How To Write A Terms Of Reference For A Government Steering Committee

A government steering committee gives a major programme a clear decision-making forum, particularly when responsibilities cross departments, agencies, ministers, suppliers and community stakeholders. Its terms of reference (ToR) are the committee’s operating contract: they explain why it exists, what it can decide, who is accountable and how its work will be recorded.

A well-written ToR avoids the common problem of a committee that meets regularly but cannot resolve issues. In the Australian public sector, it must fit the relevant legislation, administrative directions, procurement rules, privacy obligations and machinery-of-government arrangements. It should also be practical enough for officials working across Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and regional offices.

Define The Purpose And Scope

Start with a short purpose statement that describes the outcome the steering committee is expected to achieve. A statement such as “provide strategic oversight for the implementation of a secure digital licensing service” is more useful than “oversee the project”. It identifies the programme, the committee’s role and the public value at stake.

Set boundaries immediately after the purpose. State which workstreams, projects, agencies, funding streams and time periods fall within scope. Also list exclusions. For example, a committee may approve programme priorities and accept major risks, while leaving day-to-day technical design to a delivery board and operational decisions to the responsible department.

The scope should reflect the real operating environment. A Commonwealth initiative involving Services Australia, a state department and local councils may need separate forums for policy, delivery and technical coordination. Naming those relationships in the ToR reduces duplicated meetings and prevents a steering committee from becoming an informal executive office.

Establish Authority And Accountability

The authority section should answer three practical questions: what can the committee decide, what can it recommend, and what must be escalated? Include thresholds for budget changes, schedule changes, scope variation, risk acceptance, contract amendments and policy issues. Avoid wording that suggests unlimited authority if approvals remain with a minister, secretary, accountable authority or delegated officer.

A useful ToR distinguishes governance from management. The committee can endorse a business case, monitor benefits, approve recommendations within delegated limits and direct escalation. It should not approve payments, rewrite technical specifications or instruct individual staff unless that power has been formally delegated.

Accountability should be assigned to named roles rather than vague groups. Identify the committee chair, responsible executive, programme sponsor, secretariat and business owner. Explain who is answerable for delivery, who provides assurance and who reports to the minister, department executive or interagency governance forum. This is especially important when a project crosses state and Commonwealth responsibilities.

Select Members And Clarify Decision Rights

Membership should be based on the decisions the committee must make. Include senior representatives with authority to commit their organisations, subject-matter expertise and enough availability to prepare for meetings. Typical roles may include the chair, programme sponsor, chief information officer, finance representative, legal or probity adviser, service owner, privacy specialist and representatives of participating agencies.

State whether members attend as decision-makers, advisers or observers. A department may nominate an officer who understands the programme but lacks delegation to approve a budget variation. The ToR should require that member to obtain a mandate before the meeting or record the matter as a recommendation for later approval.

Include rules for quorum, proxies, conflicts of interest and voting. Consensus is often preferable for cross-government work, but the ToR should explain what happens when consensus cannot be reached. A chair’s casting vote may be unsuitable for a committee involving independent agencies, so escalation to the accountable executive can be a better approach.

Terms should cover tenure and replacement. Describe how members are appointed, when positions are reviewed and whether the chair can invite specialists. Include accessibility requirements for hybrid meetings, clear papers and reasonable notice so participants in Perth, Darwin or regional Queensland are not disadvantaged by meeting times designed solely for the east coast.

Design The Meeting And Reporting Cycle

The ToR should set a predictable meeting rhythm without making attendance the measure of good governance. Monthly meetings may suit an implementation phase, while a mature service may require quarterly oversight. Allow the chair to call an extraordinary meeting for a material cyber incident, procurement issue, funding decision or emerging delivery risk.

Explain the agenda and papers process. State who prepares the agenda, when papers are due, how late papers are handled and what information must accompany a decision. A decision paper should usually include the recommendation, background, options considered, financial impact, legal or policy implications, risks, dependencies and proposed implementation steps.

Minutes should capture decisions, actions, owners and due dates rather than reproduce every conversation. The secretariat should maintain a decision register, action register, risk summary and forward agenda. Specify where records are stored, who can access them and how they are retained under the organisation’s records management requirements.

Reporting should connect committee activity to executive oversight. Define the regular dashboard measures, such as milestones, expenditure, benefits, service performance, cybersecurity posture, privacy matters, procurement status and unresolved dependencies. If the programme supports public services, include user impact and accessibility indicators rather than relying only on internal delivery metrics.

Integrate Risk, Procurement And Assurance

A steering committee ToR should explain how risks move through the governance structure. Set out the risk appetite, escalation thresholds and relationship between programme risks, enterprise risks and operational incidents. Cybersecurity, privacy, data quality, vendor concentration, workforce capability and service continuity deserve explicit attention in digital government programmes.

