The Scottish Parliament: - Annual Reports - Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body

This report of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) is the fourth Annual Report we have produced and covers the period from 1 June 2002 to the end of May 2003.

Section 21 of the Scotland Act 1998 requires that there be a parliamentary corporation. This corporation is known as the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (or SPCB) and is made up of the Presiding Officer and 4 other elected Members.

From June 2002 until the elections in May 2003 our membership consisted of Sir David Steel (Chair), Robert Brown, Duncan McNeil, Andrew Welsh and John Young. After the elections in May 2003 and the retirement of Sir David Steel and John Young, I as the newly elected Presiding Officer, took over as Chair of the SPCB. The 4 other members elected to join me were Robert Brown, Duncan McNeil, John Scott and Andrew Welsh.

During the period of this report we have met 43 times and considered a wide range of issues from the Holyrood project to requests under the Members Allowances Scheme.

One of the Parliament's key principles is openness and in our bid to help Members and the public understand more about what we do we have continued to publish the minutes of our meetings on the Parliament's website. These can be found at the following link: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/corporate/spcb/index.htm. We also answer parliamentary questions from Members about the services of the Parliament and how we manage them. During the period of this report we have answered 213 written parliamentary questions. All written parliamentary questions can also be found on the Parliament's website at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/parliamentaryQA/index.htm.

This report also provides details of our accounts for the financial year 2002-03, and as required under the Scotland Act 1998 details of expenditure on Member's allowances for 2002-03, both of which can be found in Section 6 of the report.

As you will see this report has been compiled in sections which cover the duties placed on the SPCB by the Scotland Act.

Within each section there is information on issues such as how the new Parliament building at Holyrood has progressed over the year; information on the staff of the Parliament including what the staffing levels were during the period and details of the newly implemented performance management system. The report also covers the services provided to Members and the public such as the services provided by the Research and Information Group and the Information Technology team.

I hope that this annual report will contribute to a greater understanding of the work of the SPCB and its staff.

The new building at Holyrood continued to make the headlines during the past year as completion was delayed and increased costs reported. Despite the frustrations, the focus has remained clearly on getting into a building of quality at the earliest possible date and, against this background, progress has continued on site.

The Holyrood complex comprises a number of distinct elements - the MSP block, Queensberry House, Towers, Canongate buildings, Press Tower and the Debating Chamber. The programme for construction completion allows for each of these elements to be made available to the Parliament as they are completed, providing us with the necessary access to enable installation and testing of the various IT, Information and other systems. This process is scheduled to commence later this year with the MSP and Queensberry House buildings. Other elements will then be released in a rolling programme over the following months.

As scaffolding continues to be removed and sections of the various facades are exposed to view, reaction from the thousands of visitors to the award winning Information Centre and those able to tour the site continues to be extremely positive and encouraging. As a number of the buildings near completion, it is at last possible to share in the continually surprising and often unique elements which are emerging, transforming Miralles' original, extraordinary concept into a building which many believe will be of international renown.

A great deal of work has gone in to the many projects involved in planning for Holyrood and the Parliament remains well placed to meet the challenge of the move to Holyrood. 36 out of 51 major contracts have been awarded and the remainder are on programme. The space planning of offices of our staff has been completed and change control procedures put in place to deal with requests for any changes required after occupation.

A Migration Steering Group (MSG) of Parliament staff has examined possible migration scenarios, identified the risks attached to them and has instigated reviews of the management of service contracts. In anticipation of increased pressure on continuing service delivery, departments have initiated reviews of resource requirements and expected service level performance during the period of the move.

Looking forward, the Implementation Unit will be advising us on detailed strategies for migration and co-ordinating the move to Holyrood.

We received the results of the market research study carried out by RGA Ltd in August 2002. Their advice about likely visitor numbers has led us to consider carefully the strategy for handling visitors to and events at the Holyrood building, and the marketing of it. Our overall objective, in line with our commitment to openness and participation, is to maximise the potential of the building for visitors whilst ensuring that priority is given to the work of the Parliament. We have taken a number of framework policy decisions and established a cross departmental working group of officials to develop detailed policies and procedures, as well as a marketing strategy.

