The
Bundestag Administration as part of the civil service: its role and functions
The
Administration of the German Bundestag is a supreme federal authority. It is
subject to the supreme authority of the President of the German Bundestag and
is headed by the Secretary-General of the German Bundestag.
The term
“Bundestag Administration” essentially denotes all the administrative,
organizational, technical and information services which the German Bundestag
has established in order to perform its various constitutional functions
effectively. Its core functions are: assisting the President of the Bundestag
in his steering and coordinating role, serving the various parliamentary
bodies, and providing support to all the Members of the Bundestag in the
exercise of their parliamentary mandate.
The
Bundestag Administration’s structures differ from those of other administrations,
and its functions cannot be compared with those of other supreme federal
authorities. It is an administration sui generis, reflecting its particular function, namely to
serve Parliament. It has virtually no autonomous powers and – unlike the
federal ministries – is not involved in the substantive preparation of legislation.
The
Administration of the German Bundestag is divided into three Directorates-General:
-
Parliamentary
Services
-
Reference
and Research Services
-
Central
Services
These
Directorates-General are divided into Directorates and Divisions. In addition,
there are the Office of the President, the offices of the Vice-Presidents, the
Press Centre and the Protocol Section, and the Office of the Parliamentary
Commissioner for the Armed Forces, which do not form part of the
Directorates-General.
In general
terms, the Parliamentary Services Directorate-General (“P”) is responsible for
supporting the parliamentary work of the Bundestag in its narrow sense. It is
sub-divided into three Directorates: Parliamentary Services, Parliamentary
Relations, and Parliamentary Information.
The
Reference and Research Services Directorate-General (“W”) supplies the
specialized information and documentation required by Members when dealing with
legislation and other political issues. It comprises the Documentation
Directorate with the Library, Parliamentary Archive and the Subject and
Speakers’ Indexes Division, the Specialized Research
Services, the secretariats of the committees, study commissions and
committees of inquiry set up by the German Bundestag, and the Petitions and Submissions Directorate.
The Central
Services Directorate-General (“Z”) provides the services which are essential to
ensure the smooth functioning of a major authority, such as budgeting,
personnel management and administration of properties. It is thus responsible
for all aspects of the Bundestag’s general
management.
There are
no separate regulations governing the career structure
of civil servants in the Bundestag Administration. They are covered by
the legal provisions applicable to every other civil servant in the service of
the federal authorities. Similarly, no special regulations apply to the salary
structure, pensions or working hours of civil servants in the Bundestag
Administration.
The
Bundestag Administration deals with the recruitment of its staff itself.
As a
general principle, entry to the higher service is only open to university
graduates who have spent at least three years in regular full-time study.
Temporary
or permanent placement of staff from other federal authorities in the Bundestag
Administration is possible, as is the reverse. Management staff
are generally recruited from within the Administration. The candidates selected
must have a successful track record in various functions within the Bundestag
Administration
b)
Relations between the political bodies and the Bundestag Administration
The
President represents the Bundestag and conducts its business. He upholds the
dignity and rights of the Bundestag, furthers its work, conducts its debates,
and maintains order in the House.
The staff of the Administration of the German Bundestag are
subject to his supreme authority.
The
Presidium of the German Bundestag comprises the President and his
Vice-Presidents (four in total in the current electoral term). Each parliamentary
group in the Bundestag is represented by one Vice-President in the Presidium.
The
President and the Vice-Presidents are elected for one electoral term. The
Presidium meets regularly in each week of sittings to discuss the management of
the internal affairs of the Bundestag.
The
President may only conclude contracts that have considerable importance for the
Bundestag in consultation with the Vice-Presidents, and may only perform other
specific tasks in consultation with, or with the approval of, his deputies.
The
Presidium is involved, among other things, in personnel matters relating to
senior civil servants in the Bundestag Administration, and also deals with
public relations issues. The Presidium decides by majority vote. In the event
of a tie, the President has the casting vote.
The
role of the Council of Elders
The Council
of Elders is a joint deliberative body whose task is to manage the internal
affairs of the Bundestag. It is composed of the President, the Vice-Presidents
and 23 other Members of the Bundestag appointed by the parliamentary groups in
proportion to their size. They include the parliamentary secretaries from each
parliamentary group.
