Geoscience Australia Board

15 April 2002

The Hon Ian Macfarlane MP

Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources

Parliament House

Canberra, ACT 2600

Dear Minister,

Progam Board for Geoscience Australia

We are following up on your invitation, at our meeting last month, for the AGC to provide further comments on our proposal to establish a Board for Geoscience Australia.

Our starting point is that at present there is no formal mechanism for linking GA’s stakeholders and clients to the program development and delivery stages of its activities, other than the annual meetings of the Chief Government Geologists.

We believe that this is unsatisfactory, in the current environment, where it is very important for the program activities and strategic directions to be aligned closely with client and stakeholder priorities.

It is good, as Dr Williams stated at our meeting, for there to be extensive informal, one on one, interactions with some clients, but we feel these need to be supplemented by a more formal process, which includes all the main users of GA’s outputs.

Consequently, we are recommending that a Program Advisory Board be established to provide this input.

Boards can take on several forms. Government Research Agencies, such as ANSTO, AIMS and CSIRO have Boards that report directly to the Responsible Ministers, and the Cooperative Research Centres have Boards that represent the stakeholders in the CRC. These arrangements are essentially analogous to Boards of Public Companies.

Some of the overseas Geological Surveys also have Boards. For example the British Geological Survey’s Board, reports to the UK Natural Environment Research Council, and the Finnish Survey has a Board, which reports to the Ministry of Trade and Industry. The BGS Board is responsible for just about everything that the Survey does down to detailed timetables for program delivery. It meets six times each year and has sixteen members.

We believe that none of the above models are appropriate for Geoscience Australia because it is a Prescribed Agency within a Department of State and has a well-established chain of responsibility from the CEO of GA to the Minister through the Secretary ITR. We do not believe that this arrangement should be changed.

We therefore recommend that a Program Advisory Board be established to:

	Advise and support the CEO of GA in the furtherance of the Agency’s mission, aims and objectives, particularly with the development of priorities and the core strategic programs, and
	Review the quality and relevance of GA’s work.

We recommend that the Board meets twice each year and comprises representatives from the following client/stakeholder groups:

	Mineral Exploration Industry: Two representatives, one each from the large and small enterprises.
	Petroleum Exploration Industry: Two representatives, one each from the large and small enterprises.
	Exploration Service Industries: One representative, from the software/interpretation/data acquisition sectors.
	Consultants/Professional Geoscientists: One representative.
	Universities: One representative (for research and teaching interaction).
	Emergency Services: One representative (for the geohazard programs).
	DEST: One representative (for links to the Science Portfolio).

The Board should also include clients of the National Mapping Division, but we are not in a position to make recommendations on who would be appropriate to represent this sector.

The other significant issue that needs to be determined is the reporting mechanism for the Board. In other words, to whom will the Board report? We offer two options, either to the Secretary of ITR or the CEO of GA. We believe either of these would work but recommend that this be discussed within your Portfolio to determine the most useful arrangement.

We believe that the above proposal, if implemented, would be beneficial to both GA and its clients and stakeholders, and through them the nation as a whole. We therefore commend this proposal for your consideration.

Yours sincerely

David Denham

President

28-Dec-2002