The External Liaison Unit dealt with around 180 inward VIP and delegation visits in the reporting period. Addresses to meetings of Members were given by:

The Unit provided the Secretariat of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (Scotland Branch). It organised MSPs' participation in the CPA Annual Conference in Namibia and in three CPA parliamentary seminars. Commonwealth Day was marked by the organisation of an event in the Parliament bringing together Commonwealth interests across Scotland.

The Unit provided support to MSPs nominated in May 2002 as members of the Committee of the Regions and to the MSP nominated to the Council of Europe's Congress of Regional and Local Authorities of Europe. We approved the appointment, on a short-term basis in the first instance, of a Brussels based officer to improve support to the Parliament's work in these organisations and to report on establishment of a longer term Parliament presence in Brussels.

The Parliament's institutional interest in the Future of Europe Debate was taken forward by the Presiding Officers and the Unit's work in the Conference of Legislative Regional Assemblies of Europe and by representation at conferences and meetings on the Future of Europe.

The Unit supported the work of MSPs within the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body, including the delegation's participation in two plenary meetings.

The Parliament's links with Nordic counterparts was strengthened by the organisation of events to mark the 50^th Anniversary of the Nordic Council including the hosting in the Parliament of a joint seminar with the Nordic Council, Nordic Council of Ministers and the Scottish Executive.

A number of visits by the Presiding Officers and cross-party delegations were organised including:

The Research and Information Group (RIG) is responsible for research and information services for Members, and education and visitor services for the public.

The Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) comprises two of RIG's service areas - the research service and the information service. SPICe plays a key role in keeping Members well informed whether as individual MSPs or as members of one of the Parliament's committees.

· around 130 research briefings to aid legislative scrutiny, plenary debates and committee inquiries have been published.

· 6,500 research and information enquiries from Members and their staff and the Parliament's staff have been answered.

· 14 pieces of external research reports for committees have been published.

· with their clerking colleagues, SPICe have reviewed the services provided to committees and have, as a result, improved joint working practices to ensure a consistent level of high quality support is provided.

· a new approach to the provision of briefings on the Scottish Budget to ensure committees receive appropriate and timely briefing at the key stages of the Budget has been implemented.

· in collaboration with a number of academics and external researchers, a detailed briefing on the 2003 Scottish Parliament Election was produced. This briefing paper has produced very favourable comments both internally and externally.

· more online databases have been added to SPEIR (the Parliament's intranet) and a weekly Calendar of Events piloted.

· electronic journals have been made available on SPEIR, giving access to the full -text and table of contents information for almost 100 journals.

· SPICe have chaired the SPEIR User Group and appointed and trained SPEIR coordinators to develop and update directorate pages.

· work has continued on indexing the archive version of the Official Report, to be published on CD.

· SPICe has taken on responsibility for ensuring the update and continued accuracy of the MSP postcode locator service on the website.

The third team within RIG is Participation Services, which brings together many of the Parliament's services for the public. This year has seen an increased emphasis on delivering services designed to enable people to engage with the Parliament, in Edinburgh and across Scotland.

· In the course of the last parliamentary year Participation Services has seen a number of staff developments such as the formation of a new Education and Outreach team and the appointment of a Gaelic Outreach Officer and a Gaelic Information Officer.

· An event was held with the Scottish Youth Parliament for the first time and the Parliament took part in Doors Open Day in September. The first Scottish Civic Forum was welcomed to the Chamber for their annual debate, held in June.

· Our first educational video, Let's Do Democracy, was launched and was sent to every school in Scotland

· The Visitor Centre on George IV Bridge was refreshed by introducing a new exhibition that focuses on explaining how Parliament works in more detail. It covers a record of Parliament's business to date and includes displays that enhance accessibility and offer more interactivity for young people.

· Participation services worked with a group of adults with learning difficulties to produce a guide to voting, which was launched in time for the elections in May 2003.

· A series of seminars for teachers was initiated to encourage teaching about the Parliament.

· The Library Liaison Officer delivered 16 Partner Library training courses and made 38 visits to Partner Libraries. Enquiry Unit staff supported 23 committee meetings held outside Edinburgh.

· Contributions were made to 18 external research projects with the Conveners Group and Committees.

