Establishment Office
(Establishment Officer: Edward Ollard, who succeeded Rhodri Walters in September 2000)

1  Purpose

The Office provides a personnel service for all House of Lords' staff. The responsibilities of the Office include recruitment of staff, grading and other conditions of service, pay negotiation and authorisation, occupational health, safety and welfare, and superannuation.

2  Organisation

The Establishment Office has 8 members of staff, 2 of whom work exclusively on superannuation and related matters. The Establishment Officer is Clerk to the Refreshment Sub-Committee and is responsible, on behalf of the Clerk of the Parliaments, for supervising the Refreshment Department. He is also Clerk to the Finance and Staff Sub-Committee.

3  Activities and Financial Performance

• A pay settlement for 2000 was negotiated with staff representatives.

• Preparatory work began for the introduction of a new staff pension scheme in 2002.

• The Staff Handbook was revised to incorporate new provisions on bullying, unpaid parental leave and grievance procedure.

• The Office supervised the recruitment of 91 new staff, over double the number in the previous year.

• The Office was also involved in 30 internal appointment boards; preparing pensions' authorisations for 57 retirements, resignations or redundancies; and calculating 143 worked responses to enquiries, estimates etc. relating to pensions and 349 estimates for resource accounting purposes.

Net expenditure by the Establishment Office was £536,200. Gross expenditure on superannuation was £1,464,863. Superannuation contributions collected for family benefits totalled £192,124, of which £164,000 was used in aid of the budget. (Equivalent figures in 1999-2000 were £491,851, £1,427,856, £165,704 and £161,000.)

4  Future Activities

• Negotiating the acceptance of proposals on 2001 pay.

• Progress towards the introduction of a superannuation IT system and a new pension scheme in 2001-02.

• Preparing to apply the Data Protection Act 1998.

• Monitoring proposals for, and developing responses to, further structural changes in Civil Service pay.