This Annual Report of the House of Lords covers the financial year 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004. In 2003 the House of Lords administration published its first annual Business Plan[1] and this annual report takes a new form, providing a report of what was achieved in implementing the Business Plan.

As in previous years, the report begins with a review of the year, setting the context for the report on the Business Plan. But the second part of the report is structured by reference to the primary tasks in the Business Plan and not, as in previous years, by reference to the offices within the administration.

In March 2004 there was published the second annual edition of the booklet The Work of the House of Lords, containing an account of the House's activity during the 2002­03 session, together with statistical material. That publication serves one of the purposes of previous Annual Reports, and accordingly this Annual Report has a more limited scope, and is shorter, than its predecessors.

The Annual Report incorporates the Annual Report of the Audit Committee.

The Accounts of the House are no longer published with the Annual Report. Instead, a single set of Resource Accounts ­ incorporating all the financial transactions of the House in 2003­04 ­ will be published separately later in the current financial year, once completed and audited by the National Audit Office. This Report includes (Appendix F) a breakdown of cash expenditure by the House in 2003/04.

The second House of Lords' Business Plan, covering the three-year period 2005/06 to 2007/08, was published in September.[2]

The Annual Report was approved by the House Committee.

1 HL Paper 147, session 2002-03.Back