The election period provided an opportunity to review, refocus and re-launch many of the operations and services of Participation Services, and they continue to plan for the increase in the visitors to the new Holyrood building.

The IT Services Office continued to manage the delivery of IT services at the interim accommodation occupied by the Parliament, whilst also working on several key infrastructure projects for the Holyrood building. In pursuit of these goals several key projects and activities were undertaken:

· From December 2002 the IT Services office was heavily involved in a major review of structure and service. This review has resulted in a new office structure being put in place that will offer better customer focus and service delivery, whilst enabling a strategic outlook to be maintained.

· The IT Services Office has also completed a refresh of the desktop PCs and the associated desktop software. The refresh involved the replacement of desktop equipment bought early in the first session of the Parliament with new, high specification personal computers, running the latest desktop software. This refresh took place over 6 months and involved the replacement of approximately 700 personal computers. The new computers will provide a vehicle to deliver multimedia services and the extended support required to facilitate the work of Members, their staff and our staff within the Parliament.

· This year has seen substantially enhanced access being provided for the Scottish Parliament's web site. This was achieved by improving connectivity and by deploying a fault tolerant infrastructure to ensure the highest possible availability to users of the site. The site also underwent some redesign to accommodate the second session of the Parliament. The online search facilities were developed to accommodate the 30,000 pages of information generated during the first session as well as providing a facility to search information generated during the second session. A new database was added to the site that covered Motions and Amendments. This database complemented the Parliamentary Questions database, and together they provide a powerful resource to search parliamentary information.

· The IT Services Office were heavily involved in the temporary relocation of parliamentary business to the Hub in Edinburgh. They provided data and voice services to the temporary site and ensured that all business critical services were available for the duration of the relocation.

· The Holyrood building brings with it many opportunities for IT services. These opportunities include procurement and installation of voice and data networks for the new building. During the last year IT Teams, working closely with the Procurement Office, have been involved in specifying and procuring the new telephone system and data networking hardware which will be installed at Holyrood. These new systems will provide the ICT infrastructure that will support all the business applications and services that are necessary to support the needs of the organisation.

Our Broadcasting Unit continued to cover proceedings in the main chamber and committee rooms 1 and 2. Our pictures were heavily used by the BBC, Scottish Television, Border TV, Grampian TV, Channel 4 and Sky News who pay an annual licence fees to us for unlimited access to them.

In March 2003 we decided that, on the Parliament's move to Holyrood, TV pictures would be provided to all broadcasters free of charge. This decision followed representations by our existing licence fee payers, and also reflected an understanding of the needs of new broadcast outlets. Our free pictures policy is aimed at maximising the amount of public access to TV coverage of parliamentary proceedings.

In line with this approach, the Broadcasting Office also provided TV coverage of most parliamentary committees that met beyond Edinburgh, and the office also mounted major outside broadcasts of parliamentary business when it met in Aberdeen in May 2002 and in the Hub in May 2003.

The Parliament's multi-channel internet broadcasting service on www.scottishparliamentlive.com continues to be a forerunner in e-politics. Anyone with access to an on-line computer is able to watch or listen to all the Parliament's proceedings regardless of where they take place. Debates are also available on the website for two weeks after they take place.

The Broadcasting Unit is also responsible for making videos which promote and explain the work and achievements of the Parliament. Highlights of the year include a film of the Parliament's sittings in Aberdeen, and a commemorative video of the Parliament's first session.

Much work has been done and continues to be done to ensure that the Parliament's Broadcasting Services will be amongst the world's best in our new home at Holyrood, where digital TV coverage will be provided from the Chamber and all six committee rooms. All the broadcasting equipment at Holyrood will be owned by ourselves, and will be operated by BBC Scotland, through a five year long contract awarded by us in September 2002.

The Parliament met in The Hub, Castlehill, Edinburgh during the period Monday 12 to Thursday 29 May 2003, while the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland returned to the Assembly Hall. During those three weeks, the Parliament met within the Main Hall of The Hub.

