Servicing constituents: a comparative perspective

Philip Norton, Professor of Government, University of Hull

Members of legislatures essentially face in two directions:

towards the legislature as a collective body for debating and assenting to measures of public policy (law), and
towards those electors who form the constituencies that they have been chosen to represent.¹

They act as the buckle between the executive and the people.

The legislature is the body through which the electors speak to the executive and through which the executive speaks to the legislature.

The Member of Parliament (MP) represents constituents in expressing views on their behalf on measures coming before the legislature and in giving voice in pursuit of their interests and grievances.

MPs differ in the form in which they are chosen (electoral system) and in the nature of their constituency.

In some nations, there are defined geographical units each represented by one MP. In some cases, the legislature comprises purely members of this type.

In others, there is a mixed system (individual constituencies, regional lists) or multi-member constituencies or in rare cases a national list system. This affects therefore whether the MP is representing a defined and unique geographical constituency or a wider body where the representation is shared with other members.

The role of the representative

The nature of the constituency affects both how the MP views their representative role, and the resources needed to fulfil it.

Where there are individual constituencies, as in the UK and the USA, members of the legislature may see their role differently to those members elected in multi-member seats, where no one member has an exclusive body of constituents and where electors may be voting not for an individual candidate but for a party list.

The form of the electoral system may determine how much the member is focused on the constituency role – in the Republic of Ireland, for instance, there is a notable emphasis on localism – and how much focused on the legislative role.

In some systems, taking up constituency casework is deemed an important part of the job, in others, such as Portugal, where the constitution stipulates that MPs are not the representatives of the multi-member constituencies that elect them, but representatives of the country as a whole, it is a largely alien concept. Portugal is an example of where, according to Braga da Cruz, “the real electoral relationship is not between electors and MPs, but between electors and party”.²

The constituency role of the member of parliament thus varies between nations. It has also varied over time.

In the UK, it is possible to identify seven roles of the constituency MP:

safety valve
information provider
local dignitary
advocate
benefactor
powerful friend
promoter of constituency interests³

Over time, the benefactor role has declined in significance, whereas the others have increased in importance.

Constituents increasingly seek a redress of grievance or some action on public policy through their MP, the capacity to do so being enhanced markedly through advances in technology.

The pattern is not necessarily replicated globally.

In some nations, the benefactor role remains significant, especially in those where members of parliament are allocated a constituency development fund (CDF) to support local projects.

Constituency offices in some countries see constituents form queues to seek some benefit from their MP.

The differences in the form of representation between nations as well as changes in demands by constituents over time affect the resources needed by parliamentarians to fulfil their roles effectively.

The role of staff

In some cases, members need constituency offices and staff dedicated to constituency casework, whereas in some systems the concept of constituency casework is not especially relevant.

As a consequence, there is no uniform pattern of provision for staff to deal with constituency work. There is therefore something of a patchwork quilt of staff provision across parliaments.

Comparative analysis is also limited by the fact that there is no common terminology that captures staff activity and roles in full.⁴

Different staff designations may mask tasks that transcend formal roles.

In so far as generalisation is possible, the study of Western democracies shows that staff growth was marked between 1940 and 1970.

“Parliamentary staff in Western democracies developed from minimalistic enterprises to much larger and much more professional operations.”⁵

It also shows that the number of staff in a legislature is correlated with population size⁶ and that MPs’ staff are more likely than other staff to be recruited through personal and partisan networks.⁷

The difficulty of comparative study is apparent when we examine the budget allocation for staff in a range of parliaments.

We focus on staff in selected Westminster parliaments and in devolved legislatures as the most salient comparators. Doing so is sufficient to demonstrate that there is no clear pattern of provision.

Westminster parliaments

There is a family of legislatures that are deemed “Westminster” parliaments.⁸ It is sufficient to look at a select few.

Australia

In Australia, members of the House of Representatives receive electorate allowances depending on the size of the constituency represented.

