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Managing an MP's Diary
A
guide for those who work for an MP
Added: 23 March 2004
If your MP manages their own diary, wrest it from their hands. No MPs should be running their own diary as they should be getting on and doing the job of being an MP. Yet some MPs still try to organise their own time for fear of the consequences if the diary is mismanaged. The solution – don’t mismanage the diary.
The Basis of the Diary
The diary
should exist in two forms.
-
A small diary on your MP’s person
-
A desk diary in your office.
Once each week
you should go through both diaries for the foreseeable future and ensure
they match. Don’t use abbreviations and acronyms as they may not make
sense to you after three months – or you might be on holiday and your
cover will not know what they mean. Make sure you are aware of important
votes and 3-line whips so you don’t agree to anything that will get your
MP into trouble.
Your Member’s
personal commitments should also be in the diary so you don’t double
book his or her time. If you can convince your Member to use a Personal
Digital Assistant – a little palmtop computer, this will save you a
great deal of time as the desk diary can be on Microsoft Outlook and the
PDA will automatically check that both diaries match.
Invitations
MPs receive a
constant stream of invitations. When you present them to your Member, you
want one of three responses:
-
Yes
-
No
-
Yes with a date and time (if it is an open-dated request).
Never give your Member the only copy of an invitation
– always take a photocopy. File invitations by date, as they will often
contain information the Member will want to take to the event. Also file
rejections because if another event is cancelled, your Member may want to
go to an event that he or she has previously rejected.
Always contact
the organiser of each event promptly to inform them of your Member’s
attendance, dietary requirements etc. Always make sure you know what
exactly is expected of your Member at each event. You will not be thanked
if your MP has to give a speech with no prior warning.
As a precaution against an accusation
of not having responded, make a note – on the invitation – of the date
you responded to the invitation and how (tel, email, fax, etc).
Declining
an open-ended invitation
It is often
very difficult to decline an invitation that has no date – “Please can you meet with us at your convenience”. You can
always cite a very busy schedule in the coming months but under those
circumstances, they are likely to repeat the request periodically.
Wherever possible, try to be frank about the reasons for declining and
encourage the organiser to make a representation in writing instead.
Useful lines I have used are…
“My MP would like to have met you but he is forced
to prioritise issues that affect his constituency more directly”
“It’s not going to be possible to have a meeting
because last time he met you, your press release to the local papers
completely misrepresented his views. Under these circumstances, it might
be better to write to him about your concerns”.
Sometimes you
just have to tell people something they don’t want to hear.
AH/March 2004
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