Reference Group / Steering Committee for the project. Some questions were raised about who is on the Reference Group for the project about a week ago. I said at the time I would not name individuals because it clearly is very sensitive and the group had been informal, and I needed to check that everyone was happy to be publicly associated with the project first. I can say that the group included representatives from the PFA (they proposed the project in the first place), the SFM and that then our main focus was to get representatives from all the main regions on the coast from Eden up to Tweed. I guess an important question is what has the Reference Group done with the project, because some people seem to be concerned that the Reference Group might have some kind of control over the project to make it suit their interests and not other interests. The Reference Group has met by teleconference about 3 times this year. They were given drafts of proposals for the project to comment on. The role of the Reference Group has been to give advice on whether the way we are going about the project will work, and will address industry needs, and to give ideas about how best to engage with industry in their region. The Reference Group does not control the project overall, and they do not have access to the surveys filled out or interview notes. They will only have access to drafts of the parts of the project that will be made public, so pretty much the same information everyone else will get but at a draft stage. Individual people/businesses will not be identified in any of that material except where people have given written consent to be identified. I also said last week we would need to formalize the group, and have it formally approved by the FRDC as a Steering Committee. Since then I have sent Crispian Ashby at FRDC a draft Terms of Reference and a list of the people who had been on the Reference Group. Crispian talked to me by phone yesterday and recommends some additions to the group. Because of the politics within industry he recommends not just regional representation, but representation from some of the industry groups in addition to the PFA. Also, most of our members were associated with Coops, so we need to have some more fishing business people too. We will be asking The Coalition etc to suggest fishing business people who might be interested to join the Steering Committee. The role will be similar to what the Reference Group has already done – review of how the project is going and advice on how to best engage with industry. They will meet by teleconference or talk with us individually, a few times a year. Over the next couple of weeks we will formalize the Steering Committee and put names and other details on our project website at UTS.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 03:17:30 +0000
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