CHAIRMAN --We welcome the library staff to your desk, Madam President.

The PRESIDENT --There were questions placed on notice to which I believe answers have been given. They are from Senator Faulkner and Senator Sherry. I do not know whether they should be incorporated in Hansard.

CHAIRMAN --They are published in a separate volume, I understand.

Senator FAULKNER --Can I ask quickly, because I understand we are running out of time, about the Parliamentary handbook and where that is up to.

Mr Templeton --Mr Chairman, through you, we would expect that the Parliamentary handbook will be printed within the next 10 days and will be available to senators and members from 25 June. It has been delayed because of difficulties with the Australian Government Publishing Service, but we expect to have it done within the next three weeks.

Senator FAULKNER --I see. So the library's work in terms of preparing it has not been delayed. Normally it is actually published in the year of the election, if you like, as long as the election is held early in the year, it seemed to me as I went back through a few old copies. Is that a fair judgment?

Mr Templeton --In the past in fact it has taken longer than the current handbook to produce, with the exception of the last handbook. The last handbook was out, I think, just on 12 or 13 months after the election. This one has been delayed because of a number of problems of formatting material, but it is actually with the printers now.

Senator FAULKNER --Fair enough. So it is about average, is it?

Mr Templeton --It is longer than I would have liked. I would have liked to have held it back to about the 12 months that we had for the last handbook. The problem is that an enormous amount of data comes from the Australian Electoral Commission. It takes them a long time to process that, check it to make sure that it is accurate and give it to us, and then we have to put it in format. We are running two to three months later than I would have liked.

Senator FAULKNER --Will it be called a 1996 or 1997 handbook?

Mr Templeton --We go by parliaments, if I remember correctly.

Senator FAULKNER --So it would be a 1996 handbook.

Mr Templeton --Yes.

CHAIRMAN --Madam President, we were due to break at one o'clock, but we have been having a bit of a chat together and perhaps we might go on to, say, 1.15 and see if we can get through the rest of the parliamentary portfolios. Let us try, anyway.

Senator COONEY --On page 5 there is mention of your one per cent efficiency dividend for 1997-98, and you have had a 9.9 per cent cut over the two previous financial years. Is there any effect on two areas: material that you have available in the library for the purposes of people consulting it, and then research staff? Has there been any effect on either of those, by preventing advances that you might have made in either of those two areas that you have not been able to make, or in fact is there any cutback in either of those areas as a result of the last three or four years of cuts?

Mr Templeton --For the 1997-98 financial year we have only been reduced by the normal efficiency dividend of one per cent but, as the portfolio budget statement makes clear, we took some fairly heavy cuts last year. By and large, we have tried to absorb the overwhelming proportion of those cuts in the corporate services support area. We have sought to keep the collection development budget in fact higher in 1997-98 than in 1996-97, although that will include a special amount for a new charge that we have had imposed on us, which is from the National Library of Australia. But, by and large, we have sought to ensure that the cuts have fallen in support areas and administrative expenditure rather than in salaries, and particularly rather than in the salaries of staff in the direct client service program--the information specialists and the research specialists.

Senator COONEY --I take it from that that the cutbacks over the last three or four years have not made less the research facilities you otherwise would have had and have not made less the collections you would otherwise have had, had you not had those cuts.

Mr Templeton --Had we not had those cuts we probably would have been able to do more, but we have sought to absorb those cuts basically--

Senator COONEY --I can follow that--you have had to absorb them. What I am really asking is whether the cuts are having any effect on what otherwise would have been the development of the collection and of research facilities.

Mr Templeton --By and large, no. We have sought to do it in other ways.

Senator COONEY --So, even if you had had more money, you could not have given us better material and you could not have given us better research?

Mr Templeton --We could have, had we had more money. But if you are asking whether we had to go in and slash and burn in those areas, the answer is no.

Senator COONEY --No, I am not asking that. I am asking: if you had not had those cuts, would you have been able to provide better collection and more or better research?

Mr Templeton --We would have continued to look at our administrative expenditure to try to redeploy it across to client service areas, yes. That is what I am saying; I am saying yes.

Senator COONEY --The only other question I perhaps have is on outsourcing. The government has announced an in principle decision to consolidate and outsource--subject to the tendering process--information technology infrastructure in budget funding agencies, which include the Department of the Parliamentary Library. Does that mean they will outsource the place we get our collection from or our research done?

Mr Templeton --I think the reference you are talking about there is the decision which the government announced in the budget to outsource information technology. We have lost some money off the forward estimates, I think, for the year 1999-2000. That relates to a decision--which the government has yet to convey to the Speaker and the President--that, as far as the government is concerned, the provision of PCs down to the desktop, mainframes, networks and all IT will be consolidated and then subject to competitive tendering. It talks about the PCs that we all have on our desks.

Senator COONEY --But not the PCs that the librarians have.

Mr Templeton --Yes, all staff of the department.

Senator COONEY --I still have not quite followed that. What will the practical result be? I cannot get the picture of what will happen.

Mr Templeton --If it is applied to the parliament--and, as I said, the government have yet to formally advise the Speaker and the President that they have made this decision and they wish it to apply to the parliament--at that point all PCs, the central computing infrastructure and the network would be put out to competitive tender, and presumably outsourced, and an external company would provide us with PCs, networks and mainframe.