There are three bands:

less than 2,000 sq km – $32,000 per year (£16,174)
2,000 and less than 5,000 sq km – $38,000 per year (£19,212)
5,000 sq kms and over – $46,000 per year (£23,257)

Members are also entitled to a private-plated vehicle for use for parliamentary, constituency or official business and in lieu of having such a vehicle may claim an additional electorate allowance of $19,500 (approximately £9,856).

New Zealand

In New Zealand, MPs are paid a constituency allowance, varying between $8,000 and $20,000 (£3,652-£9,130) depending on the size of the electorate.

Although the Remuneration Authority in New Zealand did a comparative study of members’ salaries, it did not do the same for constituency allowances.

Canada

In Canada, each MP has a substantial office cost allowance of £363,600 to cover employee salaries, operating costs and wireless devices.

India

In India, where an MP’s annual salary is R1m (£9,205), there is a constituency allowance of R70,000 (£644), which is separate from an office expense allowance, comprising R20,000 (£184) for office expenses and R40,000 (£369) for secretarial assistance.

Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, each MP, in addition to travel allowances, receives an allocation of Tk 5 crore (£332,028) for their constituency.

Ireland

In Ireland, TDs are entitled to employ one full-time Secretarial Assistant, plus either one full-time Parliamentary Assistant or an annual allowance of £41,092 fully vouched-for secretarial assistance or a contract for service to undertake defined work such as secretarial assistance, PR or training.

Nigeria

In Nigeria, an MP’s annual salary of 2.4m naira (£1,289) constitutes a small proportion of the 46.8m naira (£25,141) that they are able to claim.

Among the allowances is a 4.9m naira (£2,632) constituency allowance, separate from 621,000 naira (£333) to hire a personal assistant.

Devolved legislatures

There is not only considerable variation between Westminster legislatures around the globe, but also considerable variation between legislatures within the UK.

Scotland

In the Scottish Parliament, each constituency MSP has an office-cost provision of £21,100, an engagement provision of £17,400 and a staff cost provision of £156,900.

There is some scope for virement (or “flexing”) between the first two.

Wales

In the Welsh Senedd, a member is entitled to claim staffing expenditure costs up to a maximum of £130,602 where the costs are wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred to enable the performance of the member’s duties.

Northern Ireland

In the Northern Ireland Assembly, members’ staff must be graded at one of three levels, with four categories of staff costs existing – staff salaries, other capped staff costs, ancillary staff costs, and replacement staff costs.

The maximum cost payable for the first of the categories (staff salaries) is £80,000 a year.

Variations

There is clear challenge in seeking to identify staff allocation to constituency work.

Data available on the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) website indicates that in most, but not all, national parliaments some staff are employed directly to work for members. However, even in some parliaments where staff are not employed to work directly for members, the members may claim a constituency allowance.

In some cases, a constituency allowance is to enable the member to visit the constituency.

In Vanuatu, for example, out of an allowance of Vt7,594,600 (£50,113), Vt292,200 (£1,928) is paid directly into the MP’s bank account and the member is required to use this money to purchase tickets so that they can visit their constituencies and carry out their responsibilities. Each MP is also entitled to an allocation of Vt3 million per year (£19,778) for community development activities.

In some parliaments, as we have seen, there is a dedicated constituency allowance (as in Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria), but not in others. Where it does exist, it is not clear to what extent is covers employing staff for constituency work.

Where members get an allowance to hire staff, it is not apparent how many do devote, or are required to devote, themselves to constituency casework as opposed to fulfilling a range of other tasks (advisor, information broker, advertiser, scribe, compromise facilitator, planner).⁹

Tasks that are constituency related may not be confined to assisting constituents directly but rather may be focused on promoting the member to constituents, for instance, through social media and disseminating a member’s newsletter or through writing a column in the member’s name for the local newspaper. Constituency casework may be part of the work undertaken.

