During the Covid-19 pandemic, legislatures across the Commonwealth began to adapt their processes and implement strategies to ensure the protection of parliamentary democracy amid the global crisis, which has required social distancing measures and lockdowns in many countries. At the heart of these strategies were the Parliamentary Communications Departments, responsible for ensuring the timely dissemination of crucial information to citizens, Members of Parliament and parliamentary staff.

CPA UK is pleased to present its Parliamentary Communications During a Crisis handbook, highlighting key strategies implemented by a number of Commonwealth parliaments in communicating changes to parliamentary procedure effectively, both internally to parliamentarians and staff but also externally to the general public. It provides a model of good practice for Commonwealth Parliaments and is a resource to facilitate shared learning between legislatures.

Focusing on the innovative approaches taken by a variety of different sized legislatures from across all regions of the Commonwealth, case studies in this Handbook have been gathered from the Scottish Parliament, the House of Commons (UK), the Parliament of Australia, the Parliament of Singapore and the Parliament of Botswana. In analysing the steps taken to ensure effective parliamentary communications during a crisis, this Handbook identifies six key techniques for parliamentary teams to take including working across departments and working with the media.

Click here to read the Handbook