The Council
of Elders meets regularly in each week of sittings and is chaired by the
President of the Bundestag. It assists the President in the conduct of business
and ensures that agreement is reached among the parliamentary groups, e.g. on
the plenary’s programme of work. As a collegiate
body, it also takes decisions on the Bundestag’s
internal affairs as long as these do not fall within the exclusive competence
of the President or the Presidium.
c)
Does the Secretary-General bear the main responsibility for the Administration,
or does he share this responsibility with other senior civil servants?
The
Secretary-General of the German Bundestag heads the Administration of the
German Bundestag on behalf of the President.
He is the
head of service of all staff employed in the Bundestag Administration and
reports directly to the President. The Secretary-General is also the
President’s closest advisor and acts as secretary to the German Bundestag’s steering bodies, i.e. the Presidium and the
Council of Elders.
The
Secretary-General can be suspended from duty at any time.
d)
The workload of Parliament and the Administration
Following a
reduction in the number of constituencies, the number of Members of the German
Bundestag has stood at 603 since the start of the 15th electoral term (14th
electoral term: 669), of whom 299 were directly elected in the constituencies
and the other 304 were drawn from lists of candidates set up by the political
parties in each federal state (Land).
The plenary
In 2003,
Parliament will meet for 21 weeks of sittings. Based on the figures for the
previous electoral term, it may be assumed that the plenary will be in session
for a total of 499 hours, on average, during the current electoral term as
well.
The German
Bundestag has deliberated an average of 250 draft laws every year since 1994.
It is therefore unlikely – especially in view of the complexity of the
political agenda, the European integration process and the debate surrounding
various aspects of the “globalization” phenomenon – that the number of draft
laws to be dealt with will decrease during the current electoral term.
The total
number of votes held in plenary, all of which require the presence of a quorum,
is impossible to ascertain. It should be noted, however, that on average, 25
votes using voting cards bearing Members’ names are held every year.
The
Shorthand Writers’ Service prepares the verbatim minutes of plenary sessions,
which are generally made available the following day, not only to the Members
and bodies of the Bundestag but also to numerous institutions and organizations
outside Parliament, e.g. other constitutional bodies, the media, academic
institutions, interest groups, etc.
Committees
In the
current electoral term, the Bundestag has set up 21 permanent committees. They
hold one regular meeting in each week of sittings and also meet whenever
convened by their chairperson.
The
following table shows the number of meetings held by the various permanent
committees up to
|
Name of
Committee |
Current
electoral term (to |
14th
electoral term 25.10.1998
–16.10.2002 |
|
Committee
for the Scrutiny of Elections, Immunity and the Rules of Procedure |
26 |
128 |
|
Petitions
Committee |
15 |
77 |
|
Foreign
Affairs Committee |
21 |
106 |
|
Internal
Affairs Committee |
18 |
103 |
|
Sports
Committee |
19 |
64 |
|
Legal
Affairs Committee |
23 |
139 |
|
Finance
Committee |
23 |
140 |
|
Budget
Committee |
24 |
114 |
|
Committee
on Economic Affairs and Technology |
27 |
88 |
|
Committee
on Food, Agriculture and Forestry |
19 |
107 |
|
Defence
Committee |
20 |
109 |
|
Committee
on Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth |
16 |
98 |
|
Committee
on Health |
32 |
149 |
|
Committee
on Transport, Building and Housing |
15 |
90 |
|
Committee
on the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety |
20 |
88 |
|
Committee
on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid |
20 |
92 |
|
Committee
on Education, Research and Technology Assessment |
15 |
73 |
|
Committee
on Economic Cooperation and Development |
21 |
85 |
|
Committee
on Tourism |
21 |
93 |
|
Committee
on the Affairs of the European Union |
26 |
102 |
|
Committee
on Cultural and Media Affairs |
16 |
81 |
It is
difficult to state precisely how many hours, on average, the committees will
spend in meetings during the current electoral term, as no time records are
kept. However, experience from previous electoral terms suggests that the
number of hours of committee meetings is far higher than the number of hours
spent in plenary.
The Rules
of Procedure of the German Bundestag describe the committees as “bodies
responsible for preparing the decisions” of the Bundestag. Their function is to
deliberate the items of business referred to them by the plenary and make
recommendations for decisions by the plenary. The recommendations for decisions
must be drafted in such a way that the Bundestag can vote on them.
If an item
of business is referred to several committees, the committee designated the
committee responsible submits the recommendation for a decision.