Senator LUNDY --One of the objectives listed on page 20 is `applying new technologies to provide senators and members with timely access to electronic information services'. Apart from the PDBS, what other new technologies is the Parliamentary Library utilising or looking to utilise?

Mr Templeton --As you would be aware, a significant component of the existing parliamentary database service is what is called `information storage and retrieval service'. When the PDBS is redeveloped towards the end of this year, it will be replaced by Parlinfo, which will have much greater flexibility than PDBS. It will be able to take tables, graphs, image, et cetera.

Senator LUNDY --So you are referring to Parlinfo in terms of that objective?

Mr Templeton --No, I am talking about the library's component that will be carried under Parlinfo. The sorts of things we are hoping to look for are electronic clippings on Parlinfo and the ability to use the image capacity of the Parlinfo carrier, if you like, much more imaginatively.

Senator LUNDY --Have there been any staff losses in the information and research services area in the last financial year; and, if so, what sections were they from?

Mr Templeton --In the last 12 months--if you are talking about staff losses--we have had a number of people obviously leave on transfer, promotion or whatever. We have had some people leave for retirement purposes. We have had a number of people also leave on voluntary redundancies. What sort of staff--

Senator LUNDY --I am looking not so much to the individual but the actual positions. Have you lost any positions with respect to the net total of staff positions in that section?

Mr Templeton --In program 1, the staffing numbers are about the same. If you look in the staff years for the program, I think the staff years are down one for 1997-98 as opposed to 1996-97. But bear in mind that that figure does not necessarily equate directly to number of staff, because we use temporary staff and sessional staff. So, in fact, our number of individuals is higher than that. But, by and large, the staffing is about the same.

Senator LUNDY --What assessments are done by management to ensure that each information and research group has the necessary staffing levels in relation to their workload?

Mr Templeton --That is very much a decision that is made primarily within program 1, the information and research services program. In terms of setting the budget, we have attempted with both program 1 and program 2 to put as much of the department's money into those clients service areas as possible. As far as I am aware, the staffing levels and the staffing usage in program 1 are adequate for the demand that the various groups get. When we are short of staff in that sense, or where we have requests that come in and we do not have in-house expertise, we often go out to commission papers to outside experts. So we use a number of techniques, if you like, to manage the workload.

Senator LUNDY --How often would it occur that you are required to seek outside assistance in commissioning papers; and is that a reflection on the subject matter or, I suppose, a stretch on the resources?

Mr Templeton --I think we went out about 13 times in 1996-97. I think it is not so much a reflection of any deficiency in our own staffing, but it is obviously an attempt to match the response we give to any senator or member who asks, as best we can, to the particular topic or question they have asked. We cannot hope to cover in every subject group every possible manifestation of the topic. It probably would be impossible for us to seek to achieve that anyway, and it probably would be silly of us to seek to do it. But we are more than happy--in fact, it is a very useful tool--to be able to go out to external experts.

Senator LUNDY --Is the decision to go to external experts one that lies within that area, or is it something that perhaps accompanies a request?

Mr Templeton --No, it would normally be made by the director of the group in consultation with Dr Verrier, who might like to elaborate on that a little.

Dr Verrier --We try to forecast the work pressure in different areas. We have a forecast of issues process twice a year. We assess our staff resources and we make up our minds whether we actually need some supplementation, be it through a consultant's paper or indeed through bringing on board a short-termer. The pressure might be created by the fact that we allow for the release of some of our staff to committees occasionally. If we have some expertise that a committee staff may not have, we will make an arrangement for them to go over to the committee, be paid for by the committee, and we then pull in somebody to backfill in that area. We keep a very lively register of interest going so that we have at our fingertips at any time the wherewithal to pull on board somebody additional.

Senator LUNDY --Can you tell me how the trial of products being placed on the Internet is going and what the response has been so far?

Mr Templeton --The trial of the library's publications? As far as I understand, it has been extremely well received and the site has been used very frequently.

Senator LUNDY --Perhaps you could take it on notice to provide the figures with respect to that.

Mr Templeton --I am quite happy to do that.

CHAIRMAN --Perhaps a private briefing for Senator Lundy about where you are at would be useful.

Mr Templeton --Yes.

Senator LUNDY --In the performance forecasts for 1997-98 it mentions the implementation of the results of the client services survey. Has any decision been made as to the changes that you are going to make with respect to the outcomes of that survey?

Mr Templeton --Once in the life of every parliament the library seeks to assess how well it is carrying out its work. In this case we commissioned an outside company, Albany Consulting, and they did a very extensive review. For the first time we relied much more on qualitative surveying than just simple quantitative surveying. The reports from those consultants have been to the Joint Library Committee, and we will be going back with a further briefing for them as a result of the last meeting.

By and large, the consultant's report said that what we are doing we are doing fairly well. There is scope for finetuning, if you like, and improving some of our areas, and those recommendations will be picked up. In fact we have already started putting them into place now. No major restructuring or major change has come out of that particular survey. What it is saying is: continue to seek to improve what you are doing now.

Senator LUNDY --I have other questions for other programs. Perhaps I will put them on notice.

CHAIRMAN --That finishes the Department of the Parliamentary Library.

[1.10 p.m.]