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Parliamentary Administration: What Does It Mean to Manage a Parliament Effectively?

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Parliamentary Administration: What Does It Mean to Manage a Parliament Effectively? Parliamentary administration: what does it mean to manage a parliament effectively? Val Barrett 21 November 2019 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University © Copyright by Val Barrett 2019 All Rights Reserved Declaration This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text. Val Barrett 21 November 2019 iii Acknowledgments First, I acknowledge my excellent supervisors. John Wanna’s ongoing encouragement and insightful, targeted advice has helped me to resolve many analytical dilemmas and differentiate the wood from the trees, while John Uhr’s patience and gentle persuasion has enabled me to tie up loose ends and determine the essential ingredients in the story. Meg Russell, from University College London, provided access to a wealth of sources and information and I have benefited immensely from her formidable knowledge of the UK parliament. I thank each of them for all that I have learned. I am most grateful for the outstanding support I have received from the ANU in undertaking this research, including an Australian Postgraduate Award. The School of Politics and International Relations also provided generous assistance towards my travel expenses in the UK and for copy editing. In particular, I thank Martin Heskins and Seilangi Tahi for their patient and helpful advice. I also acknowledge support from other institutions: I thank Andrew Massey and Robert Hazell for welcoming me to Exeter University and the UCL Constitution Unit respectively, as well as Richard Heseltine and Judy Wolff for my access to Hull University’s wonderful Brynmor Jones Library and the comforts of their home. I am grateful too to staff at Goodenough College, London. Current and former clerks and their staff in the Australian and UK parliaments, and the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, provided extensive access to the parliamentary buildings and to sources and material and interview discussions which were crucial to my research. I have the highest regard for the work they perform on behalf of us all and I thank them wholeheartedly. I cannot name each one but I mention especially David Natzler, Paul Evans, Andrew Walker, Lorraine Sutherland, Cathy Fogarty, Ian Ailles, Rob Stefanic, David Elder, Richard Pye, Leo Terpstra, and the helpful library staff in both parliaments. Thanks also go to many interviewees—members of parliament, officials, academics and commentators—for giving up their valuable time, twice and three times in some cases, to discuss candidly their perspectives on parliament’s administrative challenges. I have appreciated also the growing contribution to the topic of parliamentary administration from a range of parliamentary scholars and authors and from institutions including the Hansard Society and the Institute for Government. Their work has highlighted the many different priorities of parliamentary actors and the importance of supporting parliamentary democracy through all available means. All my colleagues in the ‘ANZSOG corridor’ at ANU have added a much appreciated intellectual and social dimension to the PhD journey. I particularly thank Isi Unikowski for our daily uplifting discussions and also Stephen Darlington, Grant Douglas, Robert McMahon and Mansur Chisni, fellow travellers in v the John Wanna cohort, for their continuing support and friendship. I wish them all well in their research programs. Thanks also go to Claire Dixon, Shellaine Godbold and Jessica Mason who kept the corridor running and to Megan Poore for her friendship and advice. To my family and wonderful friends I extend my appreciation, first of all, for their patience and forbearance and also for not asking me very often about my completion date. I pay tribute to my children, Elizabeth and Matthew, for their love and encouragement, and for thriving despite a lack of recent attention from me—I hope there is no causal explanation. Julie Gilbertson, Hansard reporter extraordinaire, expertly transcribed my interviews when time got away from me and Robyn Henderson provided a candid outside perspective on my final draft thesis. Justine McNamara, from IPEA, lent me a second pair of eyes as copy editor, and Marilyn Warner, another former Hansard colleague, provided a third. I reserve my special thanks for my husband, John Templeton, who answered my questions and drove me all the way to the finish line. This thesis is dedicated to my father, Harold William (Bill) Barrett, MBE, who never stopped believing in me, and I got there in the end. And especially to my mother, Nora Barrett, who got us all there in the end. vi Abstract Through the centuries scholars and practitioners have studied parliament and its reform from an institutional perspective but few have addressed the internal relationships among parliamentary administrators, their competing beliefs and their influence on parliament’s effectiveness. Within the broad topic of parliamentary administration, this thesis explores what it means to actors in the national parliaments of the UK and Australia to manage those parliaments effectively.1 It was precipitated by evidence of a dissensus in administrative priorities amongst officials and members, and a purported decline in public confidence in democracy and engagement with parliament. Using a qualitative, interpretive and exploratory methodology to compare the two parliaments, I examined a wide range of literature and interviewed more than 90 parliamentary officials, members of parliament and other parliamentary actors, exploring dilemmas relating to governance, management, and procedural and cultural change. Addressing four underlying research questions, I found that competing beliefs about the relative value of procedural and management roles have militated against the accretion of effective management skills and expertise; most (but not all) members of parliament are indifferent to parliamentary administration and/or do not engage constructively in management issues; and structural and other differences between the two parliaments have had a limited effect on management and governance outcomes. The thesis drew four main conclusions which have implications for the future management of parliaments. Firstly, parliament is overwhelmingly an agonistic institution and competition between parliamentary actors for status, resources, influence and control has pervaded its administration and impeded reform. Secondly, in the context of parliament’s role as a deliberative forum and broker of ideas, managing public expectations remains a principal challenge for its administrators. Thirdly, parliament’s claims to be ‘unique’ and a consequent emphasis on differences over similarities with other public organisations have reduced the potential for learning from outside. Fourthly, a lack of constructive engagement with administrative issues from members of parliament has contributed to a vacuum of leadership in an institution where no one has overall authority. The last research question asked whether public management approaches could be usefully applied in parliament. My final argument is that adapting the management approaches discussed through the thesis—public value, collaboration and co-production—would provide an appropriate pathway from 1 Inclusion of the UK’s devolved parliaments and Australia’s state and territory parliaments was beyond the scope of the thesis. vii insularity towards collaborative relationships that cross organisational boundaries, and towards a greater appreciation by members and officials of their roles as public managers. viii Table of Contents Declaration ................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ v Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... ix List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. xiii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xv Preface ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1 — Managing parliaments effectively—an unresolved problem ...................................... 3 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 3 The problems of managing parliament ............................................................................................... 5 Why choose the UK and Australian national parliaments? ................................................................. 8 Research questions ........................................................................................................................... 10 Research design, methodological and theoretical approach—exploratory,
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