An Efficiently Functioning Parliament
This chapter highlights some of Finance’s achievements in contributing to the outcome of an efficiently functioning Parliament. To support this outcome, the department provides Ministers, Senators, Members, office-holders, former Parliamentarians and their respective dependants and staff (employed under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984) with a range of facilities and services. These include advice on parliamentary entitlements matters, human resources services, processing claims for travel allowance, transport services, and ICT services.
As part of this outcome, the department also provides electorate office accommodation and ICT services throughout Australia, and ministerial accommodation in Parliament House as well as in each state and territory and in the Commonwealth Parliament Offices. During the 2008-09 year, Finance provided administrative support for the Grants-in-Aid program and the Australian Political Parties for Democracy program, and secretariat support for the Australian Political Exchange Council.
Finance also provides VIP hire car services for Senators, Members, office-holders and VIP guests of the Australian Government through COMCAR.
Finance met the targets for this outcome set out in the 2008-09 Portfolio Budget Statements. Ministers indicated their continued satisfaction with the quality, relevance and timeliness of Finance’s advice, and the department exceeded the performance targets related to processing travel allowance claims, service calls, and personnel and pay variations. More than 99 per cent of COMCAR clients indicated their satisfaction with this service. For details of Finance’s performance in support of this outcome, see the performance information (Table 6) and the resource statement (Table 7).