There is a hidden crisis inside MPs’ offices – and it matters for our democracy
4 min read
Every MP runs, effectively, a small independent organisation.
More than 3,500 staff work in MPs’ offices at a public cost of around £200m a year. But our report, Democracy on Default Settings, published by Demos, argues that this vast democratic infrastructure is heavily dependent on personal resilience rather than robust systems.
Through in-depth interviews and a survey of parliamentary staffers, we found that nearly half of staff we spoke to (46 per cent) said they did not have clear targets or goals. MPs arrive in Westminster as legislators and public figures, but they are also employers, managers and organisational leaders – though most have never run operational teams at scale. In 2019, 64 per cent of new MPs came from politics-adjacent professions, with little formal leadership experience.
Only 36 per cent of staff employed in February 2020 were still in post in February 2024
The consequence is that many offices default to firefighting. One staffer described the situation as “running around like a headless chicken just reacting to stuff”.
This lack of shared direction quickly becomes structural. In 2022-23, MPs’ offices recruited using 89 different job titles, a sign of wide structural variation. As one staff member put it: “There are no systems or processes, we just respond as best we can.”
Since 2019, MPs have purchased more than 275 different software tools, including 34 video editing platforms alone. That might sound like innovation but in reality it reflects a lack of coherent digital strategy. Offices experiment individually because there is no shared view of what a modern MP’s tech stack should look like.
Cybersecurity constraints further complicate matters, often limiting offices to browser-based tools and preventing deeper integration between systems. Meanwhile, opaque procurement and security approval pathways mean MPs can be locked into a narrow set of core platforms, even as Parliament misses the chance to negotiate bulk deals or set clear digital standards.
Casework, which forms a large proportion of daily office activity, illustrates the problem starkly. Modern case management systems in other sectors automate inbox triage, categorise requests intelligently and track performance. But staff frequently rely on spreadsheets and manual processes. “We have a policy casework spreadsheet: if it’s all green it’s done,” one interviewee said.
Email volumes compound the strain, with offices often receiving hundreds of messages a day. In response, staff build elaborate folder systems and shared inbox rules. At the same time, WhatsApp groups proliferate to co-ordinate urgent work. One office described running multiple parallel chat threads for social media, council issues, communications and policy casework. Instant messaging offers speed but fragments information. The MP can easily become a bottleneck, with staff describing the difficulty of securing sign-off on outgoing work.
MPs’ offices handle enormous volumes of data, yet few systematically analyse what they see. High turnover means institutional memory is fragile: only 36.21 per cent of staff employed in February 2020 were still in post in February 2024.
Many staffers described relentless workloads, blurred boundaries between work and personal life, and 30 per cent of survey respondents said they received no feedback on their performance. The emotional labour is acute: staff are often the first point of contact for people facing homelessness, mental health crises or immigration emergencies. One interviewee described the office as having “evolved into a fourth emergency service”.
The reforms we propose are practical rather than radical. Parliament should fund and update a shared onboarding manual every parliament and provide independent recruitment specialists to professionalise hiring. The Parliamentary Digital Service should publish a transparent pathway for software approval and negotiate bulk procurement of commonly used tools. Ipsa should review pay bands annually to reflect market rates and introduce mandatory independent exit interviews. Political parties should invest in shared learning networks and proactive tech support. And MPs themselves should receive quarterly leadership coaching.
None of this requires legislation. These reforms would treat MPs’ offices as what they already are: essential democratic infrastructure.
Hannah O’Rourke is director of Campaign Lab, Edward Saperia is dean of Newspeak House, and Lucy Bush is director of research and participation at Demos