In addition
to deliberating items of business referred to them by the plenary, the
committees may also take up other questions falling within their terms of
reference. In this case, however, they have no right to submit a recommendation
for a decision to the plenary.
Meetings of
the committees of the German Bundestag are in principle not open to the public.
The committees may invite experts, ministerial civil servants and government
representatives to attend the meetings and be heard. The committees may also
form subcommittees and working groups.
Each
committee is served by a committee secretariat comprising staff from the higher
service (head of secretariat, assistant head of division), the higher
intermediate service (office manager), and the intermediate service (first and
second secretaries). The number of staff is generally based on the number and
scope of the subject areas for which the committee is responsible. The secretariat
is part of the Administration.
The
committee secretariats provide advice and support to the committee chairpersons
on all matters relating to the committee. This includes, in particular, the
preparation of committee meetings, e.g. compiling dossiers of documents
required for the meeting, and if necessary, drafting speaking notes which
summarize the subject under discussion, clarify procedural issues, and in some
cases highlight key issues for the debate. The secretariat provides support to
the chairperson during the meeting, primarily by advising on procedural
matters, and is also involved in implementing the committee’s decisions.
The
committee secretariat draws up the minutes after each meeting and prepares the
reports and the recommendation for a decision on behalf of the chairperson and
the rapporteurs.
The
chairpersons are not assigned a member of the Administration staff as their
personal assistants. In their political work as members of the committee, the
chairpersons – like every other committee members – are generally assisted by
staff from their parliamentary group and their own private offices. The
resources to employ assistants are granted to the chairpersons in their
capacity as Members of the Bundestag, not as committee chairs.
The
secretariat also arranges other events, meetings and official visits, and
drafts press releases as well as speeches if required. If a committee has set
up subcommittees, the secretariat provides appropriate support to them as well.
The committee secretariat also deals with the chairperson’s correspondence
provided that it relates to the topics being deliberated by the committee.
Each
committee member can also use the services provided by the various sections of
the Reference and Research Services, which are available to all Members and
whose fields of responsibility match those of the individual committees.
Members can request the Reference and Research Services to prepare papers and
compile information dossiers and documentation on specific subjects. On average,
around 2000 of these are produced every year.
The
Reference and Research Services also prepare reports on topical issues on their
own initiative. They include briefings and explanatory notes on concepts and
topics which are new or are increasingly featuring in the political debate, as
well as in-depth studies and analyses and detailed introductions to specific issues.
Although
this service is intended, among other things, to identify various options for
action, the Reference and Research Services do not, on principle, recommend or
endorse specific policy measures, legislative initiatives, or points of view.
The Petitions Committee
Under
Article 17 of the Basic Law, every person has the right to address petitions to
the Bundestag. Article 45 c of the Basic Law obliges the Bundestag to set up a
Petitions Committee to deal with the requests and complaints addressed to the
Bundestag.
The
Petitions Committee has the right to prepare recommendations for decisions by
the plenary about the complaints it receives.
The
Petitions Committee consists of 25 Members of the Bundestag. During the last
electoral term, the Committee received 69 421 submissions. 1634 petitions were
considered individually at 76 meetings of the Committee. The Committee
submitted the outcomes of these individual deliberations to the Bundestag in
the form of 435 summary lists of submissions, together with recommendations for
decisions to deal with the petitions conclusively.
In 2002, 17
meetings of the Committee were held in which 243 petitions were considered individually
and 22 425 were considered collectively.
The
Petitions Committee also submits an annual report about its activities.
The members
of the Petitions Committee are assisted by a committee service, the Petitions
and Submissions Directorate, which is part of the Bundestag Administration’s
Reference and Research Services Directorate-General. The committee service
accepts the incoming submissions, examines them in terms of content, and
generally obtains a statement from the appropriate Federal Government
department. Once the factual and legal position has been ascertained, the
committee service prepares a recommendation on how to deal with the petition
conclusively, which is passed to the rapporteurs.
Based on the rapporteurs’ votes, the Committee then
deliberates the petitions and submits, to the plenary, the recommendation for a
decision on how to deal with the petition conclusively.
