Roles, Responsibilities of PAC Clerks:
How to Write a Good Committee
Report
CLERK TRAINING
ABUJA, NIGERIA
NOVEMBER 8, 2013
Overview
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Supporting PACs: International Trends
Administrative & Procedural Support
Responsibility for Drafting Reports
The Report Writing Process
– Improving Reports
– Useful Techniques
– Improving Recommendations
• Peer Review of PAC Reports: a Suggestion
Common Problems
Facing PACs
(PAC Workshop, London 2013)
 Skills of Members
 Lack understanding of the workings of
government/financial scrutiny
 Unclear of their role in holding the executive to account
 The Range of oversight requirement across the width of
PFM
 Resources
 Finding enough parliamentarians to form strong
committees
 Adequate skilled support from parliamentary staff
 Rules and Procedures
 The powers of PACs are often not clear or inadequate
Common Problems
Facing PACs
(PAC Workshop, London 2013)
• Political Volatility
– Frequent party changes, high turnover of MPs make
it difficult for PACs to work effectively
• Corruption
– If Corruption levels are high and tolerated, even the
most transparent and open PAC may have difficulty
in gaining impacts.
• Limited support from SAI/Audit Office
– Backlog of accounts
– Limited efforts to brief the PAC
– Lack of follow-up/enforcement of SAI work
PACs: Outputs and Outcomes
 Problem of outputs and outcomes from PAC
Reports
 The report is the PAC’s principal output.
 Recent research (Pelizzo 2011) demonstrates that
the activity of a PAC committee is not enhanced by
the fact that the Chair belongs to the opposition.
 The number of opposition MPs does have an impact
on the number of meetings, but has no significant
impact on the number of reports drafted by the
Committee (the presence of larger staff is more
important).
PAC Support Staff
• Previous research into the relationship between
parliamentary committees and supreme audit
institutions emphasized the quality of legislative staff as
a factor of success for oversight activities.
• According to Wehner (2002), “at a minimum, the
Committee should have a clerk and a secretary”.
• Larger PACs tend to have a lower ratio of dedicated
staff to committee members compared to smaller PACs
(Buzaljko 2010).
• The absence of a dedicated research capacity can be
compensated to a certain extent with the expertise of
the audit institution (Wehner, 2002).
PAC Support Staff (Ngozwana 2009)
Country
Clerk/Secretary Researcher
Legal
Other
Total
Botswana
6
5
11
Lesotho
1
Malawi
3
Namibia
3
3
Mozambique
3
3
South Africa
2
Swaziland
1
1
Tanzania
1
1
1
1
1
4
1
4/5?
Zambia
1
2
3
In Botswana, the five ‘other’ are additional staff from Parliament whose
responsibility is to assist with drafting committee reports.
Working facilities
Adequate
6
67%
Not adequate
3
33%
Training, Staffing and Facilities:
Nigeria (Ekeyi 2008)
• The typical PAC in Nigeria has 6 full time staff
members:
– 4 staff members are dedicated to the PAC
– 2 provided by the AG
– 1 staff member provided by govt departments
• Staff do not regularly engage in research
activities
PAC Staffing: British Isles
Staffing and Facilities: Canada
and South Asia
• All PACs in Canada have a clerk serving the committee
• Only one Canadian PAC (federal) has a dedicated clerk
serving the PAC on a full-time basis.
• Twelve of 14 jurisdictions have some form of research
support (only the federal PAC has dedicated research
staff on a full-time basis)
• The typical PAC in South Asia has:
– 4 staff members dedicated to the PAC
– 1 or 2 staff members shared with other committees
– 1 staff member provided by the AG
• Majority of PAC staff in South Asia engaged
predominantly on administrative matters.
Roles of the Secretariat: Czech
Republic and Slovenia (Buzaljko 2010)
Slovenia
Czech Republic
Preparation of Meetings
Yes
Yes
Drafting of Reports
Yes
No
Drafting of Transcripts
Yes
No
Provide recommendations for
resolutions
Yes
No
Administration
Yes
Yes
Research
No
No
Communication with SAI
Yes
Yes
Communication with Parliament
Yes
Yes
Media Relations
Sometimes
Yes
Responsibility for Drafting PAC Reports
• Preparation of the report is one of the most challenging
tasks facing committee staff.
• Key question: is a report even necessary?
• Clerks responsible for drafting PAC reports in British Isles
but the Audit Office produces the first draft in UK.
• Reports are normally externally verified prior to
finalization (AG and/or ministry/department).
• PAC decisions are normally reached by consensus, but this
is usually the working practice or convention. Indeed in
many jurisdictions, unanimous approval is not required
for a report to be presented (almost 50% in SADC).
The Report Writing Process
(Canadian Parliamentary Centre)
• A report is best prepared as soon as possible after the PAC
concludes an Inquiry.
• Some PACs report only once a year on all their work, but
reporting on each Inquiry has the advantage of getting
implementation started sooner.
• Usually involves in camera discussions prior to formal
approval at a public inquiry.
• A steering or sub-committee may be appointed to oversee
the process (e.g. Nepal).
• The report-writing process can be more efficient if the
committee has set objectives for the inquiry in advance
(and effective minutes/transcripts are available).
Improving Reports
(National Audit Office 2011)
• Sitting and reviewing the complete set of evidence to
highlight the most important facts and findings
• Using the findings to create a compelling argument that is
based on sound evidence
• Structuring the report in a logical order which will guide the
reader through the arguments
• Writing the report in clear jargon-free language
• Keeping the report brief, and using charts and headings to
guide the reader through the material
• Providing a summary containing the main arguments and
conclusions; and
• Writing recommendations which will secure impact and
improvement
Useful Techniques
• Schedule a report planning meeting: discuss the main areas
of interest and findings which emerged from the meeting
or inquiry. Consider how they might form sections of the
report.
• Conclusions & recommendations are often best set out in
the summary and should be clearly signposted.
• Start each conclusion with a clear statement of the
problem, not with the recommendation itself.
• Use informative headings and sub-headings to break up
the text and guide busy readers towards particular areas
they may be interested in.
– Include a table of contents which summarises those headings
and sub-headings.
Tips for the Actual Report
• Pay particular attention to the first line of each paragraph
to help a busy reader skimming the report to identify
paragraphs that may be of interest.
• Use bullet points and lists to summarise information
where appropriate
• Use numbers, percentages and proportions as much as
possible in the conclusions, rather than phrases like ‘the
majority’ or ‘few’. This helps the conclusions be more
specific.
• Provide footnotes with references to other published
sources of evidence the report is drawing on.
Improving Recommendations
• Recommendations are where the Committee can achieve real
impact and change.
– Sufficient to endorse the recommendations of the SAI? Is it necessary
to go beyond that contained in the AG’s report?
• Powerful recommendations are clear and unambiguous about:
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–
–
–
what needs to be done;
why it needs to be done
who needs to do it
when should it be done by
• In some cases a time frame for response may be necessary.
• Any response the committee has received to recommendations,
or discussion during the hearings of the recommended course of
action could also be included in the report.
Drafting Recommendation: Tips
• Think about recommendations as early as possible, not as
an add-on at the end of the inquiry; build on good
examples from past reports
• Think about the different stakeholders who the PAC is
trying to influence with the recommendations, and decide
what is likely to work best with each;
• Avoid unduly minor or bureaucratic recommendations,
keep the big picture in mind and improvements to service
users
• Write the recommendations in ways that make
implementation easier for the government ministry or
agency and will allow the PAC to tell whether or not they
have been implemented.