Decisions 26 July 2010
Monday 26 July 2010 at 5.15pm in Speaker's House
Present:
The Speaker, in the Chair
Sir Stuart Bell
Rosie Winterton
Sir George Young (Leader of the House)
1. REVIEW OF ACCOMMODATION STRATEGY
The Commission agreed that the House's accommodation strategy should be reviewed in the light of the need to make savings, that the planned series of moves should be halted while that review takes place, and that the Finance and Services and Administration Committees should be consulted as part of the review.
2. PROPOSED DEPARTMENTS OF HUMAN RESOURCES & CHANGE AND FINANCE
The Commission agreed to the creation of the Department of Human Resources and Change and the Department of Finance in place of the Department of Resources, including a new Board-level post of Finance Director.
3. REDACTED SCANS AND DECEMBER ALLOWANCES PUBLICATION (MEC)
The Committee confirmed that IEP claims and receipts for 2008/09 lost through disk failure should be scanned and redacted again in order to meet the commitment to publish them; agreed that the redacting of PAAE scans should be done in-house while the redacting of IEP and Communications scans could be contracted out; and agreed to publish transactional data for Winding-up Expenditure.
4. FUTURE OF MEMBERS ESTIMATE (Commission/MEC)
The Commission and Committee agreed in principle that the Administration and Members Estimates should be merged into a single Estimate from 2011/12.
5. COMMISSION ANNUAL REPORT
The Commission amended and approved the draft annual report. It agreed to ask the Backbench Business Committee to consider whether there should be a debate on the work of the Commission in Westminster Hall as in previous years.
6. NAO REQUEST CONCERNING AUDIT COMMITTEE PAPERS (MEC)
The Commission agreed that two Audit Committee papers which the NAO had been asked to disclose should not be published.
7. NEXT MEETING
The next meeting of the Commission/MEC will take place on Monday 13 September 2010 at 4.30pm in Speaker's House.
[View update sent to Members about the Commission and MEC decisions of 26 July.]