Output 4.1—Cabinet Secretariat

Page Index

• Feedback on performance
• Key results

Feedback on performance

The Secretary to Cabinet and the Official Secretary to the Governor-General each expressed satisfaction with the support services provided, and with the professionalism and responsiveness of the Cabinet Secretariat in servicing the Cabinet and Executive Council during 2004–05. Informal feedback from other stakeholders was also favourable.

Output 4.1 was assessed as having provided effective and timely coordination and support services.

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Key results

During 2004–05, the Cabinet Secretariat continued to provide high-quality and timely support services to the Cabinet and Cabinet committees, including the National Security Committee of Cabinet (NSC), the Secretaries’ Committee on National Security (SCNS) and the Executive Council, and to oversee the public release of historical Cabinet records.

The Cabinet Secretariat also implemented the necessary alterations to the CABNET system to accommodate the ministry changes announced on 14 July 2004 and after the 2004 federal election. Ongoing improvements to the functionality of the system were implemented throughout the year.

Cabinet business

During 2004–05, 97.1 per cent of minutes from meetings of Cabinet and its committees (excluding the NSC) were settled and circulated within 24 hours of the conclusion of the meeting. This shows a small decrease, compared with the 99 per cent achieved in 2003–04.

A total of 15 submissions and memoranda (or approximately 6.8 per cent of all submissions and memoranda) were identified as not requiring detailed discussion in Cabinet and were therefore dealt with under the streamlined arrangements described in the department’s 2001–02 annual report. That is, each was circulated for consideration by ministers for a period of ten days, after which—provided that any issues raised by ministers had been addressed—a draft minute based on the recommendations in the document was scheduled for consideration and endorsement at the next Cabinet meeting.

During 2004–05, 100 per cent of minutes from NSC meetings were circulated within 24 hours of the conclusion of the meetings. This is a significant improvement on 2003–04, when teething problems with the release of electronic minutes on CABNET led to a 70 per cent success rate.

Meetings

In 2004–05, the Cabinet Secretariat supported a total of 26 meetings of the Cabinet, ten meetings of the NSC, and 21 meetings of Cabinet committees other than the NSC. Meetings were held in Sydney on three days and in Brisbane on one day.

The Cabinet Secretariat also supported 11 meetings of the SCNS in preparation for meetings of the NSC.

There were also 16 meetings of the Parliamentary Business Committee of Cabinet which is primarily serviced by the Government Division.

Executive Council

The Executive Council Secretariat, a unit within the Cabinet Secretariat, continued to provide high-quality and timely advice, briefing and administrative support to the Governor-General, the Executive Council and the Official Secretary to the Governor-General during the year.

A revised version of the Federal Executive Council Handbook was distributed to departments and agencies in June 2005.

A total of 28 meetings of the Executive Council were held, with 542 papers considered. Of the papers considered, only 33 (6.1 per cent of the total) were not available by the required two days before the relevant meeting. Those papers were accepted by the Executive Council on the basis of exceptional circumstances explained in writing by a senior member of the relevant minister’s office.

Visiting officials

The Cabinet Secretariat hosted briefing sessions for:

• officials from the Republic of Korea in August 2004
• an official from Solomon Islands in September 2004
• an official from the United Kingdom in November 2004.

Relations with overseas counterparts

The Cabinet Secretariat hosted a visit by two officials from the Royal Thai Government’s Secretariat of the Cabinet from 29 November to 10 December 2004. The visit was part of a partnership agreement under the Thailand–Australia Government Sector Linkages Program funded by AusAID. The agreement provides for a short-term exchange of officials, giving them opportunities to obtain first-hand experience of each other’s machinery of government operations and generally to establish ongoing cooperative arrangements between the two agencies. A reciprocal visit is planned to take place early in the 2005–06 financial year.

Access to Cabinet records

The Cabinet Secretariat assisted the National Archives of Australia in preparing for the release of Cabinet documents from 1974 (papers of the Whitlam Government) and the third release of Cabinet notebooks dating from January 1954 (papers of the Menzies Government).

The Archives Act 1983 provides for Cabinet notebooks to be opened to public access (subject to the conditions of the Act) after 50 years, rather than the 30-year period that applies to most Commonwealth records, including other Cabinet documents. Cabinet notebooks are used by officials of the department to record discussions in Cabinet as an aide-memoire for the preparation of formal Cabinet minutes.