Parliamentary Committees

1. Parliamentary Committees Innovation and evaluation

2. ANZACATT workshopSydney, January 2004 • Chair, Robyn Webber, Clerk Assistant (Committees), House of Representatives • Some questions to ponder -

3. Innovative methods • Do MPs have a different perspective on what committee inquiries are trying to achieve than secretariats or government agencies? • Are MPs more open to innovation than secretariats?

4. Policy making and review • Top down versus bottom up approach • Principle-based or conceptual policy framework versus achieving service delivery outcomes for individuals • Strategic versus practical approach

5. Innovation • MPs, especially lower house Members, tend to be interested in individuals and their interactions with government service delivery • Real people (constituents) are concerned about their individual needs and not focussed on strategy or policy frameworks

6. Innovation • Secretariats and committee members must be concerned with: • Time constraints • Intellectual rigour • Risks • Difficulties of incorporating diverse, narrow views into coherent recommendations • Arguing a case for government decision makers

7. Proposition 1 To make a policy which will serve the maximum number of people well and be manageable, cost effective and as fair as possible, you can’t afford to get bogged down in individual case studies but need to take an overall view of the most common circumstances

8. Proposition 2 To ensure that a policy or program is workable and effective in practice, you need to know how real people operate and think, how individual circumstances are affected by, or affect, outcomes for clients

9. Tradition • The traditional written submission/public hearing process favours proposition 1 and works well for government agencies and organisations concerned with policy change

10. Innovation • Innovative practices are generally aimed at getting more input from individuals (proposition 2 approach) or reconciling conflicts or achieving balance between the proposition 1 and 2 approaches (eg round tables, seminars)

11. Evaluation • How can committees decide what methods to use let alone how effective they are if they don’t have clearly defined objectives?

12. Evaluating effectiveness • Number of recommendations implemented • What is this evaluating? • Quality of work/recommendations? • Power of arguments? • Alignment with government philosophy?

13. Evaluating effectiveness • Evaluation of implemented recommendations against objectives set out in terms of reference • Too hard? • Government responsibility? • Should committees do more follow up inquiries to evaluate effectiveness of changes?

14. Evaluation • Other objectives? • Feeding community views to policy making • Giving the public access to policy making • Educating the public about the parliamentary process and role of MPs • Educating MPs about policy matters, operation of government, views of community • Keeping MPs gainfully occupied • How can these be measured? • How does choice of inquiry methods affect achievement of these objectives?

15. Evaluation • Should objectives be articulated? for each committee? for each inquiry? • Should committees report on effectiveness against objectives? • Do younger, newer MPs have different expectations of committee work (eg intellectual rigour, articulation of objectives, evaluation)? • What is the role of secretariats in all this?