The
committee service also prepares the meetings of the Petitions Committee,
assists with the conduct of the committee meetings, and provides follow-up
support after the meetings.
e) Involvement of the
Parliamentary Administration in the legislative process
Specific
sections of the Bundestag Administration (notably the research sections and committee
secretariats which form the Reference and Research Services
Directorate-General) are involved in the critical appraisal of draft laws.
However, none is involved in initiating legislation.
The
Bundestag Administration does not provide a legislative support service in the
narrower sense. Rather, it could be described as an “information support
service” or “parliamentary and legislative information service”.
In
accordance with the provisions of the Basic Law, the Federal Government submits
its draft laws to the Bundestag after the involvement of the Bundesrat.
The
Parliamentary Secretariat, which is part of the Parliamentary Services
Directorate-General, is responsible for editing and distributing all items of
parliamentary business (bills, motions, questions tabled by Members in accordance
with their parliamentary right to put questions, etc.). It is also responsible
for accepting, printing and distributing draft laws and reports from the
Federal Government, items from the Bundesrat, and the
written replies from the Federal Government to questions tabled by Members of
the Bundestag.
The
Parliamentary Law Section, which is also part of the Parliamentary Services
Directorate-General, prepares speaking notes for the President and
Vice-Presidents when chairing plenary sessions as well as lists of all items on
the agenda, including the relevant bills, motions for amendments, motions for
resolutions, reports, questions, etc. It also provides the staff for the
plenary support service, which advises the President in the Chair on any
procedural matters which might suddenly arise. The Parliamentary Law Section
also advises on broad issues of parliamentary law.
The
European Affairs Office, which is part of the secretariat of the Committee on
the Affairs of the European Union, accepts all EU-related items transmitted to
the Bundestag by the Federal Government. They are logged and forwarded to the
relevant committees. Requests to deliberate the items are entered in a list and
referred to the Council of Elders, which decides which committee will be the
committee responsible and which committee(s) will be asked for an opinion.
The
committee secretariats generally maintain good contacts with the ministries
responsible for their area of work. As a rule, they are kept informed about
legislative proposals by the Parliament and Cabinet Division of the relevant ministry.
There are
usually also intensive contacts between the secretariat and the staff of the
parliamentary groups – especially those forming the Federal Government – who
are responsible for the subject areas covered by the committee.
As a rule,
the Parliamentary Administration does not undertake any regular, separate or
in-depth scrutiny of the draft legislation’s compliance with the rules
governing the drafting of bills, as the Joint Rules of Procedure of the Federal
Ministries (GGO) contain detailed provisions on the preparation of draft
legislation in the ministerial bureaucracies, including rules to safeguard the
substantive and formal quality of the drafts.
Before a
bill is submitted to the Federal Government for a decision to be taken on it,
it is forwarded to the Federal Ministry of Justice for scrutiny of its
compliance with all legal requirements, i.e. not merely its form and constitutionality
but also its relationship with existing legislation. At the same time, the
Ministry checks whether the proposed law is necessary, effective and clearly
formulated.
Nonetheless,
every Member of the German Bundestag has the opportunity, as described in
section (d) above, to commission a paper on the content and form of a law from
the Administration’s Reference and Research Services.
f) Recent changes in the Parliamentary Administration
European
integration has presented the German Bundestag with new challenges which have
an impact on all areas of legislation. New specialized bodies have been
established at the same time (such as the Bundestag’s
Committee on the Affairs of the European Union and the European
Affairs Research Section within the Reference and Research Services).
The Bundestag also maintains numerous contacts with other parliaments and
international parliamentary organizations, and the Bundestag Administration provides
personnel support in this context.
As the
European integration process gathered pace, there was a growing recognition,
over time, that a separate committee was required to
deal with European affairs.
Thus with
the advancement and development of European integration, i.e. with the transfer
of more and more sovereign powers to the European Union, the need to establish
a full committee equipped with adequate rights and responsibilities, which
could play a role in dismantling the “democratic deficit” at European level,
became increasingly apparent. The establishment of the administrative support
units took place in several stages, with a separate committee secretariat being
set up at the start of the 13th electoral term. It is now one of the largest
committee secretariats in the Bundestag.
The German
Bundestag responded to the political challenge posed by scientific and
technological developments in the 1970s and 1980s by setting up study
commissions more frequently, e.g. on nuclear power and genetic engineering.
Study commissions are set up by the Bundestag for a specific period to gather
information on a given subject. They comprise not only Members of the Bundestag
but also independent experts.
