a) The status of the parliamentary administration: Is it part of the civil service (or equivalent), or an independent and special administration, with its own rules on salaries, pensions, career development?
Officials employed by the Eduskunta are civil servants. However, the general Act applying to civil servants does not cover them; instead, there is a separate Act for them. They are likewise treated separately when it comes to terms of employment.
Agreements between the State, in its capacity as an employer, and labour-market organisations concerning wages and other terms of service of civil servants are not binding on the Eduskunta unless that body's Office Commission decides that they are. The Office Commission has the power to decide on Eduskunta officials' remuneration completely independently. In practice, however, the Eduskunta observes the State's general agreement fairly closely.
The Office Commission comprises the Speaker, the two Deputy-Speakers and four other members of the Eduskunta.
Pensions are determined in accordance with the same principles as apply to other civil servants.
There are no regulations on career development. A point that has been quite openly made about remuneration policy is that the Eduskunta tries to pay slightly more than ministries pay for equivalent tasks. Therefore, the officials recruited for all tasks are generally top-flight.
There is little internal career turnover in the Eduskunta, but the general rule is that persons appointed to supervisory positions are those who have been performing expert tasks within the same unit. At the moment, the Secretary-General and the heads of department reporting to him have all earlier held other positions in the Eduskunta.
Posts in the Eduskunta are filled through the general public applications procedure.
A decision of an Eduskunta official in an administrative affair may be appealed to the Office Commission. There is no appeal against its decision.
b) Relations between the political bodies and the parliamentary administration
The Speaker
The Speaker does not have direct power of decision in relation to the composition of the parliamentary administration, because the regulations on this administration are so precise.
The Secretary General
The Secretary General is appointed by the Eduskunta in plenary session. Other officials are appointed by the Office Commission. Central appointments are proposed by the Secretary General, the others by the Administrative Director. Replacing officials is not easy to do, because nearly all of them have been permanently appointed and can not be dismissed except on the grounds precisely specified in the relevant Act.
Officials are impartial in the discharge of their duties even if they happen to be a member of a political party and also have a party political background. Officials of the Eduskunta do not engage in politics there. There is an understanding that the successful discharge of their official tasks presupposes the trust of all political parties.
c) Does the Secretary General have the chief responsibility and accountability for the administration? Or are these shared with other senior officers?
The Secretary General is the highest-ranking official in the Parliamentary Office. However, his principal task is to serve as the secretary to the Eduskunta. He acts as the Speaker's legal adviser. He does not need to make administrative decisions. Most of these are made by the Administrative Director, who is directly accountable to the Office Commission for his own decisions. The other heads of department, i.e. the Deputy Secretary General in his role as head of the Committees Secretariat, the Director of Legislation in his capacity as head of the Central Office, the Director of Information and Communication as the head of his own unit and the Director of the International Unit, likewise work quite autonomously and are accountable for their own decisions.
The Secretary General and the aforementioned heads of department meet regularly twice a month to discuss administrative questions. At these meetings they go through the items of business to be dealt with at the next meeting of the Office Commission and which are presented to the Commission by the Secretary General and the Administrative Director only. In addition, these officials, who are collectively called the Parliamentary Office Management Group, have regular monthly meetings and all of them can put whatever items they want to on the agenda. These meetings are unofficial and no formally binding decisions can be made at them. Not even minutes are kept.
d) The parliamentary workload, and consequently the administration's workload
Number of parliamentarians
The Eduskunta has 200 members. The parliamentary term is 4 years. An alternate is drafted as a member only if a permanent impediment prevents an elected representative from continuing. Membership of the Council of State (i.e. the Government) does not constitute an impediment.
Sessions of the
parliament
The total duration of sessions in the period between 1995 - 2002 averaged 551 hours per year. The number of days on which sessions were held averaged 127 per year in the same period. In election years, e.g. 1995 and 1999, the numbers of sessions are smaller than in other years. Sessions take place from February to June and from September to December.
Votes
The number of parliamentarians present when a vote is taken does not affect the situation regarding a quorum. The time of the next plenary session is always announced at the end of a plenary session and a quorum is present even if the Speaker, who presides over the proceedings, is alone in the chamber.
The average annual number of votes between 1999 - 2002 was 302.
Bills
A bill can be introduced by either the Government or an individual member of the Eduskunta. The Speaker's Council, comprising the committee chairs and the Speaker, can also initiate legislation in certain matters, for example introduce a motion to amend the legislation on Eduskunta officials. An average of 244 Government bills per year were introduced between 1995 - 2002. One-third of them were associated with the State budget for the following year.
Committees
The Eduskunta has the following standing committees: the Grand Committee, Constitutional Law Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, Finance Committee, Administration Committee, Legal Committee, Communications Committee, Agriculture and Forestry Committee, Defence Committee, Education Committee, Committee for Social and Health Affairs, Economic Committee, Committee for the Future, Committee of Labour and Equality and Environment Committee.