The available data reveals how practice varies from nation to nation, with no clear pattern or patterns emerging, and so provide no authoritative guide to how to go about determining what financial support should be available to parliamentarians in constituency-based systems to fulfil responsibilities as constituency members.

Those responsibilities, as we have said, may vary, both between nations and over time. Even within the legislatures within the UK, there is no commonality.

Although some founding members of devolved legislators were drawn from Westminster, the method by which members are elected differ, as to do the size of constituencies.

In parliaments utilising the additional member system, there is a difference between constituency and list members.

Determining support

In determining what support should be provided to parliamentarians to fulfil constituency responsibilities, there is the problem of determining what those responsibilities are and then deciding what support is necessary for a member, as a constituency representative, to fulfil those duties, serving constituents irrespective of party or group affiliation, be it of the member or the constituents.

Giving members a capacity to fulfil a benefactor role, such as a constituency development fund, and thus giving them a benefit denied to other candidates, may be deemed an undesirable use of public funds as well as having the potential for facilitating favouritism.

A starting point would be drawing on the roles ascribed to the constituency MP, in effect drawn from the experience of the specific system, and then evaluating their importance to serving constituents and the funding necessary to facilitate the role being carried out to the benefit of the constituency.

In examining roles, there is an important distinction between representing the interests of the constituency and pursuing the grievances and views of individual constituents.

Each is important, one to many or all constituents and the other the specific individuals or groups, but they require different skills and resources. The latter task is especially time-consuming and has grown exponentially decade by decade.

Ensuring that resources keep pace with the demands is problematic, both in terms of funding and in terms of desirability. Should members be resourced to engage in grievance-chasing activities that may be better and more appropriately fulfilled by bespoke grievance-chasing agencies?

In terms of MPs engaging in constituency casework, success breeds success and being seen to fulfil such casework can encourage more. There is a cost to the MP, not least in terms of opportunity cost, and a cost to the public purse.

There is, in short, not just an analytic exercise to be undertaken in determining the constituency responsibilities of an MP, but also a debate of principle to determine to what extent those responsibilities, defined in terms of consequences, are appropriate and worthy of public funding. There is thus a debate to be had derived from first principles. It is not clear that this debate has been undertaken, either here or elsewhere. What information we have of practice in other nations does not permit generalisation, though it may provide some warnings in terms of the undesirability of funding parliamentarians to distribute benefits to favour-seeking constituents.

There is one other challenge. We know from survey data that electors put serving the constituency above the legislative-facing tasks of MPs, generating demands that MPs seeking re-election attempt to meet, but electors do not willingly support funding to enable MPs to fulfil that role. There is also a fundamental problem in as much as growing constituency demands occupy the time of individual members at the expense of what only MPs collectively can do in scrutinising proposals for law and holding government to account. Good law may be the victim of constituency casework.

Endnotes

Philip Norton and David M Wood, Back from Westminster: British Members of Parliament and their Constituents, Lexington KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1993, Ch 2.
Quoted in Cristina Leston-Bandeira, “Parliament and Citizens in Portugal: Still Looking for Links”, in Philip Norton (ed), Parliaments and Citizens in Western Europe, London: Frank Cass, 2002, p 131.
Philip Norton, “The Growth of the Constituency Role of the MP”, Parliamentary Affairs, Vol 47, 1994, pp 705-20.
Gijs Jan Brandsma and Simon Otjes, “Gauging the roles of parliamentary staff”, Parliamentary Affairs, Vol 77, 2024, p 538.
Simon Otjes, “What explains the size of parliamentary staff?” West European Politics, Vol 46, 2023, p 393.
Otjes, p 387.
Jacob M Montgomery and Brendan Nyhan, “The Effects of Congressional Staff Networks in the US House of Representatives”, The Journal of Politics, Vol 79, 2017, pp 745-61.
See Philip Norton, “Is the Westminster system of government alive and well?” Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol 9, June 2022, pp 1-2.
Otjes, pp 376-8.