In this
context, there was increasing debate in the Bundestag at the start of the 1970s
about how the Bundestag could contribute to a more precise assessment of the
risks and opportunities associated with the new technologies. In this debate,
the US Congress’s Office of Technology Assessment was frequently referred to as
an institutional model. At the end of 1989, the Bundestag voted to establish
its own Office of Technology Assessment (TAB). A
respected independent research institute was appointed to run the Office, which
only accepts commissions from the German Bundestag.
The Office’s
contracting authority and steering body is the Bundestag’s
Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment. As an external
research body funded by the Bundestag, the Office of Technology Assessment is
not integrated into the Bundestag Administration.
The studies
produced by the Office are published as Bundestag printed papers and
deliberated by the relevant committees and in plenary.
The Office
is a member of the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment Network (EPTA).
A very high
level of computerization of the Bundestag’s work
processes has been achieved; every office-based staff member is equipped with a
PC which offers local applications (office programmes) as well as e-mail and
access to the Internet and Intranet.
The
Intranet is the Bundestag’s central internal
information platform which is used by the Bundestag Administration, the Members
and parliamentary group staff. It offers a wealth of information of relevance
to Parliament. The Bundestag Administration also operates a number of dedicated
information systems, not only to perform specific administrative tasks (e.g.
calculation of Members’ remuneration, allowances towards the costs of medical
expenses, and travel expenses) but also to support the conduct of parliamentary
business. Furthermore, following a decision by the Council of Elders, the
legislative process within Parliament will be converted entirely to electronic documentation by 2006.
The
Bundestag website (www.bundestag.de) has existed
since 1995 and contains information from and about Parliament, as well as
databases, newsletters, forums and Web-TV with live transmissions from the
Bundestag. Politicians also hold live chats with Internet users, answering
questions on current issues from Parliament.
Following
the terrorist attacks on the
All persons
with a right to enter the Bundestag premises, with the exception of the Members
themselves, members of the Federal and Land
Governments, and holders of diplomatic passports, are obliged to wear their
entry passes visibly. At their own request, a large majority of Members have
also been issued with Members’ entry passes, to be displayed prominently.
Overall,
the Bundestag has maintained its policy of keeping the parliamentary buildings
open to all visitors. It was agreed that the public should not be excluded,
even in the interests of security. For this reason, the number of entrances
equipped with x-ray machines and walk-through metal detectors has been
increased. Two explosives detection units have also been purchased in order to
reduce response time if suspicious objectives are discovered.
a) Training
In view of
its increasing reliance on computers, the Administration of the German
Bundestag, with the assistance of Bewag Aktiengesellschaft as its partner, has set up formal
training courses for persons wishing to train as mechatronic
systems specialists and information systems specialists (with four training
places being available in total each year) and office communications executives
(currently thirteen places).
b) Staff
development and staff exchange
Reflecting
the ongoing process of European integration, the opportunities for
parliamentary staff to undertake foreign language training, attend the training
events organized by the Federal Academy of Public Administration, and participate
in staff exchanges with other parliamentary administrations are considered
increasingly important.
The Federal
Office of Languages, for example, runs a total of 50 courses in English and
French each year, which take place weekly during working hours. It also offers
13 block courses. Interest in the courses has risen significantly in the last
two years.
The Federal
Academy of Public Administration has increased the number of its courses on
European issues (basic principles, international tasks, relations with partner
states) from 40 to a total of 57 in the last two years.
This year,
staff exchanges are taking place with the parliamentary administrations in
g) Cooperation between
parliamentary administrations and the avoidance of duplicate work
The examples
of cooperation within the EPTA framework, between petitions committees through
the European Ombudsman Liaison Network, the European Ombudsman Institute and
the International Ombudsman Institute and the cooperation between parliamentary
administrations through ECPRD and its working groups show that there is both a
need for, and a will to engage in, close cooperation. At the same time, it is
important to note that although closer cooperation is required in response to
European integration and the developments described as “globalization”, every
effort must be made to avoid duplicate work and to conserve resources.
In terms of
its objectives, the ECPRD would seem ideally suited to coordinate the
cooperation between the various associations. It could ensure, perhaps with the
aid of a user-friendly catalogue of topics which could easily be produced, that
interested parties could check whether specific topics have already been – or
are already being – dealt with, so that duplicate work can be avoided right from
the start.