Parliament / Legislative Officer

What a Parliament / Legislative Officer does daily

• Committee Clerk functions — providing full secretariat support to parliamentary committees; scheduling committee meetings; preparing agendas; notifying witnesses; managing evidence submissions; advising the Committee Chair and committee members on procedure (the Standing Orders; the conventions of committee practice); recording the minutes and decisions of committee meetings; preparing committee reports for presentation to Parliament; managing the Committee's administrative correspondence; the Committee Clerk is the procedural expert and administrative backbone of the committee — those who work in this role must know the Standing Orders of Parliament of Sri Lanka and the conventions of committee practice to the highest professional standard
• Parliamentary research support — conducting research for parliamentary committees examining specific Bills or policy questions; reviewing submissions to committees from government ministries; civil society; the private sector; academic institutions; summarising evidence; identifying key issues; preparing research briefing notes for committee members and the Chair; comparative research (how do other parliaments handle this issue?); policy analysis; the parliamentary research function provides the evidence base that enables committees to conduct rigorous scrutiny of legislation and government policy
• Hansard recording — recording the verbatim official record of parliamentary debates in the House and in committee; the Hansard is the authoritative public record of what was said in Parliament — every speech; question; answer; point of order; procedural ruling — and is a primary historical and legal source of record; Hansard Officers must produce verbatim transcripts of extremely high accuracy under significant time pressure (debates must be published same day or next day); in both Sinhala and Tamil (and English) as required; this is a highly specialised function requiring exceptional language skills and the ability to transcribe rapidly
• Legislative drafting support — providing technical and administrative support to the legal drafting process; assisting the Legal Draftsman's Department in the management of Bills through Parliament; tracking amendments; managing the Order Paper (the daily order of parliamentary business); assisting in the coordination of the Committee Stage examination of Bills; the legislative drafting support function is the administrative infrastructure of the law-making process
• Order Paper and parliamentary business management — preparing the Order Paper (the formal daily agenda of parliamentary business — Questions; Statements; Motions; Bills; adjournments); managing the scheduling of parliamentary business in accordance with parliamentary conventions and the government's legislative programme; coordinating with the office of the Speaker; the Leader of the House; the Chief Opposition Whip; and party secretariats to manage parliamentary time; the management of parliamentary business is a complex coordination function that must be executed with procedural precision
• Parliamentary Questions processing — receiving; processing; and ensuring the tabling of Parliamentary Questions (PQs) from MPs; both Written Questions (submitted and answered in writing by the relevant minister) and Oral Questions (asked and answered during Question Time in the House); managing the ballot for Oral Question time slots; ensuring questions comply with the rules on form and admissibility; the PQ function is one of the most important accountability mechanisms in the Westminster system and the Legislative Officer who manages it properly enables effective executive accountability
• Budget and finance committee support — supporting the examination of the national budget by the Finance Committee and COPF; supporting COPA's examination of the Auditor General's Annual Report (the primary financial accountability document of government); the financial oversight committees are among the most consequential in Parliament and the support provided to them determines how effectively Parliament performs its constitutional financial accountability function
• COPE and COPA committee secretariat — supporting COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) and COPA (Committee on Public Accounts) — the two most powerful financial accountability committees of Parliament; scheduling CEO; Auditor General; Treasury and ministry appearances before these committees; managing evidence; preparing reports that identify instances of financial mismanagement; corruption; and inefficiency in the public sector; COPE reports have resulted in the exposure of major financial irregularities in Sri Lanka's State-Owned Enterprises and have driven significant accountability outcomes
• Parliamentary library and information services — managing the Parliamentary Library's resources; providing information and research services to MPs and parliamentary staff; managing the parliamentary archive (historical Hansard; Bills; Acts; Select Committee reports); providing access to legal databases (LexisNexis; Westlaw); the library and information function enables MPs and staff to access the information they need to perform their functions effectively
• Commonwealth and international parliamentary cooperation — managing Sri Lanka's participation in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) — the network of Commonwealth Parliaments that promotes parliamentary democracy and provides capacity building for parliamentary staff and MPs; coordinating Sri Lanka's participation in the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) — the global organisation of national parliaments; managing bilateral parliamentary exchange visits; the international parliamentary cooperation function maintains Sri Lanka's engagement with the global parliamentary democracy community