Planning for meeting at The Hub commenced 6 months prior to the event, which was 2 months less than that required for Aberdeen. The close proximity of The Hub to the parliamentary complex meant that only a Chamber was required, as parliamentary offices at Parliamentary Headquarters could continue to be used. Meetings of the Parliament at The Hub proceeded smoothly.

The budget for the temporary move was set at £100,220 and, while final invoices are still being settled, it looks certain that the event will be delivered within budget.

In the period immediately following the election there were a number of key tasks such as the oath-taking ceremony and the elections of the Presiding Officer, First Minister and ourselves as the new SPCB and the appointment of Ministers and Junior Scottish Ministers which had to be completed. These arrangements were collectively termed as "First Days" projects.

A small Project Group involving staff from all areas across the Parliament was set up to co-ordinate and oversee the First Days arrangements and managers for each of the designated First Days Projects were appointed. From a procedural point of view, the arrangements went extremely well. The elections of the Presiding Officer, First Minister and ourselves as the new SPCB were carried out without difficulty and the relevant rules and procedures in place provided an effective framework for the running of the oath-taking ceremony. Induction packs were also prepared and issued to Members and their staff as planned and a "Member's Fair" was run from 2nd-7th May to assist new MSPs in particular to settle in.

All of this was carried out against the backdrop of the Parliament meeting in the Hub rather than the Assembly Hall.

The second Scottish Parliament election, since its establishment in May 1999, took place on 1 May 2003. Prior to the elections we produced guidance for Members to use during the election period. The guidance focussed on providing Members with advice on the use of parliamentary resources during the election period. It covered such things as access to the parliamentary estate, the use of allowances and issues such as IT equipment and its usage.

The Facilities Management Helpdesk and Reception continue to provide frontline support to Members, staff and visitors. This year, the Helpdesk has logged over 35,000 calls on a wide range of issues and problems relating to both accommodation and IT services and Reception has recorded over 16,000 visitors to Parliament Headquarters.

During the period of the report our on-site Occupational Health Service (OHSAS) have continued to provide a comprehensive service for Members, their staff and our staff.

· 72 Members, their staff and parliamentary staff received health assessments.

· 110 Members, their staff and parliamentary staff took the opportunity to have a flu vaccination on site.

· 7 health awareness seminars were presented by the Occupational Health nurse.

· 71 Members and staff attended these seminars on topics including Diabetes, Epilepsy, Heart Attack, Angina, Stroke and Asthma.

Our Legal Services directorate continued to provide a wide ranging parliamentary legal service. The specialist legal services for the Parliament focus on three main areas: the Parliament's role as a legislature, its work holding the Executive to account, and the Parliament's own internal arrangements and processes. The lawyers primarily provide independent legal advice and assistance for the Parliament and its Committees, the Presiding Officer and ourselves as the SPCB.

Our lawyers responded to the end of session legislative demands, supporting the final round of legislative competence work for the Presiding Officer as the final bills were introduced, as well as the Subordinate Legislation Committee as it scrutinised the powers in these bills to make subordinate legislation. The team also dealt with the increasing numbers of Scottish Statutory Instruments, examining every incoming instrument to the demanding statutory timetable. The directorate continued to work closely with the Non-Executive Bills Unit, working up instructions for the drafting specialist and seeing each of these bills through, from a legal perspective, to the completion of its parliamentary passage.

Also on the legislative front, close support has been provided from the start on the development of the Parliament's private bill processes. This year the team took that role forward, providing legal advice and support to the Committees as the Parliament dealt with its first private bills.

A first this year was a consolidation bill. Our lawyers had a significant role in working out how best to advise on the procedure for dealing with this, and we obtained the services of a legal specialist who, working alongside our lawyers, provided detailed help and support to the Committee as it attended to the intensive and distinctive demands of dealing with such a bill.

Work on subordinate legislation is obviously one way in which our lawyers support the Parliament in holding the Executive to account. They provide legal advice and assistance in other ways too. For example there are occasional requests for assistance in relation to parliamentary questions, and we have a European law specialist whose expert knowledge of EU legal matters is available to the European and other committees.

The Standards Committee has traditionally benefited from the input of a lawyer and we have continued that tradition this year. The directorate also works closely with the Procedures Committee particularly when changes are proposed to Standing Orders as the team advises on, and drafts, these.