Procurement deserves equally clear treatment. The committee may monitor a sourcing strategy and endorse a recommendation, while a delegate makes the formal contract decision under applicable Commonwealth, state or territory rules. Include probity expectations, conflict declarations, confidentiality requirements and the point at which legal, commercial or independent assurance advice is mandatory.

For Australian projects, the procurement pathway may involve a panel, a request for tender, a whole-of-government arrangement or a local purchasing process. The ToR does not need to reproduce procurement policy, but it should identify the responsible authority and require evidence that the selected approach is lawful, value-focused and properly documented.

An assurance map helps prevent gaps. Identify internal audit, architecture review, security assessment, privacy impact assessment, benefits assurance and gateway or independent review activities. A committee should know when an assurance report is due, who owns its recommendations and how unresolved findings will be tracked.

Use Evidence For Better Decisions

Good governance papers make decisions easier by presenting reliable evidence in a consistent format. Require business cases, cost estimates, delivery forecasts, service metrics and risk ratings to use agreed definitions. If one agency reports “completion” as code deployed and another reports it as users successfully adopting a service, the committee will receive a misleading picture.

Strategic analysis can help the committee test assumptions. A structured SWOT analysis may reveal internal capability gaps, supplier dependencies, regulatory constraints and opportunities for reuse across agencies. It should support a decision, not become a decorative attachment with no owner or follow-up action.

The ToR can require a small set of decision principles, such as public value, privacy by design, accessibility, interoperability, reuse, security and financial sustainability. These principles give members a common basis for resolving trade-offs. They are useful when a fast delivery option conflicts with long-term maintainability or when a bespoke solution competes with an existing whole-of-government platform.

Set a review point for the evidence framework. Measures that suit a pilot may be unsuitable after a service moves into production. The committee should be able to revise dashboards, request deeper analysis or commission an independent review when data is incomplete or performance falls outside tolerance.

Plan Stakeholder Communication

Stakeholder engagement should be part of the committee’s responsibilities, not an afterthought assigned to a communications team. Identify affected communities, frontline staff, unions, service providers, regulators, other agencies and elected representatives. Explain which stakeholders receive information, which can provide advice and which must be involved in consultation or co-design.

The ToR should distinguish confidential governance information from material suitable for publication. Meeting minutes, procurement information, personal data, cabinet-related material and security details may require different handling. Include a process for approving public statements and responding consistently to media enquiries or parliamentary interest.

A digital programme may need coordinated public messaging across departments and locations. Guidance on public awareness campaigns can inform how the committee oversees channel selection, accessibility, moderation, misinformation response and evaluation. The committee should still leave campaign execution to the accountable communications team.

Include feedback loops. Complaints, usability findings, call-centre data, community consultations and frontline observations should be summarised for committee consideration. In Melbourne or regional New South Wales, a service may perform differently because of connectivity, workforce or language needs; governance should make those differences visible rather than averaging them away.

Review Performance And Refresh The ToR

A ToR should state how the committee will assess its own performance. A review every six or twelve months can examine attendance, decision turnaround, quality of papers, unresolved actions, escalation effectiveness and stakeholder confidence. A major change in scope, funding, responsible minister or delivery model should trigger an earlier review.

Include a sunset or closure provision. The committee may cease when the programme reaches operational transition, when its remaining duties move to a permanent governance body or when the accountable executive formally disbands it. Closure should include handover of risks, decisions, records, benefits tracking and outstanding commitments.

Capability is part of governance quality. Members may need briefings on architecture, cyber risk, commercial models, privacy, benefits realisation or public-sector delegations. A committee connected to an internal academy or learning programme can use learning history records to identify relevant development activity, while keeping personnel information limited to a legitimate purpose.

Before approval, test the document against a realistic scenario. Walk through a delayed vendor milestone, a serious privacy incident, a disputed scope change and a request for emergency funding. If the ToR does not make the decision path clear, revise it before the committee’s first meeting.

Drafting Checks For A Usable Terms Of Reference

• Write the purpose, scope and exclusions in plain English, with enough specificity to guide decisions.
• Match each authority to a named role, formal delegation and escalation route.
• Define membership, quorum, conflicts, proxies, meeting frequency and paper deadlines.
• Require decision registers, action tracking, risk reporting and secure records management.
• Add review, amendment and closure provisions so the committee can adapt without losing accountability.

A terms of reference document works best when it is short enough to use and detailed enough to govern. Circulate a draft to the accountable executive, legal and procurement advisers, programme leadership, secretariat and participating agencies. Resolve conflicting expectations before approval, then publish the approved version to the people who rely on it.

Put the approved ToR into practice at the first meeting by confirming delegations, accepting the annual calendar, agreeing the reporting template and recording initial risks. Use it as a live governance instrument throughout the programme, and update it through a documented decision whenever responsibilities or operating conditions change.