Officials' committees that support Cabinet committees

Officials' committees have been established to support Cabinet committee chairs.  The purpose of the officials' committees is to lift the contribution of Cabinet committees to progressing the government's agenda through:

• improved management of the policy work programme; and
• improved quality of Cabinet papers.

Officials' committees also have a role to advise Cabinet committee chairs on whether regulatory proposals meet the government's regulatory quality standards and the commitments in the Government Statement on Regulation and, if they do not, what could be done to address this.

Officials' committees should receive draft copies of papers, typically about a week before the Cabinet Office deadline for papers. The draft papers should be submitted after the normal process of inter-departmental discussion and policy development, but before the Minister has approved the paper for Cabinet consideration.  A draft Regulatory Impact Statement must be included with draft papers when they are submitted to officials' committees, when appropriate. 

Departments should contact the convenor for each committee about upcoming papers and the work of the officials' committee. Subject to the security classification of the paper, advance copies of draft papers should be emailed to the secretary of the officials' committee using SEEMail.

Further information about the operation of the officials' committees, along with contact information, is available from the Cabinet and Committees Workspace on the Public Sector Intranet (link only available to those with access to the Public Sector Intranet).

Related pages

The requirements for regulatory impact analysis