This week there has been much media about the MP Gaurav Sharma and his relationships with both his staff and also his party.
A story like this often includes reference to the Parliamentary Service who employ each MP's staff. But it can get confusing because Parliament's employment and management relationships are a little unusual.
We thought some background might be useful.
[audio _play] Listen to Phil Smith from The House with Rafael Gonzalez-Montero the Chief Executive of the Parliamentary Service.
Rafael Gonzalez-Montero, head of parliamentary services, is questioned by a select committee Photo: RNZ / DOM THOMAS
The Parliamentary Service (PS) is a large employer with nearly 700 staff. It looks after backroom functions for Parliament: security, catering, the buildings, IT, finance, HR, travel etc.
They also look after the hundreds of MPs electorate offices around the country, and the staff in those offices and in MPs' offices in Parliament - around 380 or so of them. Most ministerial staff work for others though.
For details on the employment relationships of MPs' staff, The House sat down with the person who is the third party in that triangular set-up; the gooseberry between MPs and their helpers.
Rafael Gonzalez-Montero is the Chief Executive of the Parliamentary Service. He’s in the odd position of being the employer of hundreds of people who report to managers that he has no control over - MPs. As he puts it “I’m the Chief Executive but not really the boss”.
The only people with any real control over MPs (other than us at elections) are the party leadership, usually via party whips.
The people that run Parliament have no control at all. They can’t even fire MPs for bad behaviour. In fact (other than via the provision of the 'waka jumping law' MPs aren’t ‘sacked’ unless they are found guilty of a serious crime, cheat in elections, are found to have ‘foreign allegiance’, or suffer significant and ongoing psychosis.
Without having any real sticks to wield, PS hires Relationship Managers. People who aim at assisting MPs to do their jobs better, and to (and I’m reading into it a little here) gently help them cope as MPs and improve as managers. Fingers crossed.
If an MP turns out to be a very poor at looking after staff the PS brings in the MP's party whips to lend their weight. Whips are the closest thing an MP has to a line manager.
The involvement of party whips in his office is something that Gaurav Sharma seems to have particularly reacted to.
Occasionally PS resorts to not provided further PS staff to work directly for an MP until they have undergone some training, coaching or development. This apparently also applied in the Sharma case.
An MP may still have staff at this point, but not those employed by PS.
Sometimes MPs may not appreciate being 'managed' or being offered mentoring or coaching. Whether MPs are more or less likely than other people to baulk at a lack of absolute autonomy would take is not something I have the data to speculate on.
The mechanisms described above are mostly quite recent innovations, brought in as a result of recommendations from the Francis Review, part of Speaker Trevor Mallard's campaign to bring culture change to Parliament.
Rafael Gonzalez-Montero says that the parliamentary culture-change instigated by the Speaker is showing results but it hasn’t ended yet. “Culture change takes time,” he says.
You can listen to Rafel Gonzalez-Montero in the audio above or read more about the Francis Review and the problems of staffing parliament here.
