House of Commons Commission bulletin – 11 February 2015

Governance of the House of Commons: The Commission again considered the recommendations of the Committee on House of Commons Governance and agreed the following written statement that was made on 11 February.

• At its meeting on 9 February, the House of Commons Commission again considered implementation of the recommendations of the Committee on House of Commons Governance.
• The Commission agreed a job specification and recruitment process for the new post of Director General of the House of Commons. The recruitment process will commence shortly with the intention that a long list of candidates will be identified by the end of March. Final selection of an appointee will take place after the general election and the establishment of the Commission in its new format.
• The recruitment for the post of the Clerk of the House was launched on 28 January. The closing date for applications is 16 February.
• The Commission noted that the House of Commons Commission Bill was published in the House of Commons on 5 February. The bill provides for the changes in Commission membership that the Governance Committee recommended, and would place a new statutory responsibility on the Commission to “…set strategic priorities and objectives in connection with services provided by the House Departments”.
• The Governance Committee expressed surprise (paragraph 82 of the report) that the Commission had never reviewed its own working practices. The Commission has agreed that it will undertake a light-touch review before the election in order to provide a baseline against which the new Commission can assess itself.

E-cigarettes: The Commission decided that the use of e-cigarettes in the House of Commons should be restricted to designated outside spaces. Officials will be consulting the Administration Committee about which spaces should be designated.

Televising the House: Following the success of a recent trial overseen by the Administration Committee, the Commission endorsed a proposal to install additional cameras in the House of Commons Chamber. The new cameras will be introduced from the beginning of the new 2015 Parliament and will be located in the under galleries at the Speaker’s end of the Chamber. Following an off-air trial which took place from 19–23 January 2015, the Administration Committee reviewed the footage and agreed that the new cameras provided improvements over the current high-level fixed cameras.