The division of labour between the committees corresponds in general outline to that between ministries.
The Eduskunta can appoint ad hoc committees, but has not done so in recent years.
The Grand Committee has 25 regular and 13 alternate members. Each other of the standing committees has 17 regular and 9 alternate members, with the exception of the Finance Committee, which has 21 regular and 19 alternate members.
Committee procedures
The procedures followed in the standing committees are determined in the Rules of Procedure which the Eduskunta has adopted and more precise guidelines are issued by the Speaker's Council.
All matters presented to the Eduskunta for deliberation are prepared beforehand in committees. A bill is first debated in plenary session and then the Eduskunta decides, upon the proposal of the Speaker's Council, which committee to refer it to. The Eduskunta can also decide that one or several other committees must make a submission on the matter to the committee deliberating it.
A committee must deal with a matter referred to it without undue delay. It gives priority to deliberating Government bills and communications from the Government on European Union business and only then deliberates initiatives made by individual members of the Eduskunta.
A committee can request a submission from another committee. A committee can, on its own initiative and in relation to a matter within its remit, make a submission on the State budget to the Finance Committee within 30 days of the budget having been referred to the Finance Committee. This provision is necessary, because the budget is deliberated preliminarily only by the Finance Committee, which separates into sub-committees to deal with the various sections of the budget.
A committee can consult experts. A hearing of this kind takes place, on the initiative of a member of the Eduskunta, at a committee meeting.
When it deliberates a matter for the first time, a committee decides preliminarily on the content of a submission or statement. The committee makes its final decisions at the second handling, which is based on a submission or statement text drafted by the committee secretary. However, a committee can unanimously decide to resolve the matter at the first handling.
At each handling, the members of the committee must be provided with an opportunity to express their views on the matter as a whole before detailed deliberation begins. Experts are heard during the first handling, unless the committee decides otherwise for a special reason.
The members of a committee who have remained in the minority can append a written dissenting opinion to a submission or statement.
These statistics for 2002 are an example of the frequency of committee meetings:
- Grand Committee 74
- Constitutional Law Committee 144
- Foreign Affairs Committee 97
- Finance Committee 67
- Administration Committee 133
- Legal Committee 141
- Communications Committee 112
- Agriculture and Forestry Committee 98
- Defence Committee 35
- Education Committee 113
- Committee for Social and Health Affairs140
- Economic Committee 119
- Committee for the Future 60
- Committee of Labour and Equality 110
- Environment Committee 106
Of this grand total of 1,549 meetings, six - three of the Grand Committee and three of the Foreign Affairs Committee - took place while the Eduskunta was in recess.
The explanation for the small number of Finance Committee meetings is that it works as nine separate sub-committees, which held a total of 453 meetings in 2002.
The role of the Speaker
The Speaker has no special role as an overseer of the actions of committee chairs.
Assistance provided to members
The whole of the Parliamentary Office, which has a staff of about 400 officials, is at the service of the members of the legislature. In addition, each member can engage a personal assistant if he or she wishes, and nearly all have done so. The parliamentary groups employ a total of about 50 persons, of whom half are political secretaries with academic degrees and the remainder technical secretaries.
e) Relations between the parliamentary administration and the legislative process
Providing advice on parliamentary procedure
At the beginning of each four-year
term, the Parliamentary Office provides a comprehensive range of
familiarisation material and lectures for new members and their assistants. All
of these events are open also to experienced members as well as to all Eduskunta officials and the staffs of the parliamentary
groups. All Eduskunta officials are available to
provide advice in individual cases throughout a parliamentary term.
Basic documentation
Basic documentation, which is
understood here as meaning Government bills and other matters submitted to the
legislature for deliberation, is always available and is distributed in both
paper and electronic form.
Supplementary
information
The experts whose views are elicited
at committee meetings provide members of the Eduskunta
with supplementary information for use in assessing the compliance of bills
with the system of normative competence and drafting rules. In addition, the Eduskunta has an internal information service, which obtains
information on matters when requested to do so by members. The parliamentary groups also employ experts
in various fields, who carry out assessments of the compliance of Government
bills with normative requirements. In this matter, indeed, we are actually at
the heart of parliamentary work. It is control of the actions of the
Government. It also extends beyond normative competence and compliance with
rules. Members of the legislature try to ascertain also whether in the
arguments it presents in support of a bill the Government has understood the
existing situation correctly and whether the proposed legislation’s effects on
society will be what the Government says it is aiming to achieve.
Maintaining relations
Relations between the Eduskunta and the Government are maintained in many ways.