Over the year our lawyers also worked closely with a variety of parliamentary staff for example with Procurement on contractual matters, with Facilities Management in relation to accommodation, with the Data Protection Officer in relation to her remit, and with the Holyrood Project Team when legal issues arose.

During the period of the report our Senior Management Team was extended to include Grade 7 staff. This decision flowed logically from the introduction of our new grading structure on 1 April 2002 and a full organisational chart as at May 2003 can be found on page 15 and a Senior Management Team chart can be found on page 16.

The number of staff in post at the end of May 2003 was 476.1, with 31.8 vacant posts. The number of staff employed since the last report has increased. Most of these additional staff are employed on fixed-term contracts to meet temporary demands as we prepare for our move to Holyrood.

During this year we commissioned a review of our Information Technology and Information Systems service. The purpose of the review was to review the structure and operational efficiency of this service and ensure that our business information technology systems, and the structure that supports them, are appropriate and innovative to the work of the Parliament and the citizens of Scotland. The review will be concluded by the end of 2003

This year saw the introduction of a new performance management system specifically designed by the staff of the Parliament for the staff of the Parliament. The new system concentrates on behavioural competencies and measures not just whether our staff are doing their job but also how they are doing it. The system will help to ensure that all staff are able to support the Parliament in fulfilling its constitutional role by setting out standards to ensure that they provide professional advice and services to the highest standards and to ensure that the people of Scotland are well informed about the Parliament and encouraged to engage with it.

Under the terms of the Public Interest Disclosure Act, 1998, we introduced a policy which provides our staff with a formal, confidential route to report any wrongdoing or malpractice that they believe has occurred or is likely to occur within the Parliament. This is to underline our commitment to deal responsibly, openly and professionally with any genuine concern our staff may have on such issues.

In carrying out all of our work, we are fully committed to tackling discrimination and promoting equal opportunities in relation to both our employment practices and the way in which we provide information and services to the public.

As part of this commitment, we have put in place a range of initiatives to ensure that MSPs and staff are fully aware of their responsibilities under equal opportunities legislation.

This year has, for example, seen the roll-out of our core equal opportunities training programme to all members of staff across the organisation. We have also offered staff and MSPs more detailed training courses on particular equality and access issues. For example, a series of events were held in November 2002 to promote awareness across the Parliament of the RNID Typetalk service, which enables deaf and speech-impaired people to contact the Parliament by telephone. In addition, we have published a range of practical guides on equality issues on the Parliament's intranet.

This year, we also developed a new Language Policy which sets out how we ensure that people who do not speak English are able to access the information and services provided by the Parliament. This policy explains, for example, that the Parliament welcomes written correspondence from members of the public in any language. We will also be extending the range of written materials that we publish in languages other than English. For example, new leaflets will be produced which explain how people can get involved in the work of the Parliament in a range of ethnic minority languages and in various formats (including British Sign Language video, audio tape and Braille).

We fully recognise that equal opportunities issues need to be built into our procedures and working practices and that these issues should not just be seen as an optional `add on' to our work. Two examples of this approach include:

We have also developed a range of methods for assessing the effectiveness and impact of our equal opportunities policies. This year, for example, we carried out our first equal opportunities audit of our employment practices by issuing every member of staff with a detailed questionnaire about their experiences over the past twelve months. We will be publishing the results of this audit in the near future, and we expect that these results will assist us greatly in identifying those areas in which we should be focusing our attention in the future.

We continue to be committed to promoting health and safety as a priority for all our staff, Members and all other people who could be affected by the way we conduct our business.

Following the introduction of a formal health and safety policy and attendant procedures a number of initiatives have been put in place to ensure we continue to meet our legal responsibilities and to assist in the development of a proactive safety culture. Initiatives undertaken to date include general safety awareness training, risk assessment, Display Screen Equipment training and workstation assessment. Going forward, additional monitoring and audit will be required to ensure effective control measures remain in place.

The Health and Safety Committee continues to meet on a quarterly basis, providing a forum for discussion with representatives from all areas of the organisation. Increased involvement of the political parties at recent meetings has enhanced the membership.

