estimate and the five-year forecast there was any provision for resources that may be needed if the work of the Parliamentary Boundary Commissions was to be transferred to the Electoral Commission, Mr Wardle confirmed that there was none. If a decision was made by Government that required preparatory expenditure in 2006-07, a Supplementary Estimate would be required. If this work was to be transferred to the Electoral Commission, resources would be required to appoint additional Deputy Commissioners; to fund a small number of additional staff in each of the Electoral Commission's offices; and to install and support transferred IT systems.

The Committee asked about the timetable for the new database of political parties. Mr Wardle said that Commission's target date for releasing the new political parties database was 1st April 2007, the earliest expected commencement date of the new statutory provisions. He anticipated that it would take 6-9 months to write the specification for the software, install it, and test it to the satisfaction of the political parties. He agreed with a suggestion that, for the system to go live on 1st April 2007, this meant that the Government would need to make the relevant Commencement Orders before the Summer Recess.

The Committee asked what additional resources would be required if the Commission became a CORE keeper. Mr Wardle said that these would be modest; at present he envisaged recruitment of only one additional member of staff, who would probably be based in the Commission's London office. Mr Younger commented that the Commission had been thinking more generally about location if its functions were expanded. In that eventuality, and reflecting the potential benefits of dispersal from London, the Commission would probably look to an English location outside London, given that it already had a presence in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Asked about the resource implications of the provisions in the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill which would make it a criminal offence in some circumstances for the Electoral Commission to disclose financial information regarding the funding of political parties, Mr Wardle said that these could not be established fully until the final form of the legislation was known. He expected that the 2007-08 Estimate and Plan would include provision for resources to meet the new requirements the Bill would impose. Part of the cost would arise from devising systems to deal with complex financial information. Other costs may arise from installation of physical security measures in order to ensure information disclosed to the Commission remained secret.

Asked about the possible transfer of the work of the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland to the Electoral Commission, Mr Wardle commented that legislative provision was in place that would enable the Government to make this transfer, but the Electoral Commission was not itself seeking it: there were a number of general issues surrounding the impact of the various existing provisions for transferring parliamentary and local boundary responsibilities to the Commission that might need consideration, to ensure consistency of approach.

[Mr Younger and Mr Wardle withdrew from the meeting]

Decisions of the Committee

Having had regard to the Treasury advice on the proposed revised Estimate for 2006-07 and amendment of the five-year Plan agreed on 25 January, the Committee agreed to substitute, for the provision then made:

In the 2006-07 Estimate, a Net Resource Requirement for 2006-07 of £26.180 million and a Net Cash Requirement of £26.565 million; and

In the five-year Plan, the revised forecast of Resource Requirements for 2006-07;

Provided that the Commission should only draw down resources related to functions arising from the Electoral Administration Bill if the legislation is enacted.

3. The Speaker's Committee Review of the Electoral Commission

[Mr Dorian Gerhold, Head of the Scrutiny Unit and Ms Gillian Fawcett, Deputy Head (Finance), Scrutiny Unit were invited to join the meeting].

Mr Gerhold summarised the findings of the review of the Electoral Commission which the Scrutiny Unit had carried out for the Speaker's Committee. In many respects, the Report built on ideas already under discussion at the Commission, and revealed weaknesses that it was already making progress in addressing. It identified four priority areas, not necessarily peculiar to the Commission: financial reporting structures, financial information systems, financial structure and coherent risk management, and made recommendations to the Commission, and also to the National Audit Office, Treasury and Speaker's Committee.

The Unit had seen the initial response of the Commission to the Committee, and were pleased with its positive nature. A number of recommendations related to reviews, including reviews of the Commission's financial and risk management and financial systems. The Committee would need to monitor the results of these reviews.

Historic weakness of process within the Commission had made it difficult for the Unit to assess how accurate the Commission's own assessments of the effectiveness of policy outcomes were; new systems should make that easier for the Commission. The problems that the Commission had experienced were not untypical of those experienced by many new public bodies; now that the Commission had been established for 5 years the financial management problems, for instance, should resolve with the strengthening of the finance function.

The Unit found that, for understandable historic reasons-notably the need to get up and running as quickly as possible-the Commission had initially focussed on its core outward tasks. It had been slower to organise its inward structure, but this was now being addressed. The evidence was that Electoral Commissioners had historically been given limited information on financial matters, and had tended to focus more on operational matters, such as the Periodic Election Review. The Unit noted that steps had now been taken to improve the quality of financial reporting, and Commissioners were now taking a greater interest in financial matters.

The Committee welcomed the Review's recommendation that the Speaker's Committee look at the Commission's funding more systematically, on a rolling three-year basis. The Unit thought that the Treasury would also find a longer-term agreement of financial commitment useful. The Committee observed that the Commission had developed what amounted to a two tier approach to budgeting: a 'core budget', covering resources required for recurrent activities, which it assumed would grow in real terms only to the extent that it took on more recurrent activities, and additional resources for specific non-recurrent activities, such as referendums, and asked if the Unit thought this approach effective. Mr Gerhold suggested that the Commission ensure rigorous self-scrutiny to monitor potential efficiency savings in both budgets. He also suggested that the Committee monitor the recurrent budget elements in addition to the significant, new one-off developments.

The Committee asked about the role of the Commission's business managers. Ms Fawcett commented that business managers were fairly new to the Commission, but aimed to improve budget management, monitoring and performance by working across departments. They enabled the Commission to emphasise the importance of financial control across the institution, rather than centralising responsibility for financial accountability within a central finance department.

On the recommendation that the Committee secure independent scrutiny of the figures in the Commission's requests for funding, Mr Gerhold said that the Unit would be willing to provide any assistance the Committee might wish.

[Mr Dorian Gerhold, Head of the Scrutiny Unit and Gillian Fawcett, Deputy Head of Finance, Scrutiny Unit withdrew from the meeting].

The Committee noted the Scrutiny Unit report, which it considered to be a useful and thorough piece of work, and welcomed the initial response of the Electoral Commission. Members noted that full implementation of the recommendations would require additional work on the Committee's part, and it would need to think through the implications of this.

The Committee agreed to consider the report further at its next meeting, and asked for a list of the recommendations specifically addressed to itself to be circulated.

4, Chairmanship of the Electoral Commission: Terms and Conditions of Appointment

The Committee discussed the development of the role of the Chairman since the inception of the Electoral Commission, and agreed to return to this matter at a future meeting.

5. Appointment of Electoral Commissioners: Procedural Issues

The Committee noted that any recommendations arising from the inquiry by the Committee on Standards in Public Life into the Electoral Commission were unlikely to be made in time to have a bearing on the next round of appointments and reappointments, which needed to be completed by January 2007. It also noted that individuals with a history of active political experience were currently ineligible for appointment as Electoral Commissioners, and that primary legislation would be necessary to change this.

6. Committee on Standards in Public Life Inquiry into the Electoral Commission

The Committee noted the invitation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life to submit evidence, and asked the Secretary to submit a paper for consideration at its next meeting.

7. Date of next meeting

The Committee adjourned to a date to be fixed by Mr Speaker.



© Parliamentary copyright 2006	Prepared 1 August 2006