Parliamentary Governance—the Art of Balancing Tensions and Dilemmas in an Institution with Two Distinctive Management and Leadership Structures

'Parliaments have bicephalous management structures and leadership: on one hand they are imminently political institutions and therefore representatives play a management and leadership role; on the other, impartiality and continuity need to prevail and therefore the administrative body also plays an important role in leadership and management.' (1) Cristina Leston-Bandeira (2014) Parliaments are unique institutions and workplaces. They effectively have two management and leadership structures: one that functions through the “business of the Chamber”(2); and one that functions through the parliamentary administration that supports the work of parliament. This operating arrangement has significant flow-on effects for organisation design and structure, governance, and accountabilities. In practical terms, “the parliament”—an institution with two management and leadership heads—will inevitably at times have to deal with tension that arises due to differences in principles, philosophy, priorities, boundaries and expectations. Legislatures cannot operate without the support of an administrative ecosystem—from the design and fabric of buildings, to the provision of security, and the roles of clerks and stewards. However, as the term “ecosystem” implies, these support systems are not necessarily benign, neutral or impassive in their effect on the “business of the chamber” and vice versa. In 2020, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) released a comparative research paper examining the governance of parliamentary administrations.(3) Importantly, it observed that ‘parliamentary administrations and their critical role in supporting the work of parliamentarians in an independent, autonomous, non-partisan manner have generally not received much study’ and that some of the ‘less tangible aspects of parliamentary administration…merit more study’. (4) Using contemporary case studies this paper seeks to contribute to bridging the gap in the literature as observed by the IPU. It will present an analysis of the art of balancing tensions and dilemmas for parliamentary administration governance, in an institution with two distinctive but different management and leadership structures. It will discuss five distinctive governance models that operate in parliamentary administrations. It will also consider the question of whether some models are better than others in promoting and upholding independence and impartiality in a legislative context. (1) Leston-Bandeira, C. (2014). The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case. Parliamentary Affairs, 67, p. 420. (2) Petit, S. and Yong, B. (2018). ‘The administrative organization and governance of parliament’, in C. Leston-Bandeira and L. Thompson (eds.), Exploring parliament, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, p. 118. (3) IPU. (2020) Comparative research paper on parliamentary administration, Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Geneva. (4) Ibid., p. 9.