Guidelines and Procedures
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet provides advice to other Australian Government agencies on many aspects of public administration. This section highlights some of these guidelines and procedures.
Advice and information is available by referring to the documents available for download below.
Documents
- Cabinet Handbook - 6th Edition (Amended July 2009) - MS Word 317KB | PDF 267KB
- Federal Executive Council Handbook - MS Word 220KB | PDF 395KB
- FOI Guidance Notes
- Government Guidelines for Official Witnesses before Parliamentary Committees and Related Matters - RTF 79KB | PDF 144KB
- Guidance on Caretaker Conventions (Updated May 2010) - RTF 264KB | PDF 111KB
- Guidelines for post-election consultations with independent Members - RTF 55KB | PDF 65KB
- Guide to Preparing Implementation Plans - RTF 442 KB | PDF 223KB
- Guidelines for the Presentation of Documents to the Parliament (including Government Documents, Government Responses to Committee Reports, Ministerial Statement, Annual Reports and Other Instruments - RTF 1.3MB | PDF 801KB
- Legislation Handbook - RTF 960KB | PDF 485KB
- Requirements for Departmental Annual Reports – Document as approved by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (updated July 2011) - RTF 1.8MB | PDF 485KB
- Requirements for Departmental Annual Reports (updated July 2011) - mark-up showing changes from June 2010 version - RTF 2.2MB | PDF 645KB
- Standards of Ministerial Ethics - RTF 237KB | PDF 72KB - Note: There is a Code of Conduct for Ministerial Staff available from the Special Minister of State's website.
Commonwealth Coat of Arms and Government Branding
The Awards and Culture Branch of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is responsible for administering the Guidelines on the use of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms and the Australian Government Branding Design Guidelines. Information about the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, including a description, can be found on the It’s An Honour website.
- Use of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms - general guidelines - RTF 116KB | PDF 33KB
- Guidelines for requests to use the Commonwealth Coat of Arms in educational publications - RTF 108KB | PDF 68KB
- Information for requests by sporting bodies to use the Commonwealth Coat of Arms - RTF 106KB | PDF 41KB
- General guidelines for use of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms within the Commonwealth - RTF 157KB | PDF 76KB
- Australian Government Branding Design Guidelines (updated Sept 2009) - RTF 1.48MB | PDF 413KB Top
Last Updated: 1 November 2011