Our staff were given the opportunity to attend 25 classroom training courses in a variety of IT, management and personal skill topics. They were also given the opportunity to participate in our voluntary language training programme which trained staff in French, Spanish, Gaelic and British Sign Language.

In total, 335 classroom training events were run during the reporting period. These were attended by 424 delegates and represent 971 training days. These included a number of mandatory training initiatives including:

· Scottish Parliament Manager's Network - A series of 12 half day training modules were delivered to the organisation's 60 senior managers. These modules were designed to develop corporate management skills.

· Equal Opportunities in the Scottish Parliament - A half day training course was delivered to all of our staff. This training was designed to promote awareness amongst staff of their rights and responsibilities under equal opportunities legislation.

· Managing Diversity - Our line managers attended a supplementary half day training course which was designed to help them manage diversity in the workplace.

Our staff have continued to progress the work required to implement a Freedom of Information regime. In February 2003 the first Scottish Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion, was appointed. The Commissioner will be responsible for ensuring that all Scottish public authorities, including ourselves, comply with the legislation.

In November 2002 we issued a survey of services to all Members and Members' staff. We are pleased to say that we received a good response rate with half of Members and a good proportion of members' staff responding.

· At least 60% of all respondents were satisfied with three-quarters of the aspects of the services asked about. Indeed over 80% of respondents were satisfied with the service from the Facilities Management Helpdesk, Allowances Office and the Public Enquiry Unit.

· In general, factors relating to the quality of the service provided that is, helpfulness, accuracy and comprehensiveness of information received the highest satisfaction ratings. Specific examples include;

o 87% of respondents were satisfied with the accuracy of SPICe Research briefings and clerk's advice.

o 89% were satisfied with the standard of the Official Report

o 85% were satisfied with the comprehensiveness of Business Bulletin

o 78% were satisfied with the helpfulness of IT support services

o 79% were satisfied with the content of the website.

Dissatisfaction tended to be higher in relation to systems and procedures. Therefore we have been looking at issues such as how we can improve the services we provide to Members at their local offices. We agreed that there was a need to review all the services provided to MSP local offices and this review would be started over the summer of 2003.

It was evident from the results that some of our procedures are considered too bureaucratic. When administering schemes which use taxpayers' money and for which we are accountable and auditable, there will inevitably be a degree of necessary bureaucracy. It is a matter of striking the right balance. We agreed therefore to take action in three areas:

- to continue to challenge bureaucracy and strip out where it is unnecessary;

- to explain more effectively to Members why we need information and how it can protect their interests (as well as meeting audit or other requirements);

- to keep Members better informed of progress on processing claims/queries.

In addition to the proposed action on the services themselves we agreed to use the results to help develop service standards across the board.

Also as part of the principles of good corporate governance, our Senior Management Team piloted an assessment of the organisation with the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) business excellence model. The objective was to help assess the operation of the parliamentary organisation and obtain a benchmark with which we could measure `continuous improvement' over time, both internally and externally.

Risk management is progressing within the organisation and the introduction of a risk register during the period of the last report has helped greatly to move us towards embedding it in the culture and thinking of the organisation. Quarterly reviews of the register have been carried out by our staff and the results presented to our Senior Management Team. A review of the format of the register is currently being undertaken with a view to simplifying the register and eliminating duplication.

As in previous years the organisation's management plan has continued to evolve. The main change this year has been to reformat the plan by removing the objectives and focussing on the aims and the targets against those aims. A copy of the statement covering the management plan can be found at Annex A and a copy of the management plan is attached at Annex B.

Under The Scottish Public Services Ombudsmen Act 2002 the Parliament nominated a Public Services Ombudsman, Professor Alice Brown and 3 Deputy Ombudsmen, Eric Drake, Carolyn Hirst and Lewis Shand Smith, for appointment by Her Majesty The Queen. These appointments were made by Her Majesty on 30 September 2002.

Under The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 the Parliament nominated the Scottish Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion, for appointment by Her Majesty The Queen. This appointment was made by Her Majesty on 24 February 2003.

We have over the period of this report also undertaken a recruitment exercise for the position of Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner under the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Act 2002.

