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A group of newly elected MPs is signing up for management training and support as they set up offices in parliament and their constituencies, with some leading a team of staff for the first time.
The Chartered Management Institute has this year created an “MP guide to good management” and will sponsor an initial cross-party cohort of up to 20 new MPs to go through its chartered manager assessment process.
For some parliamentarians elected on July 4, becoming an MP has ushered in their first exposure to managing a team of employees.
Chris Curtis, Labour MP for Milton Keynes North, said: “One of the strange things about becoming an MP is you effectively become a small business manager of an office with many staff and a reasonable budget of which the taxpayer is footing the bill.”
Curtis, a former pollster, said he was enrolling in the training offered by CMI to “fill in the gaps” in his knowledge and “in order not to run into problems further down the road” as he sought to employ the equivalent of five full-time staff.
He said management was “just like any other skill — such as public speaking or being good at chess — you have to hone and work at it over time”.
Katie White, Labour MP for Leeds North West, has started from a higher baseline, having previously led a team of about 100 staff. Before becoming an MP she was executive director of advocacy and campaigns at conservation organisation WWF.
“I’m really aware that in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment it’s even more important to make sure that we have good management,” she said.
She said management training opportunities were also vital for her senior staff, to allow her to delegate and free up more capacity to “focus on the key issues in the constituency and parliament”.
White added: “We are a huge new intake [of first-time MPs] and how we set ourselves up can affect the culture of the whole of parliament.”
As legislators, MPs work and vote on bills, question ministers and raise issues in parliament, but they also conduct casework on behalf of their constituents. The latter side of the job has grown in emphasis in recent electoral cycles as voters demand more of their local representatives.
Each MP receives an annual allowance of more than £250,000 to hire the equivalent of up to five full-time staff, who usually assist with legislation and policy research, communications and administrative work.
These staff are employed by the MP, but paid by an independent body, an unusual set-up that has led to tensions. In 2017 the House of Commons was engulfed by its own MeToo allegations, known as the “Pestminster” scandal, and has also been rocked by a wave of bullying complaints made by staff against MPs in recent years.
Parliament in 2018 established an independent complaints and grievance scheme to try and tackle these problems. In 2022-23, the initiative opened 23 investigations into bullying and harassment allegations, but these were not confined to complaints against MPs.
About 100 staff leave every month, about 4 per cent of the workforce, a University College London report found last year. Turnover is typically higher ahead of elections.
The CMI rolled out its offer after polling more than 1,000 managers across the UK about the issue in June. It found that 93 per cent said they believed it was important for politicians to do management training.
Ann Francke, chief executive of CMI, pointed out that more than half of MPs — 335 — were joining parliament for the first time. It is a record number of new MPs, largely driven by Labour’s seismic landslide victory.
“MPs have told me of the challenge of suddenly being responsible for setting up and running both offices, complete with staffing needs, hybrid team members, and a real desire to ensure that the people they assemble do the best possible job for them and their constituents,” she said.
The CMI is also offering to hold short, targeted ministerial workshops to help new ministers understand best practice, change management and how to get the most out of their teams.
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