Inter-Secretariat Leadership Moot was convened at Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services with Senior Secretariat Officers of the National Parliament & Provincial Assemblies on July 10 & 11, 2019. The objective of this consultative meeting was to initiate a constructive dialogue amongst the senior secretariat officers in Leadership role, to identify and deliberate upon competence development challenges and key issues in the Parliamentary Secretariats. Programme commenced with the recitation of Holy Quran. Director General, Parliamentary Development Programme & IT, Ms. Samer Awais conducted a brief round of introductions and discussed with the participants programme agenda as well as the expected outcomes of the moot. She then invited Executive Director PIPS, Mr. Muhammad Rashid Mafzool Zaka for welcome remarks, who acknowledged the contribution and support of National and Provincial secretariats in the institutional development of PIPS. While emphasizing on the importance of conducting such leadership consultative moots, he inquired about the need for designing customized programmes for various parliamentary disciplines which the secretariat leadership could identify for due deliberation in terms of capacity building and training.

Honourable Ms. Shazia Sobia graced the occasion as a key note speaker in the first session and highlighted the expectations of Members from the Secretariat Leadership. She emphasized on the importance of team work and discussed her personal experience that how the secretariat helped her acquire parliamentary knowledge when she commenced her political career. She acknowledged that appreciation of her performance in a survey conducted by PILDAT in 2016, as forth amongst top ten women Members of National Assembly could be credited to the parliamentary secretariat for their consistent guidance and support.

The afternoon discussion centered on the key theme of positive institutional branding by endorsing Parliamentary Decorum and traditions and capitalizing on the opportunities for effective branding through Social media. Former Secretary Senate, Mr. Iftikharullah Babar informed the worthy participants about the significance of Parliamentary Decorum and further elucidated the role of parliamentary officers in assisting the Members, while on the floor of the house as well as during Committee meetings and all other official engagements. Mr. Babar stated that the job of a Parliamentary officer entailed high standard protocol and fine qualities of mannerism at every step. Afterwards he shared conventional rules of social behavior and professional conduct. The session continued with a discussion on the use of social media and outreach for Parliamentary Branding facilitated by Syed Nabil who enlightened the participants about the concept of business as well as institutional e-branding and highlighted how some prominent political figures around the world utilized social media platform for publicizing their manifestos. He mentioned that social media apps were a tool of outreach for personal and institutional branding and elaborated this concept by explaining the outreach methods adopted by NADRA for exhibiting its services. He informed the participants about the cost of objectionable content and advised them to maintain their institutional content neutral and professional. Lastly he expressed his concern over the lack of content rich outreach pages and suggested creative social outreach trainings to be conducted for the efficient and productive use of social media platforms. In the evening session, the participants were provided with a chance to demonstrate their respective secretariat’s role in strategizing learning and development intervention for effective Parliamentary performance and the challenges confronted during the process through well-constructed presentations. This session allowed the exchange of noteworthy practices being followed in National and Provincial secretariats. Day 2 began with an enlightening session on understanding core values and institutional sociology facilitated by renowned parliamentary expert and former Executive Director PIPS, Mr. Zafarullah Khan. In his session he elaborated the institutional sociology of the Parliament and explained how it differed from executive and judiciary branch. In the afternoon session, Director General PDP & IT, PIPS Ms. Samer Awais conducted a highly interactive session on the assessment of competence gap analysis for the Secretariat whereby the secretariat leadership had the opportunity to identify and discuss the need for intervention in their respective Secretariat based on real life case studies that they as Secretariat Officers had been through.  The recommendations agreed under the programme were recorded for further deliberation with expectation of conducting a second consultative meeting in pursuance of the needs identified in this programme. The programme concluded with vote of thanks by Executive Director PIPS, Mr. Mohammad Rahid Mafzool Zaka.