After this process was complete we laid a motion seeking the Parliament's agreement to appoint Dr Jim Dyer as the new Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner with effect from 1 April 2003. Parliament agreed this appointment on 30 January 2003 and as agreed Dr Dyer took up his post on 1 April 2003.

We have prepared separate annual accounts for the 2002-03 financial year that comply with the accounting principles and disclosure requirements of the Resource Accounting Manual. The Auditor General for Scotland is auditing these accounts and they will be laid before the Parliament by the end of December. A summary of the expenditure is set out below.

We continue to live within our budgets. We spent £47.9m on our running costs in 2002-03, which was £1.1m (2%) less than the available budget excluding reserves, and £7.7m (14%) including reserves.

The new Holyrood building is of course our most significant capital expenditure project. Work on the building moved forward at a good pace during the year and the project accounted for £97.5m of our capital expenditure.

Capital expenditure of £100.1m in the period was £36.3m (27%) less than the available budget. This is due to the rephasing of expenditure on the Holyrood project.

The total underspend against budget in 2002-03 is being utilised to reduce the Parliament's funding requirement for future years through the end year flexibility arrangements.

Note 1: Revenue expenditure of £47.9m in 2002-03 comprised parliamentary staff salaries of £13.5m and MSP salaries of £9.1m. Members' costs, which enable MSPs to secure staff and accommodation to assist them in the discharge of their parliamentary duties, were £7.5m. The remaining £17.8m met the administration and property running costs of the Parliament.

Note 2: Capital charges were introduced by the Resource Accounting Manual to reflect the depreciation in value of assets and the cost of capital.

Note 3: It was agreed that the Parliament should carry forward the underspend using end year flexibility. This reduces pressure on the Consolidated Fund for 2003-04, whilst allowing us to have sufficient funds to prepare the Parliament for the move to the Holyrood Site.

We continue to meet the costs of the party leaders' allowance scheme. This provides those qualifying party leaders of parties who are represented by 30 or more Members in this Parliament to receive an annual allowance of up to £21,736. The motion also extended such a provision to the leaders of non-Executive parties represented in this Parliament by between 15 and 29 Members and those leaders will receive up to an annual allowance of £11,387.

Under the Scotland Act 1998 (Transitory and Transitional Provisions) (Grants to Members and Officeholders) Order 1999, a Member of the Scottish Parliament is entitled to receive payment of a resettlement grant subject to that person being a Member immediately before the Parliament's dissolution and who at the subsequent election either does not stand for election or stands but is not elected.

The resettlement grant is a percentage of the Member's salary in payment immediately before dissolution which is determined by both the Member's age and service as a Member before the dissolution. Twenty-six Members claimed a resettlement grant of £24,114 each totalling £626,964.

Under the Financial Assistance for Registered Political Parties Order 1999, the registered political parties in the Parliament are entitled to monies to assist their Members to carry out their parliamentary duties. In the financial year ended 31 March 2003 we paid out a total of £369,910 under the Order.

The Members' Allowances Scheme makes provision for the payment of allowances to enable Members to carry out their parliamentary duties. The scheme sets a maximum limit on certain costs that Members can reclaim. All costs are met on the basis of actual expenditure incurred by the Member. The main costs that may be reclaimed, and the limit of the allowance for 2002-03, fell into the following categories:

· costs incurred in employing support staff and running a constituency or regional office up to £50,700;

· costs members incur as employers, together with surgery advertising costs up to £1,013;

· costs of accommodation in Edinburgh incurred by Members who cannot reasonably commute to Edinburgh on a daily basis up to £9,600;

· costs of travel incurred whilst undertaking parliamentary duties - this is reimbursed on an actual basis when supported by receipts;

· costs of Members' staff travelling within the constituency or region and the parliamentary complex - 36 return journeys a year among all staff employed by the Member;

· costs of family travelling to Edinburgh - 12 single journeys per family member a year excluding children over the age of 18.

There are a number of other specific allowances available that are claimed only on an exceptional basis, which are listed in the following table.

Members are able to group allowances to meet shared expenses and in 2002-03 could transfer resources between allowances (within limits).

A list of staff employed by Members during the reporting period can be obtained on request from the Chief Executive's Office on 0131 348 5255.