Immediately upon its appointment, the new Government informs the Eduskunta of its programme. After this is deliberated,
there is a vote of confidence on the matter if the opposition opposes the
programme, which it normally does.
During the parliamentary term, the committees
are quite well informed about the legislative programme. The fact that the
division of labour between committees corresponds to that between ministries
helps ensure that the committees are so well informed. The Government also
always provides lists of both all bills to be introduced during the annual
session and budget-related money bills, which must be decided on before the
budget is adopted. The Eduskunta, in turn, decides by
which date a bill must be submitted if the intention is for the legislation it
proposes to enter into force at, for example, the beginning of the following
year.
The chairs of the parliamentary
groups supporting the Government meet every Tuesday during the term to discuss
the problems that have arisen in the course of deliberation of bills. The Prime
Minister’s secretary responsible for Eduskunta
matters is always present at this meeting and if necessary the relevant
minister.
Officials at the Central Office of
the Eduskunta conduct a constant dialogue with their
counterparts at ministries in relation to both the timetables for Government
bills and the dates at which legislation is to enter into force. The latter
matter is normally decided when the President of the Republic signs an act into
law.
Liaison with other outside bodies
and authorities is maintained by asking them to designate experts to be
consulted at committee meetings.
A committee can ask ministries for
reports on also matters that are not under legislative deliberation in the Eduskunta.
Obtaining sight of
legislative drafts
Legislative drafts can be read in
public registers, because most drafts are produced by committees and working
groups, whose reports are published.
Technical memoranda
Technical memoranda to facilitate
oversight of statutory consistency and constitutionality are not written in the
Eduskunta, which does not draft legislation. It is
the Government which drafts laws, and the completed bills are submitted to the Eduskunta. The Constitutional Law Committee exercises
oversight of constitutionality through its submissions and the reports and
statements with which it provides other committees.
f) Latest changes in parliamentary administration
On the institutional
level
European integration has influenced
the Eduskunta’s work in many ways. When
In
The Prime Minister reports to the
Grand Committee before and after meetings of the European Council.
If the Speaker’s Council so decides,
EU matters can also be discussed at a plenary session of the Eduskunta, but the legislature does not make a decision in
a matter while it is still in the preparatory stage. EU decisions can be
brought up for deliberation at a plenary session if the Eduskunta
needs to approve them or pass legislation because of them.
The Eduskunta’s
Secretariat for EU Affairs comprises the secretariats of the Grand Committee
and of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Its task is to assist the Speaker and the
Secretary General in taking care of relations with EU institutions, especially
the European Parliament. It also assists the standing committees, members and
parliamentary groups in matters relating to the
The Secretariat for EU Affairs also
serves as the Finnish coordinator for the Conference of the Community and
European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the EU (COSAC).
The Secretariat for EU Affairs
likewise has a role in maintaining contacts with Finnish MEPs.
The Eduskunta
has its own office in
The Eduskunta’s
other international affairs have been entrusted to the International Unit,
which has a staff of 20.
In communications
Every member has a computer in his
or her office and another at home as well as a mobile phone, all paid for by
the Eduskunta. Internet and e-mail connections are
provided. The home computers have ADSL (broadband)-level communications if the
technology of the local network so permits. All members have at the least a
modem connection.
In administration
The Eduskunta’s
own administration has been developed in the same direction as Community
legislation has evolved unless a matter has already become binding on the Eduskunta’s administration through national legislation.
There are no conflicts worthy of mention.
At the scientific and
technological level
One of the Eduskunta’s
standing committees is the Committee for the Future, the tasks of which include
conducting technological assessments. The committee participates in the work of
the EPTA. Its budget for each year includes an appropriation for commissioning
studies and reports from outside providers.
Security issues
The security issues that became
topical after the events of September 11 related mainly to ensuring the
effective functioning of the system that was already in place at that time. All
matters have been examined in great detail and some planned procurements have
been brought forward. Examples include a computerised system capable of
detecting all battlefield gases and industrial emissions, and which
automatically triggers countermeasures. With respect to pollution originating
more remotely, the device measures wind speed and direction to determine
whether the Eduskunta needs to take protective
measures.
Training
The strongest growth has been in
teaching foreign languages.
Cooperation between
parliamentary administrations
The Nordic parliaments have for many
years been arranging conferences in various sectors, enabling them to present
their own solutions and hear about how others have done things. For example,
general administrative matters, including questions relating to salaries and
expense allowances paid to parliamentarians, are discussed at biennial meetings
of the administrative directors (+ 3 other administrative officials from each
country). In the intervening years, the administrative departments also arrange
a joint conference, but these are devoted only to ICT matters. The units
responsible for legislative matters, external information, internal information
and the library all have similar established traditions of joint conferences
with their Nordic counterparts.
Any interparliamentary
cooperation broader than this takes place mainly within the ECPRD framework.