Parliamentary Administration

Last revision 10/01/2024

Parliamentary Administration is the set of administrative services that serves the Senate. It is known as the General Secretariat. As such, the Administration is professional in its nature and eminently neutral and impartial in its actions.

Organisation and functions of the  General  Secretariat of the Senate

At the head of the General Secretariat there is a General Secretary (also known as the Senior Parliamentary Counsel) appointed by the Senate Bureau, at the proposal of the Speaker, from among the corps of Parliamentary Counsellors. As such this figure leads Parliamentary Administration and is accountable to the Bureau for its operation.

The Assistant General Secretaries for Parliamentary Affairs and Administrative Affairs report directly to this figure. The following units also report to the General Secretary: 

  • Cabinet
  • Department of Institutional Relations
  • Audits
  • Legal Advisory
  • Security 

The Assistant Senior Parliamentary Counsellor/Assistant General Secretary for Parliamentary Affairs is directly responsible for leading and coordinating administrative services corresponding to the following Departments: 

  • Department of Technical Parliamentary Assistance
  • Department of Committees
  • Department of Research
  • Department of Documentation 
  • Department of International Relations

The Assistant Senior Parliamentary Counsellor/Assistant General Secretary for Administrative Affairs is directly responsible for leading and coordinating administrative services corresponding to the following Departments: 

  • Department of Human Relations and Internal Governance
  • Department of Budgets and Staffing
  • Technical Department of Infrastructure
  • Department of Information and Communication Technologies

Staff of the Senate General Secretariat

The General Secretariat employs Parliamentary civil servants, contracted workers and affiliated staff.

Parliamentary civil servants are those who, by virtue of their legal appointment, are incorporated into the Parliament permanently, by means of a statutory relationship of professional services and remunerated from the Parliamentary budget.

The Civil Service Corps are common to the Congress of Deputies and to the Senate, and are governed by the Statute of Parliamentary Staff. This determines that a civil servant can work in one House or the other. The Parliamentary Civil Service Corps are:  

  • Counsellors
  • Archivists-Librarians
  • Expert Advisers
  • Editors, Shorthand Clerks and Stenotypists
  • Technical/Administrative
  • Administrative
  • Attendants

Furthermore, the Senate may take on any staff required to perform functions not attributed statutorily to the Parliamentary Civil Service, in positions of such a nature as required by the organic staff structure. Contracted staff are recruited by each House.

Finally, the Senate may request that the Government allocates, to its service, staff pertaining to the General State Administration Corps for the performing of Security functions and others not attributed statutorily to the Parliamentary Civil Service Corps. Said staff, regardless of their permanence in their original Corps during the course of active service, will report, for all intents and purposes, to the Speaker and the General Secretary of the House.

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